TOM, JERRY &........?

 For every high there is a low. 

For every to there is a fro.

For every Tom there is a Jerry!

Didn’t expect the last one, did you? Well here is my TOM & JERRY story. (NO! This is not about my favourite T&J Episode etc. There was, is and never will be a favourite TOM & JERRY episode. That’s coz all T&J episodes are favourites. Welcome!)

 

TOM made her(?) appearance in our lives in Circa 1998. To say she showed any signs of being a TOM back then was nil, zilch, ZERO! She was what she was supposed to be, the Apple of our Eye, our Sunshine. And like every such mollycoddled Apples are supposed to be, she was very much one mollycoddled Apple of our eye. I am sure you know how every such mollycoddled Apples of the eye are supposed to be, don’t you? (I hope!) As I mentioned earlier, no TOM and no signs of a TOM!

 

JERRY made his entry into the screenplay in 2005 AD. To say he showed any signs of being a JERRY back then was nil, zilch, ZERO! He was what he was supposed to be, the Apple of our other Eye, our Sunshine. And like every such mollycoddled Apples are supposed to be, he was very much one mollycoddled Apple of our other eye. I am sure you know how every such mollycoddled Apples of the other eye are supposed to be, don’t you? (I hope!) As I mentioned earlier, no JERRY and no signs of a JERRY!

However, there is no TOM if there is no JERRY! With the entry of JERRY to the proceedings, the dormant till then TOM did a Nagavalli/Chandramukhi combo. TOM sprang to life. The earliest episode was when the paramedics in the nursing home did not permit TOM to cuddle the just out of the womb JERRY! Once JERRY was washed and brought into the room in a pram, TOM struck! A well concealed pinch, surreptitiously landed on JERRY's ‘Dicky’! JERRY let out a loud bawl! So loud that Kollywood/Tollywood/Bollywood villains are still splitting your eardrums inspired by it! Show after show! Single Screens and Multiplexes no bar! JERRY’s bawl continued for a very long time! From that moment in the pram when he had no control over his motion or his motions till the time he got control over both a couple of years later!

If the above shocked you, spare a thought about us who were the witnesses to the TOM & JERRY show on play 24X7X365 of our lives! We were the primary spectators of these never-ending episodes much much before binge watching became fashionable; nay came into existence! To give you an idea of the torture we were subjected to I mention the occasion when on Saturday nights, when we senior citizen types have hit the sleep mode and a nuclear bomb goes off in the living room coz TOM & JERRY have just started WWIII. All this coz JERRY wanted to catch an F1 race and TOM adamant on a mushy soap. If TOM wanted to eat out, JERRY insisted on that ‘Amma panra Biriyani’ @ home. If TOM wanted to go on a holiday in North-North direction, JERRY insisted the same in the South-South region. For every TOM’s Roti, Dal, Subzi, you had JERRY’s Saadam, Sambar, Poriyal. If TOM wanted to buy everything from every shop in the Mall, JERRY would ensure such shopoholics are never encouraged, even if it meant the shops in the Mall close down for lack of business. TOM’s Black vs JERRY’s anything but Black. TOM’s love stories vs JERRY’s Actioners. I am sure you get the drift. In short TOM vs JERRY!

 

How many of you can remember the name of that Bull Dog in the T&J cartoons without Googleing? Well let me tell you. He is Spike! Spike! SPIKE!!!! SPIKE mostly made his entry in the show when TOM & JERRY would get bored of fighting each other all the time! SPIKE’s existence ensured that TOM & JERRY was indeed TOM & JERRY. SPIKE made TOM vs JERRY, TOM & JERRY! T&J aficionados would know whenever SPIKE made an attempt to harm either TOM or JERRY, they both will put their 31256897512th round of warring on Pause Mode, gang up together and send SPIKE packing! SPIKE is the ‘&’ in TOM & JERRY. SPIKE is the reason it is TOM & JERRY and not a perennial TOM vs JERRY.

