The Way Love Should Be

(Here are a few reasons why I love the movie ‘Lootera‘ the way I do.)

1. An uncluttered, unhurried, calming, fragile, persistent, volatile and passionate love-the only way love should be.

2.  There are people who can fall in love only after quiet (and careful) appraisal of becoming qualities, years of getting to know the intricacies of the life of the desired one and adequate consideration of practical matters. I am not one of them. I tend to fall in love with someone I barely know, attracted not merely by physicality or any obvious charms, but acting on an alarmingly vague, overwhelming and irrepressible instinct. It’s neither love at first sight nor a fleeting attraction, but a faint inkling of a love that is sure to come. And I secretly indulge it.

In the movie, I could relate to it when she knows she is going to fall in love with him the moment she sets her eyes on him. It engulfs her in a delightful frenzy anticipating what is to come. At first she adopts covert glances and quiet contemplation, mortified that he might know; but soon fear is overpowered by desire and she continually tries to hold his gaze. On the wrong assumption that he paints, she pesters her father to convince him to teach her painting. His lack of artistic skills is soon revealed, and she offers to be his teacher, as later, she matter-of-factly reveals to her friend “because the class has to go on.” Her shy, clumsy and painfully obvious (to him) attempts to connect with him, anyhow, because the restlessness that his absence brings about is unbearable, is endearing.

3. At a time when infinite possibilities enticed and love seemed so near, the dearest desire of her heart was to be snowbound in a cottage at the hills and write and write. “I want to write a lot of books”, she confides in him, radiant in the surety of its realization. The next year sees her snowbound in a dimly lit room in a cottage in the hills, surrounded by piles of books, a sheaf of papers on her desk, a pen in her hand, a glimpse of the near naked branches of an autumnal tree through the parted curtains, the same songs on the radio, and a fresh haul of unresolved, unexplored emotions that is always the prelude to writing a story.

Yet she is incapable of venturing beyond the first few lines, her growing despair echoing in the nib noisily scratching out sentences and the pile of crumpled paper at her feet. Something had died and she is unable to fathom it. The picture of her dearest wish, the one that she had so enthusiastically shared with him, was complete…yet what was the missing variable that incapacitated her writing? Was it hope? Was it love? Or were they but different names of what she had lost? Dreams are always interlaced with the implicit understanding that the joy of their fulfilment will include sharing it with the ones we love. The angst of loss is well-depicted.

4. That era. And the details that brings it alive on screen. The ritual of stretched-out evenings of conversations. The amorous glow of antique oil lamps. Intricate china patterns. Women who dressed up with infinite precision. Well-groomed men with sleek hair. Car rides. Poetry. Theatres. Art. Chivalry and charm. The entire household humming along to the song on the radio. Long, unhurried walks. The allure of the unsaid. Slowness. Subtlety.

5. Pampered and protected by an indulgent father who stroked her hair and told her stories that began with “once upon a time…”, her perceptions and understanding of the world were confined to that obtained from these stories and the books she read. She was undemanding and unspoilt, yet used to the complacency of easily fulfilled desires. Until he came along; unattainable, out of reach. His aloofness confused, disturbed and angered her. She simply failed to understand why he couldn’t love her immediately and just as intensely. She couldn’t bring herself to confess her love outright, and his continuous rebuffs to her every approach caused her uncontrolled agony and anger. He tells her, “Behtar hoga aap jaaiye” (You better leave),  and she replies, “Behtar hoga aap mar jaaiyen” (You better die).

6. His control vs her impulsiveness. His realism vs her dreams. His prudence vs the transparency of her every feeling. His practicality vs her protected cocoon. Why then, why did they fall in love? But then…why not?

7. She sits in his room alone, trying on his hat and jacket, his unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. It reminded me of the passage from Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake where Ashima secretly slips her foot into the shoe of the man she would end up marrying. Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence is wholly centred around this theme of the quiet thrill of being close to mementoes of love.

8. The songs. Amit Trivedi brings in an effortless grace and old world charm to them. Sawaar Loon, Zinda and Manmarziyaan grows on you, sparking off nostalgia with delicate tunes and soulful lyrics.

badal rahi hai aaj zindagi ki chaal zara,

isi bahane kyon na main bhi dil ka haal zara… …sawaar loon

9. Longing. He declines her love (and she is unaware of his reasons), but as the hour of his departure from her life approaches, the fear of never seeing him makes her knock on his door and voice her fear with an earnestness that breaks the heart. She wordlessly asks him to love her. And he does, with a tenderness that breaks the heart again.

