Sunday, April 7, 2019

April 14, 2019 is coming!



Game of Thrones (GoT) is a lot like Modi. It has a huge following, it is popular world-wide, and it’s Bhakts just can’t stand the fact that someone may not like it.  I agree there must be something to it, that it garners world-wide popularity. You don’t become a world-wide craze just like that! But why is it so hard to accept that it’s just not for everybody!

The man in the house has been a huge GoT fan for the last 4 years. 4 years back he watched the first season online. Then binged watched on the next 3 so he could catch up with the current season at the time. I could see the admiration in his eyes – like he has seen the Taj Mahal– “Vah what a masterpiece has been created!” He kept coaxing me to follow it too so he would have someone to discuss, analyze and predict with, at the end of every episode. I was, during that time, doing my 4th rerun of FRIENDS. I passed.

Slowly everyone that I was friends with, had become a GoT fan. I sat quietly at dinners with the friends while they discussed the seven kingdoms. Finally for the fear of missing out, some time before the 5th season, I said to my husband “OK, I will try.” The look of appreciation I got from him – to see his ardhangini finally partnering with him - priceless! He offered to watch the first season with me again, just so that I would have company. Like an art loving student who had been forced to study engineering, I sat down with him for the first episode. In the middle of it someone just jumped off the castle wall and died to death! I shrieked. “Don’t worry, you ‘ll get used to this.”, he said. “But I don’t want to get used to THIS.” I had a sleepless night that day. In just one episode I gave up.

Every year around April it was the same story. The man got more excited about “Winter is coming” than “Mango season is coming”. Shame! He would look forward to it like a little a child patiently waiting all year for his birthday gift.

It’s season 8 now and the finale (finally) and he is crazier than ever. In March sometime, as expected he told me how I had missed out on such an amazing series. “But all is not lost, you can still catch up.” For his sake I saw one more episode. A guy (pardon my ignorance cause I know not his name) was fed a special dish made of his own children by his rival - like a Haggis made of your own children. Yikessss!! I physically hit him for putting me through this mental trauma. I thought he would give up. But he is a Bhakt.

Over the last one week, the newspaper has been printing a synopsis of each season in one page. My husband has them cut out and put near my bedside. 

“Ok, you like to read, right? Maybe you can read these to catch up.” I read it. I understood nothing. “If you haven’t read the Physics book all year, the revision notes from a friend won’t help right before the exam,” I reasoned. “Hmm, so you have around 70 episodes to catch in 7 days, that shouldn’t be impossible,” he said with the same conviction that Manjrekar speaks when India needs 70 runs of the last 7 deliveries. But in his heart, he knows it was all in vain.

So, there you are GoT fans, enjoy the last season. Find out if the Starks finally come together. Find out if they all die gory deaths. But let me enjoy my mangoes watching the 3rd re-run of “How I met your mother”, cause from where I sit, sweating in my living room chair in Dubai, all I worry about is “Summer is coming!”