SPIKE made an entry into our lives around the time Modi’ji was polishing his abki baar 400 paar slogan! It was when TOM announced that she loves SPIKE and wanted to get married to him! To say it caught JERRY by surprise would be apt! Shock? No! Surprise, yes! And what happened next was unbelievable to say the least. It so happened that SPIKE loved TOM too! Pinch me mates!!! SPIKE to JERRY’s surprise was not a ferocious intruder/adversary who would rock the T&J boat. Instead, SPIKE turned out to be that proverbial ‘cool chap’; nay the GenZwala ‘BRO’! He had his shortcomings of course, this SPIKE chap. He supports Arsenal in the EPL being one of them! But one does learn to bite the bullet once in a while for the greater good of mankind! I mean TOM loved SPIKE and SPIKE loved TOM. Jab TOM SPIKE raazi to kya Karega JERRY!

Hold on! I know what you are thinking. You think now that TOM and SPIKE have hitched up together, that’s the end of TOM & JERRY? NO SIRE! Never! No way!! JERRY now eagerly awaits TOM’s visit home to resume from where they had left off, the 31256897512th round which was left on Pause Mode in the earlier paragraph!

The only difference going forward when the TOM & JERRY Show resumes is we the audience. Our count will be higher. You, Me and SPIKE!

 

 

Swalpa Adjust Maadi!

Yeh Kya Hai……….? Asked the irritated clerk at the New Delhi Railway Ticket Reservation Counter to my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) The angry exclamation was because my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) had filled the reservation requisition form in Tamizh/Tamil, a language alien to the Clerk as one would expect. The clerk had handed the blank form to my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) which was in Hindi with no English in the reverse of the form as was the practice. My cheeky Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) who was handicapped with knowing only rudimentary Hindi managed to put the same to use and a lot of common sense to make sense of the form and fill it up in his Mother Tongue. Tamizh Vazhga! The bemused Clerk who I guess was a well-meaning Haryanvi with a handicap worse than that of my Late Father’s (Om Shanti Dad!) His knowledge of Tamizh was way lower than My Late Father’s knowledge of Hindi, which was essentially Zilch. The episode however ended amicably as the Haryanvi dude grasped the issue immediately and proceeded to Ask, Hear, Write on behalf of my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) thus completing the formalities of filling up the form and closing the ticket sales activity. The Haryanvi dude went on to become a legend in Your’s Truly’s Family Circle whenever any topic with Language in it arose. (GenNext and GenZee looking askance at the above paragraph may kindly note: Those were the days before Google, Chat GPT, Internet and you were born. Welcome!)

As we moved cities to Calcutta then and Kolkata now, the capital city of Amar Shonar Bangla added to a few more anecdotes to the “Language” Stories. It was during a routine pandal hopping exercise during Durga Puja with a True-Blue Bengali, not so well-known to us then neighbor. As the Pandit ji danced to the tunes of the energetic Dhaak during the Aarti, the Bhodrolok dude asked my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) if he were a Brahmon (Brahmin in Bengalispeak you Boka!) On receiving the answer in affirmative, the next query was “ Aapnar Poithe aache?” (Do you wear the Sacred Thread?” The rudimentary in My Late Father’s (Om Shanti Dad!) language skills took over right on the cue! “Poithe Chilo, Maara gayche!” He blurted. (I had it but it died!) The Bhodrolok dude was as though struck by lightning! How can Sacred Thread die was his query communicated essentially through his eyes as he was still reeling to be in a position to put the question in words. To cut the story short, my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) and his “rudimentary” mixed up the Hindi word Pita (Father) and the Bengali penchant for converting every “a” to “o” thought Poithe is Pita in Shuborno Bangla!

On yet another occasion, me, a cool dude friend and my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!) were standing on the pavement next to what seemed to be a well-covered drain. As we were generally chit-chatting, a Hygiene worker trying to earn his honest bread, requested my Late Father (Om shanti Dad!) to kindly move as he wanted to inspect the “Nardhoma”. And ‘Rudimentary’ struck again! “Nardhanam nahi aata, thoda gaana aata hai!” Thus spake my Late Father (Om Shanti Dad!). If you still haven’t got it, “Nardhoma” apparently is drain and the rudimentary made it into “I can’t Nardhanam (Dance) with a “can sing a bit”! for special effects! 

Languages are a many in India. We are a cosmopolitan society as most migrant societies are. So the next time you walk into a SBI or Canara Bank branch and the ‘Just arrived on transfer’ customer service associate struggles with his/her Kannada, “SWALPA ADJUST MAADI”!