[nukkad] happy birthday

["arya" <>]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad. 
-Salvador Dali, painter (1904-1989) 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

A one act skit by Arya.

Bantu, a 4 year old boy born to a middle class Hindu family, spoilt,
mummy-licked,
a small horror in terms of manners and brutishness. As the drama progresses,
he ages accordingly, with little visible improvement.

Mummy, a mother from the same genre, somewhat of the older school, fatally
son-oriented,
with expectations larger than her intellect, or sense of justice towards her
daughters or daughters in law.

Daughters etc, they don't count either in real life, or in the play. As ever
with India of any caste
or creed, they are a backdrop, to be dropped on their back, or dropped
altogether once
they have procreated.

Indoor of a Bombay home. Terminally middle class. Festive balloons and a
small table
with a large cake, from Ayub Bakery at the street corner. The cakes can come
they are cheap, Ayub
cannot because he is Yavan.

Mummy and son engage at the table.

Bantu: iss my 4 th budday mummy! gimme presents and kisses!
Mummy: Happy Birthday Bantu. Ayushman bhayo and all that.
[Bantu runs away with the gaudy expensive toys, begins teasing his sisters,
mummy
looks on in wonder at her dear dear putra, a direct gift of Gurbha Devi,
Guru
Murga Ananda, Ganapati of the paunchy sort, and quite incongruously Hanuman,
the
celibate man monkey god, or the monkey man, as your devotion strikes you.]

time lapse -

Bantu: its my 15th birthday mummy! gimme presents, geez don't slurp, don't
like such kisses!
Mummy: Happy Birthday Jaan. May you grow like the great souls of our
param-para.
[Bantu makes tracks with his new hand held and a very destructive game pad
with which he
will be reinforced on his disvalue of anything feminine or lower caste].

time lapse -

Bantu: I'm 25 mom. Gotta go to college, let me have my present, make it cash
will you?
Mummy: Happy Birthday Beta. Let me hug you, my darling does not like mummy's
kisses
anymore, [fawningly] O how he has grown!
[The man is out of doors and gone and the mother, now ageing, continues as
though he
is still there].

time lapse -

Bantu: OK mom. [Half sarcastically, half in greed] Now what does my darling
mummy have
for me who am all of 40 today. [With a balding patch and lack of exercise he
looks more like 55.]
Mummy: Happy Birthday Beta. [Whining] You don't come to mummy anymore since
you
have married that churel witch and gone to live at her home, O does she look
after you? you seem
so weak! [Bantu saunters away with Padmini who is all bumps and bulges and
jewelery, with a daddy
in the background whose pockets follow suit. They walk away with hardly a
glance at the doddering
woman, now wholly white and in tremors and with a cough which rattles as she
talks.]

time lapse -

[an apartment in Miami sea shore. Bantu and portly wife at the balcony,
calling home on
the cellular]
Bantu: [yelling into the phone] hi mooommm! how are you honeey, I am 50!
[giggles]
Yadav: [an aged servant of the family of Shudra low caste who has served all
his life, and has
added the service of his own son to look after the later generation, who
feels grateful for the
half wage and dirty cooped up quarters on the roof].
Hulllow baba, aap kaise hain.
Bantu: [getting to the point, calls are costly even when daddy in law pays
for them]
Aree mummy ko do bewakuf idiot! wasting my time!
Yadav: [lurching to the point, he is not used to phones, no one calls him]
O baiji is dead, we incinerated her last Tuesday, we called there was no
answer from your home.

evening, living room -

Bantu: wonder who will get the flat. and her kan ki bali and bangles. these
are old gold. honey
should we travel there and see?

exeunt.
































------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To join/leave, use the form at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/#options
This list is archived at: http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/archive.html