Happy New Year, 3 Idiots!

...and the above title is not meant as an insult.

Happy New Year to everybody! All da best, ji.

Moving swiftly, along - we actually went for a movie in a hall - an unheard of thing for me and Vijay since Peanut came along.

A colleague of mine remarked how for some reason, almost everyone he knows who has gone for the movie, ended up going in groups of three. I scoffed, as is my wont, until I realized that the same was true for my mother-sister-friend trio who had gone the previous day. I was filled with wonder when my sister-in-law-brother-in-law-neice-in-law also ended up going together. And what was even more surprising was when we finally decided to bung Peanut in the car and take her along with us - her first movie in the hall ever at the tender age of 2 years 5 months.

So about the groups of three thing - coincidence? Or some kind of mass-hypnotization-collective-subconscious thing? You be the judge.

Anyway, about the movie. Now, Peanut is an avid TV watcher and we told her we were going to show her a BEEG TEEVEE. She was fine with the basic idea and being as cute as she is, she was eventually allowed by the security guards to carry her little Nirula's ice-cream cup inside the hall, so was okay for about the first three minutes. Then she realized it was kind of dark, loud and people on the screen were around thirty times her size. She panicked and started insisting - 'Ghar jaana hai' and wailing. I was immediately embarassed and started to get ready to bundle her out but Vijay was determined to watch this particular movie ( I walked out of Kaminey because it was 'disturbingly violent' on the rare occasion that we went for a film together). He asked me to sit back and relax, took Peanut from me and started to 'explain the story to her'. Miraculously, it worked and after some coaxing, Peanut agreed to resume her ice-cream eating and watch with wide eyes what was going on.

And so it went. There were occasions in the middle when she got bored, and wanted to leave, and very manipulatively told me 'Mama poo-poo kiya, saaf kar do', which turned out to be a blatant lie. Thankfully at interval, there was a big bag of Popcorn which gave us a fresh new lease of life.

So basically it turned out fine. And we all went back home fairly happy. Vijay really liked the movie, Peanut liked the songs, and I kind of liked seeing parts of my old campus again, although it was a bit weird seeing those hallowed halls used as a movie set, but hey. Also, while I usually dislike Aamir with a strange inexplicable intensity, I thought he was actually okay in the movie. And the best part was, I really didn't remember the book being anything like it - in fact, I had only agreed to go because my sister said it was funny and a review said it was not anything like 5 point someone.

And yesterday, it was very amusing to hear about my baby's conversation with my sister.

She looked up at her and said 'Maasi - BEEG TEE VEE - All eez well!'

My sister immediately looked at me and said 'You took her for 3 idiots in the hall?'

Now, that's communication.