What a charade!

It was the year 2001. The university inter-hostel cultural competitions were on. The event was Dumb Charades (DC). The 'ultimate DC team' comprising of ‘the gods of DC’ which included Viv, was facing the 'not so ultimate DC team', which included me. The eyes of the audience were filled with pity for the hapless 'not so ultimate DC team' that was about to be massacred by the ultimate DC team.

Just before the 'IT round' (Don't go "Sheesh!" on me. What kinda rounds do you expect when a bunch of engineers play DC?), I got my team together and purely on a hunch said, "Guys, if we get a word like ‘pseudocode’, I'll just point to my face and then shake my hand."

I went to the stage and picked my word. Holy cow. If I had a penny for each freaky thing that happens to me… Yes. Yes it was pseudocode. We won. Time recorded - 3 seconds. Everyone in the audience was dumb-founded. They were all wondering how the heck I mimed pseudocode and how the heck my team guessed it in 3 seconds flat. It would have been 2 seconds actually *looks coyly at nails* if I hadn't wasted 1 second just staring at the word cos I could not believe it actually was pseudocode.

It has been 7 years and I still do the victory dance every time I relate the story of how we beat the crap out of the supposed DC gods. Viv of course shrugs his shoulders and says it was a fluke because we'd decided on a code for pseudocode just before. Sheesh. We could have picked any word at all - why pseudocode? I say flukes happen to deserving people. And deserving people get repeat performances. Even if it’s 7 years later.

So yesterday, we had a small chaat & mango margarita party at home - Shub, Pizzadude, Viv and me. Years of being crushed by the Christmas and New Year crowds out there has taught us a big lesson of life – stay at home.

















Check out the spread!

As we settled down to play DC with hindi movies after lunch, I wasn't very sure how well we'd do. Truth is - I've never played DC with hindi movies before. Strange that I prefer DC’ing to english movies over hindi ones, since I watch like ONE english movie in a year. Anyway, we decided to give it a go. We opened Raaga.com and went to the movie index page. Each team then picked a movie for the mimer of the other team.

As you all know by now, Viv, is a timeless man. Be it pictionary or DC, he thinks he can play without worrying about how much time it takes. How the heck does he play one-day cricket, I wonder. Nevertheless, the beauty of his thought process and incomparable creativity are very entertaining when he plays pictionary or DC because the long-windedness just never ends, and neither does the laughter. A couple of months ago, when we were playing against Aarti and her hubby, Viv started miming the whole Ramayana - he mimed Ravan and Sita and Lakshman and Lakshman Rekha and what not, and it turns out all he wanted to show was "deer". :/

His "best work" yesterday is yet another testimony to his talent. I gave him a one-word movie to mime. First, he gave me a dirty look and said, “I don’t know the meaning of this word.” So I told him. He thought for a minute that then started miming. He showed the following things: kids, glasses, motorcycle, baby, magic wand, big guy, motorcycle, baby, motorcycle, motorcycle. I was just sitting there laughing helplessly because only I knew what the heck he was trying to do, while his team looked on in bewilderment. He was trying to show Hagrid from Harry Potter. Why Hagrid since it was a hindi movie DC? Because... from Hagrid he planned to somehow get to the movie he was actually supposed to be miming. Can you guess what the movie was?

Shagird. :/

Anyway, Shub and I whacked the guys' asses, rather royally I must say, and we set some records similar to the ones set in 2001. It's amazing what a great team we made, specifically when she was miming and I was guessing, considering we've never played anything in the same team before!

Here are some snippets.

Act I

Viv and Pizzadude pick what they think is a very difficult movie. Shub starts miming.
Shub shows three fingers.
Me - Three words!
She joins her hand in prayer and lifts them up.
Me - It's a God?
She nods and shows a bow and arrow.
Me - Errrm… Kaamdev?
Everyone explodes into laughter. Darn, four seconds lost.
She shakes her head.
Me - Ram? Shri Ram?
She nods her head vigorously and shows a person standing next to her.
Me – Oh! Lakshman? Rampur ka Lakshman!
She does a victory dance and we do a high-five.
Pizzadude and Viv look at each other in utter shock.
Viv - What movie is that?? How do you even know it?
Me - The one with Randhir Kapoor?
Viv - Hainn??
Me - The one with that song "Gum hai kisi ke pyaar mein..."
Viv continues to shake his head in disbelief.

Act II

Shub shows two fingers.
Me - Two words.
She gestures that it's a movie from long ago.
Me - Very old movie?
She gestures someone singing classical music.
Me - Tansen? Oh wait, two words… Baiju Baawra??
She high-fives me.
Viv - WHAT? Who is Baiju Baawra????
Me – He was a singer. You didn't read the story of Tansen and Baiju Baawra in school?
The guys have the usual expression.

Act III

Shub shows two fingers.
Me - Two words.
She shows a goddess.
Me - It's a goddess.
She shows books.
Me - Books?
She tries to show a musical instrument but she doesn't know how to hold it. It kinda looks like a guitar.
Me (thought bubble) - A guitar playing goddess? Shakira?
Shub (to the guys) - How do they hold it?
Viv shows her how a veena is held (his sis plays the instrument).
Me - Veena! Goddess! Veena! Saraswati Chandra!
Shub - Yes!
Viv - What movie IS that? How do you know that?
Me - I think I have a song from that movie...
The guys repeat previous expression.

Act IV

Shub shows one finger.
Me - One word.
She holds the edges of her top and shows it off.
Me - Libaas!
She high-fives me.
The guys' jaws are on the floor.
Viv - That's libaas??
Shub and I - Yeah! Libaas means dress. Clothes.
Viv - I didn't even know what the word meant!
Pizzadude - Me neither!
Viv - Yeah! I thought it's some high fundoo urdu word meaning good behaviour or something. Like parents ka libaas karna chahiye!
Me - You mean lihaaz karna chahiye? Hahaha!
The guys – Libaas means dress?
Me - Yeah! Half the tailors in India name their shops Libaas yaar! How could you not know?
The guys shake their heads.

Act V

This is my favourite one, the one that shocked the heck outta the guys.

Shub shows one finger.
Me - One word?
She nods.
Me - Erm... Ijaazat? Abhiman?
She nods like mad.
Me - Ijaazat?
Shub – YEAH!
We high-five again.
The guys - WHAT??? She didn't even mime anything!
The gals - Muahahahaha!

Loved the dumb start to the year!
Happy New Year, bewdas! :D

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