Guns and Romance

So after reading my last blog, my lovely sis-in-law-cum-my-content-advisor, Kanya Bahwa commented that my blogs lacked romance. Even though it was a harsh criticism to swallow because I know I was born with a romantic bone (when people can have a funny bone, why can’t I have a romantic bone?) but if Kanya asks for more romance in my blog, Kanya gets more romance….after all, she inspired me to start this blog anyway. Now I realize that, for me, being romantic is one thing but writing about romance, especially in a humor blog, is pretty challenging….let me try it anyway.

Another challenge facing me right now is that I recently noticed that my delightful sis-in-law, Kanya Bahwa’s brother, Bunny, has also become a “follower” of my blog. Yeah yeah... I know what you are thinking…isn’t my sis-in-law’s brother my brother-in-law? True, he is… but I believe in complicated, complex, and convoluted relationships, and hence, calling him my sis-in-law’s brother is definitely more fun. So now I have to be very careful about what I write regarding Kanya because who knows…. in one of his happy, drunk, confused, befuddled, confounded, disoriented states Bunny decides to read my blog as well.

In any case, with Yash Chopra back to the pavilion, the world definitely needs a new romantic storyteller who can capture the imagination of millions the way Yash Chopra did.  And for my American/Canadian friends, who do not know Yash Chopra, he was a famous Bollywood director who recently passed away due to Dengue fever…and those of you who do not know what a pavilion is, start following cricket matches, and those of you who do not know what Dengue fever is, please ask Uncle Google…and those of you who do not know what Bollywood is, …well, no hope for you guys!! You can convert to Hinduism and may be in the next incarnation you will be born in Rishikesh, India, where in addition to enjoying Bollywood flicks you can also enroll in the spiritualism classes on the weekends.

Let us get to the romantic blog now. I know what you are thinking – Why do I have guns in the title of this blog? Is this going to be a story about romance at a gun-point? Hmmmm…interesting idea but that will borderline sexual assault, not romance. Since President Obama proposed the most sweeping gun-law changes this week, I am trying to honor him by somehow fitting guns with romance in the title of my post. And I am sure it will definitely get those people’s attention who were on the fence in terms of whether to read my post or not…but guns in the title may entice them to keep reading (especially the loyal NRA members).

Just like any other celebrated author (at least my friend Deepa thinks that I am one), I thought that I should “research” the topic of my article, especially when romance is something I have never written about before. So I started my research last week at the Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida where I was attending a business meeting. Near the roller-coaster rides at Universal, I approached several random chicks to get their perspectives on romance. What transpired after some of these conversations cannot be published here…otherwise this romantic comedy article will quickly become a romantic thriller with wild chases down the Spiderman ride and my own version of a Free Fall ride. And then on the plane ride back to Toronto, there was this beautiful, young chick sitting next to me so I decided to try my luck once more thinking she is a captive audience and cannot run away from me at 37000 feet up in the air. After debating in my mind for 30 minutes, I finally gathered enough courage to ask for her perspective on romance. As I turned towards her, I found her deeply engrossed in a magazine reading an article titled, “What is Up with Your periods”. Damn these girly magazines (obviously she was not reading “The Economist”) and their articles. Needless to say, I turned back and spent the remaining 2 hours staring outside the window into the open, cloudless, empty sky.

Since this “live” market research attempt did not yield desired results, I decided to change my strategy and check out some books in order to get some ideas on romance. In the bookstore, passing through a section, I noticed a book titled, “Fifty Shades of Grey”. Looking at the title, I remembered that in one of our chats, Kanya had mentioned that she heard about this book but I did not remember what the context was. Since my hair has been turning grey at a lightning speed and Kanya makes fun of my age in almost every conversation (she being 22 and all), I thought she must have mentioned this book for me to read to manage the color of my hair. So I picked up a copy and browsed through it. Oh My Dear Sweet God!! The book had nothing to do with the color of the hair (and if it did, it must be somewhere in the gory details but this definitely was not the central theme by any stretch of imagination). It appeared to be a book on romance but nothing like anything I have ever come across. No wonder housewives are getting more desperate in the hit ABC show, “Desperate Housewives” when they read these kinds of books.  So Kanya, if you were expecting that kind of romantic material in my blog, you will need to look elsewhere. I remember reading in the American Journal of Medicine that there are many websites that specifically deal with that genre of romance, sometimes with educational videos as well but I do not know any specific ones…sorry!

And as a last-minute, desperate attempt to garner some knowledge about romance, I also watched Yash Chopra’s last chick-flick, “Jab Tak Hai Jaan”. And what a waste of time that was!! Enough said!!

Now, in a romantic story, we need a hero and a heroine. My first dilemma is – who do I pick as my story’s hero. One option is to pick myself as a hero and talk about my 17 years of romance with Anshu (officially it started only17 years ago because that is when we got married…I cannot talk about the romance before that due to 2 reasons – One, even though it is highly unlikely but there is still a tiny possibility that Anshu’s immediate family members end up reading this blog and if that happens, she might get in trouble and secondly, this is a PG-13 blog often read by my own 13-year-old son, Nyle who may cringe reading about the pre-marital romance of his parents so let us not get there). However, even though all these Khans in Bollywood in their mid-40s shamelessly show up as Heros in romantic movies, I think I should not push this idea…else the readership of my blog may go down by 50% (from current 6 readers to 3).

My other choice for the hero of my romantic story is Nyle. He is almost a grown-up now……yesterday, for the first time in his life, I let him sit in the passenger seat of my car rather than the back seat, and also for the first time, I let him use a trimmer on this shadow above his lips, which eventually will become a moustache. I cannot wait to have those father-son juicy story sessions every evening where he tells me all about the girls he chased during the day and how many (Indian) girls reciprocated the gesture with a Rakhi (that happened to me more often than not when I was his age…especially because I do not have a sister so girls thought that I had a ‘sister” issue).

My friend Skanda is also an excellent choice for the main lead of my story. If you recall, in one of his comments on my last blog, he described himself as a muscular, chest-ribbed, fully toned macho man. However, it turns out that his actual romantic story is, in fact, a love triangle, which is a little outside my capabilities at this stage…let me first handle a straight boy-girl story before I get into complex love triangles or foursomes.

So, at this stage, given the lack of information on romance and quite a bit of confusion about the hero of my story, I think I will need to postpone the romantic comedy post to some other time (may be on the Valentine’s Day). Sorry to shatter your hopes, Deepa… I know you were eagerly waiting for this romantic blog. And I am sure that Yash Chopra’s soul will now NEVER rest in peace given the way I have botched up my first attempt at romance. But hey, that is life!!! (Though not for Yash Chopra)

And, as always, my final thought:

When a relationship becomes like a broken glass…..it is better to leave it broken rather than to hurt yourself more by trying to put it back together – Justin Bieber.