Agar maa ka doodh piya hai to..

A very random title, I'm sure most will agree; but bear with me as I shoot off onto yet another one of my tangents: you might just derive some entertainment out of it. So yes, I was saying, "Agar maa ka doodh piya hai to.." What could someone (typically the hindi movie bash 'em up types hero with a very "I'm violently anti-evil and I'm going to mop the floor with you because you commited *atrocity of your choice here* against my family member(s)" attitude) be thinking when they utter that particular taunt? Is it aimed at bringing to the surface submerged pre-memories of the person being challenged of sucking at his/(and sometimes, very rarely) her mother's teats? Is it supposed to evoke a reaction something along the lines of "You bastard, how could you? That's disgusting! You made me remember... -that-! AARRGGHH! NOW I SHALL HAVE TO ATTEMPT TO KILL YOU (but ultimately die trying, because lets face it, when's the last time the villain killed the hero in a Bollywood flick?)!" Or is the root of it (and forgive me for thinking that this might actually be the truth, but Occam's razor and all that..) actually buried deep under some infinitely more primitive and altogether primal remnant of the tribal roots of society? From back when we'd just climbed off trees, started walking and were just about getting our act together? I certainly do think so. As a primitive culture we mightn't give the early humans too much credit when it came to attempting to come up with a scientifically plausible explanation for natural phenomenon; I mean, a god for rain, another for fire... Come to think of it, without any knowledge of mechanics, electrodynamics, relativity, biology, medicine and a whole lot of other sciences (that we've just about started figuring out in the past five hundred years or so, mind you), it seems quite credible that the early humans did manage to come up with something inventive and at the same time plausible for the times and didn't just curl up into the foetal position with an immense sense of dispair and give up on life. Yes, so, the early humans were just that: humans. So they were smart; at least as smart as Bush... actually come to think of it, they must've been -much- smarter than him. We're here, or haven't you noticed? They were inquisitive and observant ("Where on earth is he going with this?" Stick with me, I'm almost there now). Observant enough to notice the positive effects of mother's milk. Don't believe me? Look here:

... (breast milk) is available at a correct temperature for the baby's needs. It contains anti-infective factors which shield the baby from external infections. It contains what controls viral and bacterial infections in the baby's initial months.

... The calorific value of breast milk is 70 per 100ml of milk and this fully meets the requirements of the infant.

... Lactoferrin, a protein in breast milk, provides considerable protection against intestinal and respiratory infections.

So maybe, just maybe, the root of that most entertaining of Bollywood affronts lies in the fact that early societies might've noticed the positive effects of breast milk. Then, as today, drinking the mother's milk went a long way, in the early days of life, in ensuring survival. Surely of some credit, that, in an age when survival of the fittest was the norm? Of all the individuals that were healthy, productive members of the tribe, surely quite a few of them had in fact been breast-fed? In a world still governed more by the will to survive rather than the will to thrive, wouldn't then having being breast-fed been an affirmation of fitness? So what's stopping me from making that last crucial connection? Well nothing, really. So there you have it. An exercise in mental masturbation that plausibly puts forth the root of that great Bollywood gauntlet throw: Agar maa ka doodh piya hai to ("Fucking 'ell, was that the point of all this?" Well, not quite. Read on, I urge you, for just a few sentences more. The end is almost in sight)..

I have noticed that "Agar maa ka doodh piya hai to.." can be completely replaced with "Agar mard hai to.." without losing any of the intensity of the celluloid moment. Does it strike anyone else as strange the implication that not having been breast-fed is a direct affront to your 'mardangi', your manhood? Yah-boo, sucks poo to all the male chauvanism in the world. Sorry to burst your insecurity fuelled bubble, but women can be right too, you know? Too often, as I keep learning with compounding age ("So what -exactly- was the point of all this?" I'm feeling OLD goddamnit!).