A Mysterious Force
One day, Uncle bought a black square box at home. It was called a VCR. Sorry kids! This is an early 90s thing when the Internet itself was unavailable, forget about Netflix. It was such a joy for us 90s kids. There was no need to wait for those boring movies which were played on Sunday at 4 PM anymore. We can watch new movies whenever they were available as cassettes. What an exciting thing this VCR is! On that first day, we played Baby’s Day Out in the night. We all had a lovely time watching it together as a family. Simpler times, small joys! However, when the show was done, kids were strictly warned not to touch the VCR.
At that time, there were three kids at home — one is yours truly who was eight years back then, my younger sister who must be around six years and the youngest one who was just some months old. In addition to us, there were two teenage cousins who moved in with us after their father’s death. My cousin sister was an avid Bollywood fan and I am indebted to her for my introduction to the glamorous world of Bollywood. Since our Uncle concentrated only on English and Malayalam movies, she decided to take control of the situation for our benefit and managed to get a cassette of a Bollywood movie through her tuition class network. The reason for her to stay with us was that she was appearing for the “fateful” tenth standard board exam and the best(read torturing) tuition class was a couple of houses away from our place. It takes a lot of courage to have that cassette smuggled from such a place without getting caught. It was beyond the imagination of a studious and head buried in books person like me. So when she told me that she had the cassette of the film in which Madhuri Dixit does dance with her eyes alone(humming Akhiyan milao kabhi akhiyan churao kya), I was impressed. The only problem was that we have to return it the next day itself. It was pointless to wait for the adults because they were against us girls watching Bollywood movies. Somehow they have made some connection between Bollywood movies and girls who elope. So we were strictly prohibited from watching Bollywood movies so that we all will marry as per the wishes of the patriarchal system.
I was good with all the equipment operations at that time and was quite smug about it. Since my cousin was the oldest, she said she would do that. I was pissed off and left the room saying that I would come back when it is ready to play. Time passed and there was no update from her. So I went looking for her. She said there was something wrong with the VCR. This was the opportunity I was waiting for and the ambition of becoming an engineer came alive with an action plan. There were lots of intertwined wires of TV, tape recorder, cable tv etc. I was closely inspecting which wire goes to where. My cousin left saying she would come back when it is ready to play. I poked here and there, plugged some cables to the tv and some to the VCR, rearranged the wires and turned on the switch while clutching the wire. For a moment, my world turned upside down. My head hit the wall and when I became conscious I was staring at the leak patches of rain left on our ceiling. My naive self thought that this mysterious force was trying to protect the VCR from kids. With a guilty conscience, I left the stage. Pride didn’t allow me to admit this particular experience to my cousin sister. I decided to take the high moral ground and told my cousin that we should not go against the rules of adults. She readily agreed. It was so uncharacteristic of her. I should have known better.
Years passed. My cousin continued to be enchanted by Bollywood movies, flunked her board exam, had the guts to get a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai Kajol haircut and was forbidden to enter the house for an entire day, eventually eloped with the guy she was in love with and continues to break the rules of adults even in her 40s. I continued with my studies, learned about electric shocks, experienced them many times, eventually pursued engineering, became too independent for my own good and continues to be a topic of discussion for patriarchy by deciding against marriage. We both rarely stay in touch. So it came off as a surprise when she asked me, “Pinchu, Do you remember the time we tried to play that cassette on the VCR?” during a get-together. I nodded my head. “Do you know why I asked you to give it a try?” I told, “you wanted to see if I can make it work.”. She burst into laughter and said, “Hell, NOOO!! I got an electric shock when I tried and I wanted you also to experience it.”
