Did you see your parents kiss?

Last Sunday, Charlie and I watched Titanic for movie night to see if it still holds up.

First, it totally does. Do I query why an old woman would fly in a helicopter to a large ship with a goldfish, a dog and many pictures of only herself? Of course - death admin is bad enough without having to get a goldfish bowl helicoptered back off a ship.

Also, how much can one love their children if they throw a ginormous diamond into the ocean instead of passing it down as a boon to a thunderously terrible downturn in luck? Especially when they came on to the ship with you and listened to your really long story? What good is the diamond going to do down there in the sea lady, the economy is running rings round all of us up here above water.

Do you know how hard it is to keep a water filled bowl from smashing in a helicopter

I digress.

The strangest thing about Titanic was rewatching the first sex scene I ever saw on screen. I was back in my twelve year old body, sitting next to my dad at Hoyts Cinema, trying not to breathe or move a muscle in case it made things weirder than they already were.

It was even stranger when I realised that, as a thirty-eight year old, I still experience a palpable silence so deafening that I have to diffuse it with a joke. I think I’ve stumbled upon the genesis of my comedy career and it’s the desperate need to end the silence during sex scenes on screen.

Does this also make everyone else think about their dad

Let me wind back.

It was all about the Titanic when my family moved to Perth in my twelfth year of life. Everyone around me talked about the movie - I knew all about Jack, Rose, Leo and Kate - they were obsessed so I was obsessed. I begged for the Titanic t-shirt, then I begged for the Titanic poster.

But there was a gaping Titanic shaped hole in my knowledge because I’d never watched the movie. My mum had said no multiple times and we had many fights about how unfair it was that I wasn’t allowed to see the biggest movie in the world about the most unsinkable boat that sank with two hot people on it.

I wasn’t allowed because Mum had heard there was a lot of kissing before the boat went down. Kissing was a no go zone in our home. On television or in real life.

In real life, my parents showed no physical affection to each other in public. It was a classic South Asian household with love shown through food, books and Nandos when good report cards came back. We grew up in a classic Sri Lankan community where no adults kissed each other on the mouth. I was in my mid-20s before I started saying I love you to my parents and I was in my early 30s before my dad moved beyond responding me too.

On television - before arriving in Perth, we lived in Oman and Dubai where kissing scenes in anything was edited out. I watched a lot of tv shows and movies where the faces got closer and closer together in what seemed to be a very serious and silent situation. Then it was day time in the next scene. I couldn’t help feeling that I was missing a key piece of the adult puzzle.

The mystery wasn’t any clearer when we went back home to Sri Lanka. We watched many Bollywood movies where the faces got closer and closer together then cut to a song with synchronised dance moves where both move leads looked ecstatic, gyrating to the beat.

K3G remains my fav Bollywood movie, fight me

All I knew about kissing was from books like Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club which reported on nice gentle kisses from their steady boyfriend (Elizabeth with Todd and MaryAnne with Logan) every now and then. And sex? I knew nothing. I knew there was something important that happened with clothes off but that was about it.

But now I was brand new in Australia and everyone knew everything about everything. And I wanted to watch this movie that everyone was talking about so I could fit in.

So I begged and I begged. I did what every kid innately learns to do - target the more malleable parent (dad) to get them to wear down the firmer parent (mum). It took weeks, which is years in kid time, but mum finally agreed that I could go with two important conditions - I could only go with dad and I had to close my eyes in all the adult scenes.

I said what I had to say, to get into that cinema. Once I was in there, I did not shut my eyes and dad was too distracted to make sure I was adhering to the rules of my viewing approval.

It was so weird. I saw things I couldn’t unsee, didn’t understand and couldn’t wait to discuss at school the next day. I also thought Kate Winslet had phenomenal boobs and people should talk about them more.

When we got back to our house my mum asked if I’d closed my eyes like I said I would and I tried to pick what was worse - not doing the thing I was supposed to do or lying about it. I decided the latter was worse so I said no I didn’t and she looked at dad frustrated and dad said, I thought she had her eyes closed, it looked like she did even though all three of us knew that all eyes remained open for Kate Winslet’s boobs.

It did mark a shift in our household that my younger brother benefited from - mum stopped recording shows and movies off the tv, watching them first, editing out the kissing scenes and then letting us watch them. I also started health education in school which added quite a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.

But every time we watched anything as a family that had a steamy scene, I would feel that deafening silence and always try to say something funny out loud.

I haven’t felt the need to crack jokes with Charlie during sex scenes, except for during this particular movie. He grew up in a household that was much more open with physical affection and he did not appreciate my ongoing commentary. I guess some childhood trauma lies buried very, very deep - around where Rose’s diamond lays buried today.

All this to say, I think this is how I became a comedian. Thank you Titanic and the South Asian culture of never kissing in public or talking about sex.

I hope you’re all well out there - we’re on the home stretch to the end of the year - how?

If you’re in Australia - I’m doing the last five shows of my Boundaries tour in Vic and NSW and I’m on Have You Been Paying Attention next Monday! It’s my first time on commercial television and I’m 90% excited and 10% shitting bricks.

If you’re outside Australia - thanks for reading. I have news coming for you but I have to sit on it a little bit longer before I can yell it from the rooftops.

Big hugs

Sashi