Beyond the Girl in Purple

I begin this entry of mine by making a quiet protest that I am not infatuated with death (The person who has accused me of this and about whom this blog is being written about will understand the context). This entry of mine is all about life and all its realities that make death seem like a fiesta at times ;). The camera pans back to an extremely uncomfortable couch in one of the the many CCDs on a rainy afternoon which was fortunately Floyd infested. The complete setting was so perfect that whatever happened subsequently was almost like an inevitability. A girl who is dressed in purple (a colour that defines her nomenclature in this entry) and a chain reaction of hysteria, excitement, helplessness and to a certain degree a comedy of the highest proportions. The melange of the characters experiencing these feelings was as diverse as it could be. The protagonist (the guy in red) possesses what he calls a “female terrorized” mind. Then there is the BW who is almost a married man. And finally there is me; the unbiased cog in the whole process to whom the job to analyze the whole situation in a mature manner finally falls. The setting was perfect, the elements were diverse, the girl was cute and the music was Floyd. That is how perfect it all was.

I am not going to narrate the entire sequence of events that took place. The protagonist has done in his blog (http://www.22crossroads.blogspot.com/). I am also not going to write down the contents of the napkin (which I wrote and the guy who marooed the “YOU will never get a GIRL comment and most other comments mentioned in the blog) because I believe that I will respect the privacy of “The Shy, Sophisticated Guy in Red” and also that I don’t really remember much of what I wrote. My job here is primarily to make a postmortem of all the events that happened and what are the consequences of that fateful afternoon. Disclaimer: If you are looking for a smart witty piece of writing, I strongly advise you to stop reading because I am not going to trivialize the whole issue.

All three of us in CCD that day have been friends for a long time and are pretty well aware of each others’ tendencies to react to social situations. The girl in purple represented a social challenge for us at a time when all three of us were lamenting about the fact that we were growing up too quickly. The female donned in purple and all the events that happened because of her represented what it was like when growing up was still a distant reality. Kevin Arnold (the kid in The Wonder Years) once said “Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers; the next day you're gone.But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul.” That afternoon at CCD we weren’t actually reminiscing about what our childhood days were like because our primal concerns were oriented around neo adult concepts like ‘pick up lines’ and their likes. What it all represented (I feel) was a shimmering reminder of simpler times when romance came without any of the mundaneness of reality. Th guy in red albeit a loser with girls is almost a hopeless romantic so will fail to see this point of mine. But for people like me who have seen and understood (Ahem!) the real romance at close quarters understand that it is overrated. But that rainy afternoon all such misgivings had faded away because we really thought that the girl in purple was this absolutely magical human being who could touch the life of our loser friend and maybe make a human being out of him. We even thought that she looked like Ana Ivanovic (To the guy in red: I was surprised that you did not write this in your blog). That girl had brought back for the briefest of moments the kind of lives we lead in school. Although we pretended that the complete basis of our actions were based on the fact that we were now old enough to go up and talk to arbit women in coffee houses; our excitement was still very congruent to the kind of glee we found in school under similar circumstances.

I don’t really care much about the girl in purple now. Possibly she is horribly devoid of any gray matter (who orders sandwiches in CCD? Bah!). But what I cherish is the times she reminded me of. I will always cherish the rainy afternoon when my friends and I relived the best days of our lives and had unadulterated fun under the dark clouds of pseudo adulthood. That’s all I really care about actually. I sincerely hope that the shy, sophisticated guy in red finds the one and lives happily ever after and may the girl in purple never have to haggle with the waiters in any coffee shop again. I also wish that by some happy turn of events all three of us land up in scenario like this again and next time maybe the protagonist could write a blog titled “The girl in the United Jersey who loved the way I talk!”. Cheers mate.

Nothing but Words

Dear Aradhana,

It’s been a long time since I have managed to write to you. I am doing fine and after a brief struggle everything finally seems to be falling in place. It is really tempting for me at this point in time to say that I love you, but frankly speaking, I don’t. I am sorry Aradhana but right now I am in a place in life where I cannot use this four letter word loosely. I hope you will understand. You really are very special to me and there is no point in writing or feeling the kind of things you wrote. Hope to hear more from you soon.

