Bandages i have known

was at the nurse's office last week. the wound in my right palm was cleaned with orange non stinging liquid, to the accompaniement of much clucking. then it was swabbed and dried and a soft cotton pad was laid on it. my entire hand was swaddled with gauze. some sticky plaster was rasped off and liberally stuck all over.

this sent me into bandage-musing-mode..

if i'd been a heroine in a hindi movie in the 70s- 80s, i would stub my toe and be sent to hospital where they would put a cute patti on my head. only the forehead portion would be seen, my long hair would drape well over the rest.

more likely to be in a nurse's office though, is a hero in a movie of the same era. he would hit his knee and get a cute patti on the head with a blob of blood showing on the temple. he would have to be tall to carry this off well- mithun and amitabh were very convincing cute-patti-sporters. nothing says macho, yet vulnerable, like a cute patti on the forehead of a tall hero, eh?

but the puffect bandage scenario would have to be the mother who falls in front of a car, scraping her knee and getting a p. on head. this is a patti of a different ilk - not particularly cute. shaped more like a helmet, it is wrapped around the forehead, sides of face and chin so as to present to the audience the maximum impact of wounded motherhood.

found some bandage-bustingly funny reviews at bollybob. a sample:
"the ultimate fate of every widowed mother in India is to receive a head wound" - from a review of Taarzaan- the wonder car

"Ruby (Amrita Singh) is a notably PECULIAR girl. I say notably, because she's even more peculiar than the characters Amrita usually plays. Bollywood directors loved to see Amrita Singh do two things: flamenco dance and get playfully tortured." from a review of Mard

(the bollybob link was suddenly down, keep trying)

for those of you for whom patti means grandmother, this is a very weird post.
for the rest of you, it's only mildly weird.