Ouch Moments – Part II

As promised in the last post, here is the moderately awaited sequel to the moderately popular post about Ouch!  Moments (TM). As always, keeping up with the pop culture, let us add a ridiculously easy quiz to boot. So lets see if anyone can figure out the name of the flick that has been referred to.

So we have a boy. He has a girl. As in not his child. But his girl. Like most guys, this guy is pretty lost about what he wants to do in life. In a moment of patriotic fascination that a friend of his has, our guy goes and joins the army (is you still haven’t figured out the flick, now would be a good time to slap yourself). Soon enough he is faced with the horrid fact that people actually have to slog in the army and so he does what any lazy ass, work shirking, bum would do. He quits and runs away. As would be expected, he runs to his girl. Who goes on to tell him how she had lost all respect for him due to his act of cowardice (or something to that effect). She parts ways with him, saying she doesn’t want to see him again.

When faced with rejection, guys have basically three kinds of reactions. You have the self-loathing kind who retreat into their isolated world and sulk for a few decades. Though a minority in the early 80s, their kind has been on the rise ever since the concept of ‘metro-sexual’ caught on. The second kind is the angst driven, vengeful ex-lover. His reactions range from childish to down right psychotic. Though fun to watch in movies, they unfortunately tend to surface up in real life far too often. Their number is shamefully large. The last but not the least variety is the kind that goes into hyper ambition mode. This kind is responsible for making Avril Lavigne such a big success by requesting Sk8er Boi a gazillion times on the radio. Post break-up they develop a new found sense of ambition in life, ranging from the personal to the professional. This is the same lot who is interviewed in the studies that claim running can be a great stress buster. And they give a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘Behind every successful man, there is a woman’.

Anyways. Coming back to our guy. He happens to fall in the last category. So he goes back to the academy. Slogs his way to graduation. And finally becomes an officer of the Indian Army. The girl finds out about this. On the day of graduation, while celebrations are in progress at the academy, our guy gets a call from his girl. Girl, with a slight tremble in her voice, greets him. Congratulates him. Then, with just a notch higher tremble in her voice, she asks him, if he can come to meet her (or something to that effect). Without so much as batting an eyelid, and in the coolest cool guy tone, our guy says (translated to English for benefit of the non-existent international audience), "You were the one who decided that we should not meet. Now I shall be the one who decides when we should meet." Slam! He hangs up.

Ouch!

To be, or…

Unfortunately, I do not have any clever internet links to put in in this post. My usual sources turned out to be quite dissapointing and short on content in this case.

The reference, however, is not that subtle in the title of this post. Neither is it too obvious. While one automatically jumps to the Shakespearian link from the title itself, my original reason for reference is a Merchant Ivory Productions film called Heights. A fairly good picture, with one of the best ‘ouch’ moments (yes, I did come up with that term just now). So we have Isabel Lee, who doesn’t know that her ‘perfect’ world is about to come crashing down (don’t you just hate it when that happens. Especially during a commercial break and then you can’t enjoy the rest of the show!). Ms. Lee happens to be a photo journalist / Vanity Fair editor and meets a ‘perfect’ stranger (not the pschycotic type). They carry on a conversation throughout a party (oh yes, they meet at a party) and then are walking down a subway (not the sandwhich!). As all cool guys who are perfect strangers are destined to do, our guy goes on to very accurately guess/gauge some very detailed insights of the lady in lead. Our lady, of course, doesn’t take it sitting down, and offers counter measures of her own. So the guy comments about her profession, which she claims is her way of connecting to people, something to the effect of photo journalists being pretentious about the whole ‘connecting to the people’ bit. To this our lady takes offence, and so our guy asks her, "What colour (color, I suppose because the movie is based in NY) our (are, as rightly pointed out by Ms. Isha) my eyes?" and closes his eyes. The lady, with a content smile on her pretty face replies, "Blue." To which our guy replies, "What is my name?".

"You didn’t tell me you name." Embarrased smile on pretty face.

"You didn’t ask…Isabel." Cool guy smile on slightly bald headed face.

Ouch!

Like I said, one of the best ouch moments.

Oh, and the Shakespearian reference in the title was not a Red Herring. The movie does have a lot to do with a certain Shakespear play.

Oh, and the opening line to this entry was obviously false.

Next time…a very own, desi ouch moment from Bollywood.