Abhay Mathur

Dear Abhay,

I owe you an apology for overreacting the way I did. I completely understand that the circumstances that surround you do restrict the room for such indulgence. I guess I will always be the callous girl who craves for way too much attention. I have no qualms about saying that I love you and that I always will. At the same time it is selfish of me to expect you to reciprocate my feelings. Things were very different before you went away and I still tend to latch on to those memories. Silly me! Don’t worry about me. I will make my peace with this one way or the other. It is good to hear that you are finally finding your feet at Harvard. You are destined for bigger things in life. Write back if you want to.

Aradhana Sharma

Dear Aradhana,

Your last mail was very disconcerting. I am not myopic enough to overlook the obviousness of what you were trying to tell me. What you do not understand is that things are different here. Back in Kolkata I was a different person altogether. I was disillusioned and was being pulled in a thousand different directions from inside. Here in Harvard I can finally see what I want to do in life. My dad has slogged away his entire life to get me where I am today. So my first priority is obviously to make something of myself first. I hope you appreciate this. We were great together and hopefully in the future we can carry forward from where we left off. Right now that future is distant. Things here are fine. How is work? Keep replying.

Abhay Mathur

Dear Abhay,

I have always taken a certain degree of pride in my inherent composure but you are really pushing me to my tipping point. First you disappear for 8 months without a trace and then after my repeated mails you write to me one fine day to tell me that you do not love me. I completely appreciate your need to make something of yourself but before you went away I was a part of that future. Now it is shrouded in the ambiguity of distance. Right now I feel immensely stupid for having tried to cajole you into giving “us” another chance. i will not use the usual cheesy lines and accuse you of being selfish or insensitive and just a plain arrogant bastard. All I can tell you Mr. Mathur at this point in time is that I always thought that we will end up together but now I am mighty glad that we never will. Please don’t write back

Aradhana Sharma

Mr. Mathur read these words and felt a little moist at the base of his eyelids. His male ego had always hindered the process of crying but this was overwhelming. “After all these years it comes to this?” he thought to himself. He took off his spectacles and wiped the tears. He knew he had to be strong. He did not know why though because all reasons of existence had somehow faded away. He leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes. A dull throbbing pain was drumming away inside his head. He did not bother though because considering the situation he was in he thought that a headache is equivalent to a Christmas gala. Aradhana was a girl who truly cared and thus he just could not let her go. He just had to write to her and let her know that even he meant well and that things really were different. But he could not tell her everything that happened. She really would be devastated.

Mr. Mathur shrugged off all the melancholy and sat up to reply to Aradhana’s mail with all the vigour that his sixty year old body allowed him. Before he started typing he glanced at the smiling face of a young man in the picture frame in front of him and broke down completely. He was sobbing like a petulant child. This was completely understandable because it really isn’t easy for a father to continue to keep the appearances of a son who had died eight months ago in an air crash; on his way to temples of higher education. Mr. Raghavendra Mathur sat up and with tears dripping on the key board wrote…

Dear Aradhana,

This is my last mail to you. I really hope that you understand that……

The Top Ten

For an apathetic blogger like me writing is like a seductive mistress. It calls for a lot of attention and craves for massive indulgence but is somehow forced to take a backseat because of the mundane realities of this space time continuum. After a long and rather tedious exercise of (supposed) thinking I figured that the most pragmatic course of action for me to take in order to kick start my near dead blog again would be to write about something that allows me to be opinionated, judgmental, didactic and obviously linguistically generous. Thus I decided to do something that I have been putting off for a long time… to finally put up my list of top 10 movies. Now this list has been made considering all movies I have ever seen irrespective of their language. No Hindi movie makes it to the top 10 although there is a Bengali movie here. Now the basic thought (for me) that goes behind ‘rating’ a movie is that I have always believed that cinema in essence s literature in motion. A good movie is like a good book and just like a book one should not feel cheated/violated/insulted/mangled after watching a movie. So without further ado here is my list of top 10 movies. Please be kind enough to post your thoughts about them.

