shirish, shakira..... and the hips wont lie!!

The moment I opened the door, my brother shirish zoomed inside like a cruise missile, which has gone out of control due to wrong programming, and started to randomly and recklessly run inside the house, all the time shouting at the top of his voice SHAKIRA…SHAKIRA….SHAKIRA!!!

he bumped into our 80 yr old grandma who could neither see or hear shirish properly, but must have felt the impact of all of his 100 pounds, evenly distributed along his 5’10” frame, because she let out a muffled cry for help. Shirish then held her hands and did a small jig with her, leaving her in a half spin !

Shirish was my younger brother, and I called him a braying mantis! Yes that’s the only way one could have described his singing abilities combined with his skeletal frame. Cos once he was trying to imitate eminem, and was embarrassed to find a herd of donkeys passing along the road just outside our house, broke into a synchronized HEEE – HAWWW chorus.
After the samba with granny, his next destination was the dining table. He jumped on the table, moved his arms rapidly in Brownian motion, and at the same time wiggled his so called hips a la shakira, threw back his neck to face the ceiling, and attempted to croon the legendary ….ooooh I’m on tonite…..my hips don’t lie!!!

Before I cud get my nikon in place, to capture our very own “fakira”, shirish had descended from the dining table, and then cooled down a bit, but still, his hips continued to be in the shakira mood, as they jerked about slowly, to a rhythm.

When my mom asked shirish the reasons for his elated, yet erratic entry, shirish thrust his hands in his pocket, and out came 5 tickets, and he gave us the broadest of smiles. He held those 5 tkts close to his chest, just as a migrant Indian worker clutches to his passport, when he is on his first ever flight to dubai.And now, even I could’nt believe my eyes, shirish had got tickets to the 29th march “shakira live” concert in Mumbai, to be held at the bandra kurla complex..

Wowww! Me, and mom were excited now! The sensuous, sexy, sizzling, and seductive shakira…..would soon shake her surreal hips, and set the stage on fire in our "amchi mumbai", and we could watch her sensational samba from a distance of few metres. unbelievable ! Our entire family was a huge fan of this latin american singing diva. My sister sheetal, and dad would be excited too, to know that shirish had managed 5 priceless tickets for this “mother of all shows”!!

that evening the atmosphere in our house was full of hip wriggling shakira, sheetal came home from college, and straightaway started to play the “hips don’t lie” CD for the nth time. For the first time in many days, dad patted shirish on his back, for managing this impossible feat. and in her excitement, that evening, mom laid out a lavish menu of chicken biriyani, cucumber raita, and in the end we all had some delicious caramel custard. 29th march was just 14 days away. While at the dinner table, the only topic was what we all were going to wear on the big day. Finally our grandma had to intervene to ask us as to whether we were going to perform on stage or it was this “shameless” lady as granny wud address all present generation singers. To her, Britney spears, beyonce, and shakira were one and the same!!

As night drew close, and lights went out, at our home, for a brief few seconds, I stood on the bed, and tried to wiggle my hips, dreaming of me, and shakira, on some remote island in the Bahamas…….