When he leaves her cottage, she remains in bed torn between her irrepressible love and abject hatred for him. He walks on for a while but finally succumbs to the longing to be with her and returns. When he walks into her room again, just when she had thought she would never see him again, her stare is a mixture of disbelief, contempt, anger, concealed love and secret relief. It’s so hard to say, ‘don’t go. stay‘ when self-esteem, ego, past anguish and fear of indifference creeps in and paralyses us. The core of so many unsaid wishes is the joy of an unexpected (yet constantly yearned for) return, of love knocking on your door.

10. There is this scene. He sits on a canopy bed, lost in a haze of overhanging net curtains. She sits on a chair, with her feet up on his bed, lost in writing a new story. In a gaze that creates a lump of joy in the chest, he observes her writing.

Are you writing a story?

Yes.

Is there a boy in it? 

Yes.

Is there a girl in it?

Yes.

Are they in love?

No.

Are they about to fall in love?

And he continues to whisper questions that she delights in answering. It is such a serene and palpable moment of tenderness. 

11. The subtle humour. The enactment of how Dev Anand fights ‘aise jhoolte hue’ and still manages to keep his perfectly coiffed hair intact, and the camaraderie the two friends share. The way she bullies the chauffeur to teach her how to drive. The upsurge and the quick downfall of the bravado of the caretaker at the cottage that involves an unloaded pistol. He finally reveals his name to her and they double over in laughter at the absurdity of it. She accuses him of harbouring lust and questions his intentions, and he takes one look at her dishevelled appearance, the dark shadows under her eyes, her sickly pallor, the unruly hair and replies with a straight face, “Haan, aajkal itni haseen jo lag rahi ho tum” (Obviously, you look so appealing these days). 

12. The compelling performances. Sonakshi shines and looks ethereal, and redeems herself as an actor of calibre. Ranveer exudes brilliance and works the silences well to give a subdued performance. And there is the rest of the superb cast. The indulgent father whose world revolves around his daughter. The funny friend and (literally) partner-in-crime. The brief but noteworthy cameo of Arif Zakaria. Adil Hussain enthralls, and the cop-and-robber chase makes for a captivating (sic) visual.

13. The timelessness of love overwhelmed me anew. The past brims with infinite loves-fulfilled or unrequited, doomed or persistent, told or untold, nuanced or awkward-but love all the same. The love that exists now will someday be lost in the myriad of the untold and bygone. A melancholic realization.

14. The awe-inspiring cinematography has a poetic quality about it and effortlessly bewitches us with the charms of an bygone era. The minimalistic treatment, cutting off the excesses and curbing the tendency to overplay the drama, is a welcome relief. And the thing I loved the most is that it is a Hindi movie which is not afraid of long silences and doesn’t feel the need to cram every scene with dialogues. It amplified and lingered the effect of the doomed love.

15. It’s in his gaze, the intensity of which develops the unnerving feeling that he is quietly unmasking her innermost desires. It’s in the way he loves her, flawed and hidden, yet true and persistent. It’s in his shy smiles. It’s in his effortless charm. It’s in the subdued and visibly unrestrained tenderness when he seeks redemption for the hurt he caused her. And lastly, it is in the quiet gestures of love and nurturing. It is in ‘the last leaf’.

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The Week

Book: Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction, selected by Joyce Carol Oates and Christopher R. Beha. Out of the forty-eight stories in the anthology, I have read 1-900 by Richard Bausch, Lavande by Ann Beattie, Off by Aimee Bender, The Love of My Life by T.C.Boyle, The Identity Club by Richard Burgin, Aurora by Junot Diaz, Reunion by Richard Ford, The Girl on The Plane by Mary Gaitskill, ‘Adina, Astrid, Chipewee, Jasmine‘ by Matthew Klam, Once in A Lifetime by Jhumpa Lahiri and Incarnations of Burned Children by David Foster Wallace. Each story is a revelation in how words can be stringed together in myriad ways to hurl the reader into a space rife with characters so well-sketched that it takes only a couple of pages before an involuntary familiarity is fostered. The plots vary from being elaborate and including multiple time leaps to ordinary encounters. What keeps the pages turning is the versatility of the content and style of these accomplished writers. Little nuggets of pure bliss.

