I still remember that day in grade 11 when he walked into our classroom. He was tall, his head held up high with a gawky smile plastered on his face that he gave to everyone and took a seat closest to mine. A pin drop silent greeted him in return. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a plain white t shirt, his hair gelled in the least delightful manner and most prominent of all were the jeans. The tightest pair of jeans we had ever seen on a guy. Someone whispered in the back, “Uh Oh, tight pants has arrived, ladies and gentlemen another ship of FOBs must have landed…” and hence it began. He was named tightpants. He was the newest FOB in our classroom. To this day I still don’t remember what his real name was, but he was just tightpants. His Fobby clothes, manners, the tarka smell were constant butt of jokes for the rest of the classroom and all of a sudden he disappeared just as he had appeared.
FOB (a acronym for Fresh Off the Boat or Freshy a “delightful” term put together for newly arrived immigrants. But what is the connection between FOB and mangoes? Today’s episode of Mangoes was titled “The FOB,” which mainly revolved around Rakay and his constant humorous attempts to become the knight in shining armor to the beautiful Kiran (his old next door neighborhood). What followed were some hilariously put together scenes of poor Rakay’s attempt to understand the term FOB and his numerous attempts to de-FOB himself. On the other hand we see Asha getting some unfriendly attention from their caucasian neighbor Mark. Sami just dwelled as a background character for majority of the episode today, but he has more surprises in store for us from the looks of the preview for episode three.
Rakay Rakay Rakay…the poor guy took fobiness to a whole new level. Truly Khurram Suhrwardy’s portrayal of a burger bacha shipped straight to a foreign country is spot on. His expressions, his body language and dialogue delivery has taken me by surprise. His clumsy attempts, his fantasies, his conversion of dollars to rupees are some of the saving grace of the show. Take a bow Khurram. Coming towards Asha and Mark, they are another surprisingly odd couple and their interactions were also hilarious giving much insight into their characters. Asha is a highlight of a very dimensionally etched out character and she is revealed to us in different layers. Today we saw her as someone who has built walls around themselves, as she wards a bit too friendly attempts by Mark by being strident and assertive to his approach. Turning to Kiran, she is revealed to us as a typical, cliché manipulative immature girl and hopefully she will be also revealed in different light. My only problem with Kiran is that Anokhi Dalvi tends to look a little uncomfortable in some scenes for example the ipod grabbing scene was the most prominent one. She seemed a bit too rushed or her expression of surprise and happiness seemed a bit forced. So far she seems to be the weakest link in the show…but who knows she might surprise us all in the upcoming episodes.
Although most of the situations portrayed today fell almost at borderline cliché, what truly saved them were dialogues and some hilarious punch lines. I am going to share just a few of my favorites:
Mark: “don’t worry I will grab my things and I will be out of your hair”
*sees hair removal cream and picks it up*
“This is certainly not mine”
Rakay thinking: “..out comes the dairy, twelve year old flashback, ankhoon say ansoo, BAM knight in shining armor and we live happily ever after..Rakhay tumhain to bed time story writer hona chahiye tha..”
Girl1: so you are a proud FOB
Rakay: yeah I am pretty proud
Girl2: lagta hai ap nay khaas training li hai FOB honay main
*rakhay thinking* …to FOB koi degree ya certificate hai
Rakhay: I am a qualified FOB with honors
Girl2: lagta hai app nay masters kiya hai is main
Rakhay: nahi siraf specialization
Overall I am really enjoying the pace of the narrative so far and I am really glad that its more of a character driven story rather than narrative driven. Lets see what dadi and some new characters have in store for us next week and I wish we had seen more of Sami! What I absolutely love about this show is that it’s such a breath of fresh air and all minor glitches aside, I am still hooked. Thumbs up guys!
Until next time I am going to go and spend some quality time with my friends at Gulberg eating their fine shwarmas and grabbing some sabzi for mom from sabzi mandi…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5oS2xieaI0[/youtube]
written by Maria Khan
P.S. I walked in for a job interview a few days ago and there was a panel of interviewers from the firm. One interviewer looked very familiar, it looked like I had seen him somewhere before… as I made myself comfortable and sat across from the very familiar employee who had a nice Pakistani-Canadian mix accent, I recognized tight pants, and I was sad to see he was not a FOB anymore…and i was now at his mercy! *gulp*
