Friday, October 26, 2007

Bollybutton's Bollywood Beatbox


It's Friday again, yipeee! Today I have many reasons to be happy. For one thing, later today my parents are coming to Greece for the first time ever and tomorrow I'm getting officially engaged for the first time ever. Last weekend me and Mr Zeus picked the rings in the record breaking time of under five minutes.

I have decided to follow an old Greek tradition of wearing the wedding band on one finger for engagement and then the other for marriage, seeing as a) I don't want the evil De Beers company to have any of our money, I knew about diamond cartels before Blood Diamond hit the screens, and b) I'm too forgetful and scatterbrained to be in charge of precious gems.

Today I am linking to a song which has one of those Bollywood So Bad It's Good videos. There are two reasons I picked this song. The first is that it has a line which says: the world is after me, but I'm after you which epitomises my current situation. Secondly and more appropriately, it has a line relating to getting engaged. The girl sings: fulfil my destiny, make my world come to life, get engaged to me my love.

When I was a little girl, the worst thing anyone could say to me was that I would get married. I remember flying into tears of rage when I was admiring an ornament of my mother’s and she said, in front of the other ladies present, that she would give it to me in my dowry. They all laughed, and I howled with fury. Another time I was playing with a red scarf and my grandma put it over my head, took a picture and said that I looked like a bride. I refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the afternoon.

God knows why I found the prospect of engagements and marriage so insulting. Maybe it was because I eventually started attending the weddings of sparky, boisterous girl cousins knowing that in a few weeks from their wedding they would be acting like they had had a lobotomy. No more explosive laughter, no more light in their eyes, no more silliness. It was a familiar pattern.

At university I was known as Bollybutton the Man Hater. I didn’t get my first boyfriend till the last day of University because I didn’t want a single thing to get in the way of my journalism degree. The moment a male of the species approached me, the iron curtain came down.

Which is what made my behaviour around Mr Zeus all the more impossible for me to explain. If I felt like talking to him, I did it, if I felt like accidentally-on-purpose seeking him out in the Olympic venue where we were based, I did it. Coy Bollybutton chased after Brazen Bollybutton telling her that this was not the way, that she was acting totally out of character and that no good could come out of such forwardness.

Brazen Bollybutton told her to shut up and that Something Felt Right. To this day I can’t explain what it was, but something over rid all my defence mechanisms for how to deal with The Mens.

So here I am today. I guess in life the biggest most unexpected surprises come from within ourselves.

5 comments:

vultures said...

Wonderful entry! Made me laugh and cheered me up.

I am the same as you used to be with the whole wedding thing - my face resembles a storm cloud the moment anyone tries to joke about me getting married, and I am in a foul mood for the rest of the day. Unfortunately I am 20, not 5, so this kind of behaviour raises a few eyebrows haha.

I hope you have a great time with your parents and your fiance.

Rositta said...

Congratulations on your engagement, all the best...ciao

itelli said...

Congrats!

And, if I may, don't let urself think the world will come after u. U're doing something u really want - u might just as well enjoy it fully.

All the best!

Anonymous said...

I just read your post now! Congratulations! I hope you and your parents and Mr Zeus all had a great time!

AL said...

:)
sighhhhhhhh... so romantic.
congrats again dear.