Film: Often they are larger-than-life, crude and garish, but no one can deny how Hindi films have marked us with its invisible stamp of magnanimous dreams, instilled an inevitable sense of drama, bound us with shared memories of favourite moments from the screen, and made us unabashed (or closet) romantics. And yes, there is a song for every emotion and situation. I watched Bombay Talkies last weekend. I won’t judge how true the four stories were to the common theme because each one of them brought in a new wave of delight. Each one told a story in twenty-five minutes, and told it well.

Karan Johar‘s story is about the angst of a man who has veiled his sexuality under the institution of marriage, the longing of a woman to be desired by the man she married, the overwhelming attraction of a gay man towards the husband of a close friend; and the confused, tender, passionate and brief entanglement of these three lives that changes them forever. Till date the only poignant film that I had watched about two men in love, devoid of stereotypes and caricatures, is Brokeback Mountain. And now in this film even though the moments were fleeting, Randeep Hooda brings in a passion, sensuality, repressed desire and tenderness that is incomparable. Rani Mukherjee had never looked more beautiful and real. Dibakar Banerjee‘s story is run by the genius of two men, Banarjee himself and the lead actor, Nawazuddin’s flawless performance of a common man with big dreams that loses steam after the first few steps on the road to realize them. He craves glorious destinations without the ordeals of the journey, and wants it all without questioning his own potential and calibre. And he has a pet Emu (‘ooi-ma’ to his neighbours :P) named Anjali! Zoya Akhtar questions if our dreams and ambitions should be tailored to meet the approval of society and be within the rigid constraints of conventionality. A little boy is torn between his uncontrollable urge to be a dancer and gyrate like the on-screen ‘Sheila‘, and his father’s desire of seeing him ace the football games at school. When his father hits him for dressing up in his sister’s clothes and applying lipstick, self-realization dawns that certain dreams are best indulged in secrecy till the right time arrives. His relationship with his sister is quite adorable too. Anurag Kashyap‘s story is witty, hugely entertaining and yet sad in the very premise of how the masses deify their screen idols, putting lives on hold for a mere glimpse or word from them. The delight of watching this particular story was comparable to that of reading a short story by Saki.

Food: Given that my mother harbours the delusion that someday I would consider getting married to one of the potential suitors whose names get dropped not so subtly in her conversations with me, the few strands of prematurely grey hair on her head is partly attributed to her long standing worry that my (future) in-laws and husband would use my complete apathy towards cooking to judge her  parenting skills. Last weekend to appease her, I tuned into the Nigella Lawson show and diligently noted down few recipes. On Sunday morning, after a short struggle with the blender that involved the batter flying in all directions, I ended up baking a delicious chocolate cake…all on my own! And my mother’s frown lines were miraculously wiped off as she ate the first piece of the cake.

Everything else: I am relieved and somewhat surprised at the abrupt lightness of being brought on by the fading of a face into the darkest and deepest recesses of memory, because I wasn’t even aware how a quiet yearning had weighed me down for years. I watched a documentary on the quaint town of Omori in Japan.The Gulmohar tree outside my window is covered in blazing red blossoms. I no longer follow the IPL matches. I painted my nails coral pink. And the heart beats wildly in anticipation of a long awaited change.

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Where is a good crow when you want to follow one?

A bowl of crisps, rain outside my window, a soft bed and the cinematic pursuit of five nights.

The Color of Paradise (Iranian): A blind boy gifts his grandmother a green hair clip and she lovingly pins it onto her dress, the sisters accept a necklace made out of tin bottle caps and a comb; treasuring the gifts of love thoughtfully selected by one who couldn’t see them. Traipsing around the Iranian countryside, Mohammed’s life is colored by the same joys that occupy the lives of ten year olds. He wonders what lay beyond the forest he couldn’t see but knows is near. He is exasperated by the questionable reading skills of the boys of the local school. His fingers move fast across the notebook in Braille as a curious teacher looks on, and the same fingers study the rhythms of nature. He wonders what the birds talk about, and the call of the woodpecker fascinates him. He touches his sister’s face and is amazed at how much she has grown up in the past year. He adores his grandmother and craves his father’s acceptance and love. He has his moments of grief, breaking down the wall of joy and self-reliance he has created so painstakingly. He doesn’t expect much from this world, but his father does from him. The man’s insistence on a ‘normal’ life free of responsibilities of taking care of a blind child, and hopes of getting re-married bring about a slew of personal tragedies abruptly overthrowing the veiled paradise he inhabited but failed to recognize. It’s a cornerstone of cinematic excellence, yet the end left me in dismay.