Number Ten: Dr Zhivago

The most effective way of describing this movie would be to simply state that watching Dr. Zhivago is like cuddling up inside a quilt on a cold winter morning and reading the works of a Russian master. This particular film with all its subtle drama somehow has a very soothing effect and makes one truly believe in the power of human expression. A hopeless romantic who is an unabashed poet and an aspiring medical practitioner and his struggles during the Russian revolution is what forms the backbone of this movie. Much like the book this movie has several political overtones but that does not in any way shroud the sheer magnificence of the romantic vision. The ice palace seen will forever be etched in the minds of the people who have seen this movie. But the most defining aspect of this movie is the character of Lara… a girl so torn apart from within and yet such power! This movie is a treat both for the senses and the sensibilities.

Number Nine: All the President's Men

This particular movie without doubt is one of the most politically compelling movies of all times and yet has been treated as a massive understatement in its making (I hope that makes sense). Based on a book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, this movie is about the adventures of two young journalists during one of the most significant periods of American political history. The theatrical poster of the movie proclaimed it to be “The most devastating detective story of this century.” Smart screenplay, taut dialogues, controlled performances and supremely smart direction makes this movie one of the most gripping movies of all times. The scenes where deep throat has his clandestine meetings with Woodward are exquisitely shot. At the end of the movies one wonders why the producers ever cared about paying Hoffman and Redford for this movie. Both of them were so damned naturally adaptive to their roles that they barely needed to act.

Number Eight:

For the eight spot there is tie between two movies. One of them is a suave and sophisticated thriller starring Humphrey Bogart and the other one is heart wrenching tale of the trials and tribulations of a young woman.

The Maltese Falcon

This is a quintessential spy movie where distraught albeit enigmatic blonde walks into the office of the ever so charismatic detective and pleads for help. What follows next is an absolute roller coaster ride of murder, deception, heady romances and immense thrills. The story concerns the entanglement of a San Francisco private investigator with three greedy, unscrupulous and murderous adventurers who compete with each other to obtain a fabulous jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon worth millions. Smart and crisp dialogues coupled by the sheer charm of a certain Humphrey Bogart this movie will keep you riveted till the very end.

Meghe Dhaka Tara

This is the tale of Neeta, a beautiful young woman who lives with her family, refugees from East Pakistan in the suburbs of Calcutta. Nita is a self-sacrificing person who is constantly exploited by everyone around her, even her own family, who take her goodness for granted. The director of the movie is a certain Ritwik Ghatak who is one of the greatest exponents of cinema this country has ever seen. Meghe Dhaka Tara is strongly melodramatic in tone, especially as concerns the sufferings heaped on the protagonist. As in many of his other films, Ghatak also uses surrealistic sound effects, such as sounds of a lashing as the heroine suffers yet another tragic twist of fate. The line “Dada aami baachte chai” (Brother, I want to live) at the end of the movie is possibly the most potent lines in Bengali cinema.

Number Seven: Godfather I and II

It is really hard to differentiate between these two movies because both the movies are as good as the other one. Godfather I is characterised by the power of Marlon Brando and the silent confidence of Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. The second movie on the other hand is driven by the power of narrative coupled what can arguably be described as Al Pacino’s finest hour on the silver screen. There is nothing much that can be said about these movies that hasn’t already been said. All I can say is that after watching these movies I felt dwarfed by the sheer genius of the writer and the vision of the director.

Number Six: Twelve Angry Men

This is a movie which represents two very contradicting characteristics. On one hand this is possibly one of the greatest directorial ventures of the last century and on the other hand it is also possibly the most underrated movie of all times. (It was the movie’s misfortune to release in the same year as another classic A Bridge on the River Kwai) The plot is very simple. Twelve jury men deciding the fate of a murder suspect does not qualify as much of a story but the immense work put behind shaping the character of each of the men is awe inspiring. Within that room the director (I believe) attempts to represent a dissection the erstwhile societal thinking patterns through the characters who display their insecurities, beliefs, biases and their whims. This is a movie that thrills you, keeps you gripped and makes you think. Kudos to a true classic!

The rest of the movies will follow very soon. Stay Tuned!!