My Neighbours, the Yamadas (Japanese): Pimple-faced, overtly self-conscious and perpetually lazy teenager, Noboru, receives a phone call from a girl. Now, that’s a first in his life and also in the family’s collective set of events. Grandmother, mother and sister lives up to their uncontrollable levels of curiosity and eavesdrop shamelessly on the phone conversation.

Grandmother: “Does he have a girlfriend? With his looks?”

Mother: “A real girlfriend?”

Sister: “His face is red!”

Boy tackles the huddle of curious women with a few menacing glances, they cower away. He rushes back to his room.

Mother: “You insulted him, Mother!”

Grandmother: “And you are the paragon of motherhood!!”

 The movie is filled with vignettes of the life of a middle-class family in Japan but rings true for families across the world. The panic of losing their little daughter in a crowded shopping mall, confronting hooligan bikers in their neighborhood, finding the black hole that shelters lost socks, the politics of deciding dinner menu, the fight over the television remote that can shame any Kung Fu enthusiast, the frisky and headstrong grandmother with a disposition for cooking unpronounceable dishes, the ever-frazzled and clumsy mother, the aimless and all knowing teenager, the smart sister, the dynamics of a ‘real’ marriage of a tough and harmonious couple; the movie chronicles what it is like to be a family, cruising on the same boat of Life, and not always steering in the same direction. Witty and endearing, this movie is a delight.

A Separation (Iranian): Sometimes it’s nobody’s fault, but circumstances need only a tiny shove to spiral into the bounds of no return. A dutiful son taking care of his Alzheimer-afflicted father, a wife who needs some fresh air out of a monotonous life, a precocious eleven year old daughter anxious about her parents imminent separation. And then there is the family of the caretaker who is hired to take care of the Alzheimer patient. There is a lapse of duty, a fit of anger, a scuffle and loss of the caretaker’s unborn child. There is anger, legal complications follow, love is tested, distrust ensues and facades fall as each person struggle to hold on to what they dearly love. And just when things settle down to an amiable decision, befitting all involved, mere words destroy it all,  unraveling what binds them together. It’s a slice of life movie with achingly real characters. Sometimes despite every effort, things fall apart. And we wish life wasn’t so complicated. And we wish communication was easy. And even compromise.

How to Make an American Quilt: She followed a crow’s flight at the wake of dawn, wrapped in a quilt to shield against the autumn chill, and true love awaited her at the end of it. Was the crow a symbol? I’m still working on that. Finn is flighty when it comes to completing her Masters thesis, and her boyfriend has just proposed. She accepts because it isn’t an unreasonable age to get married. She goes to live with her grandmother and grandaunt to work on her thesis, and encounters a motley bunch of quilt-makers who are all set to make her wedding quilt. And while Finn struggles with her ideas of the impermanence of marriage, monogamy and the charms of a local boy, the quilt-makers each bring their distinctive pattern into the quilt and the stories behind these quilt patches help Finn course her way through indecisiveness, infidelity and finding love. Six stories of love, loss, passion, tolerance, togetherness, trust and hope. It’s a pleasure to watch the lovely Winona Ryder, and Maya Angelou too (bibliophile hangover). I am always on the lookout for crows now, but where is a good crow when you want to follow one?

 

 

Where is the Friend’s Home? (Iranian): This movie is about a eight year old boy, Ahmed, who accidentally slips in his bench-mate’s copy in his bag and is traumatized by the thought of his bench-mate’s expulsion from school on failing to hand over the homework the next day. The film chronicles his search for his friend’s home in a nearby district and the people he encounters in his search. It is a simple story, nothing superfluous. And this lack of a crowded plot and interesting deviations can be a killjoy for a certain section of audience, but it’s a delight for my heart overflowing with the love for Iranian movies. One gets the feeling of running alongside Ahmed in his quest for his friend’s home. A lovely watch.

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Hills

“Mod”, the movie I watched this weekend. I had always been a Nagesh Kukunoor fan, enraptured by his simple storytelling in Dor and Hyderabad Blues.

Loopholes and unwanted subplots abound; there is an unimaginative “Mod” (turn) in the story, and few sequences were rushed and repetitive. But I didn’t want it to end.

I wanted to keep watching the sun peeping through the misty mornings of the charming hill town of Ganga, waking up to steaming cups of coffee, the unhurried existence, rides up the winding mountain roads in an old bike, the quaint clock repair shop, the delightful “Kishore Kumar fan” father, the fun and assertive aunt, the girl wooed by poems and poetry and the tender love story bloom. The movie had so many elements that I liked and wanted to see more of, but sadly they reached a plateau a bit too soon and got lost in the cacophony of the titular “Mod”.

But I would watch this poetic fable again, despite shortcomings, for it’s a Kukunoor film and he delivers some of the charming elements I looked forward to. Just like I would keep returning to every Pamuk novel, even if certain pages get tedious, because of the familiarity of prose that speak directly to me; I would return to “Mod” again.

The hills did it for me.

I explored another small hill town, Shillong, in the book I had been reading in stolen pockets of time over the past fortnight. Shillong had always been a favorite weekend getaway, owing to its proximity to Guwahati. The unruly rain that disobeyed all weather forecasts, tree-lined paths, frosty mornings, the old world charm of cottages and churches, the buzz of the market selling shoes a size too small for me, the cafes and eateries with impromptu performances, the rock music fans, the kwai chewing gentle souls, the undulating hills, waterfalls and brooks veiled in lush greenery; I had been a good tourist and fell in love with all these long ago. I never gave much thought what it would be like to live in Shillong, the town that held strawberry pie bake-offs, skinny dipping contests on New Year’s Eve, and has created generations of people who breathed music and religiously held Dylan concerts. I never wondered what it’d feel like waking up to the cold, invigorating air and a foggy breath every morning of my life. Or what it would be like to walk the rain-washed, grey pavements on a regular basis; will the rain depress me? Will the pine trees smell equally enticing after I rest under their shade for the fiftieth time?

I had been born and raised in the plains, where the pollution and dust to greenery ratio escalated every year. I need a Shillong break every year, but will the small town charm captivate me for a longer period?

I found answers in Anjum Hasan’s “Lunatic in my Head”. The book had piqued my interest because of the author’s origins in North-East India. The prose is subtle, poetic and rich. It follows the lives of three individuals who are strangers yet are bound to each other through acquaintances, circumstances and destinies. They lead parallel lives with events ranging from joyous to that of disgust, occurring almost simultaneously. The central protagonist is the small town of Shillong, how it binds them, shapes their destinies, creates in them a desire to escape and finally their reconciliation to their place of existence.

There is Firadaus, a thirty something lecturer who is entangled in her world of completing a PhD thesis on Jane Austen’s work, a young Manipuri boyfriend, an orthodox grandfather and submission to living her entire life in Shillong. The second character is Aman, an IAS aspirant, who feels Roger Waters writes songs inspired by his letters to him, and has a group of rock enthusiasts for friends. He loves a Khasi girl for whom Pink Floyd is just another band and this depresses him, along with his IAS preparation, his aloof parents and his own timidity. And there is eight year old Sophie who loves to smile when her parents smile, and convinces herself that she must have been adopted. Her world is about a mother who was pregnant a for a tad too long, a father who hopes for a job to fall into his lap, a kind Khasi landlady and her disturbingly provocative son, her school and the constant need to please Miss Wilson, her novels and the character of Anna.

These three lives are entwined subtly, each individual unaware of each other’s presence till they intersect for a brief moment once. The narrative is compelling and experimental, and the characters and subplots are well sketched out.

Nothing extraordinary happens in small towns, cocooned from the rest of the world, moving in their own unhurried pace. This happens in Shillong too. This happens to Firadaus, Aman and Sophie too. Nothing extraordinary happens, there are no twists and turns. The monotonous existence, the claustrophobia that brings about a longing to escape, the love of familiarity and fear of unknown that binds the residents of such towns to it; all such emotions are well-depicted in the book. Emotions, landscapes, individuals all come to life in Hasan’s vibrant prose. The melancholy of this small town that tourists overlook is palpable throughout the narrative.

I loved the book and highly recommend ‘ Lunatic in my head’. The hills had done it for me again.

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