A film over your eyes

DELITE, 6.30 pm. The film is on. I hate to see women cry. So I turn to her. What is its theme, I ask. She is engrossed in Hum Aapke Dil M...

DELITE, 6.30 pm. The film is on. I hate to see women cry. So I turn to her. What is its theme, I ask. She is engrossed in Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rahte Hein and does not answer. I go on anyhow: is it Paternity-Modernity, Tradition-Freedom, Old custom-New wine, Devoted nari-Friendly husband, Old-Novel, Bad-Good? I become garrulous inside a film hall, I cringe from overcharged scenes, I hold my popcorn tighter, I put my arm on the steel of the other seat where the shoulders are, I absolutely do not look at the screen. I am afraid I might sob, I find faults; if I become excited or angry, I turn heroic and stay that way even 30 minutes after the film finally ends.

Film 8212; it8217;s a nice word. The Americans, of course, call it movie and that8217;s perhaps because it moves them overly or maybe the word relates to the movement of the frames and the resultant illusion. Film carries that sense: as in, a film over your eyes. Film belongs with gauze, gossamer, drape, diaphanous, sinuous, fluid, fleeting. So does she.

Or forthat matter Kajol-on-screen. She turns me into an emotionally-twisted handkerchief. I become sweaty and grimy with her passion, smooth out as she laughs, crinkle like a touch-me-not at her anti-climaxes, lie on the ground of her sadness this happens when she goes to her mother8217;s house 8212; see the film and fall, white and ruffled, deliberately and without fear of injury, so I can be picked up again. I mean I do not sit back and see a film, I participate. That is why I never see more than one in four months. Though I would if she went with me every day. But, alas she identifies more with Anil Kapoor and he isn8217;t in 365 films in a year.

She is fidgeting and I wonder whether she wants to kick out like Anil at the villains. Or does she want to cry like Kajol. I don8217;t know when she is with whom. But I suppose she cries more for Anil as I do for Kajol. In fact, these days this phenomenon is called being differently sexed. Wow!

It is sad that film halls don8217;t lead to such encounters but they are a must forhousing Eternal Love: He looks at Kajol, she looks at Anil and both fall in love. Otherwise, it is difficult to even like real humans. They fall short of their own ideals. For in love we expect the sublime, lust for the depraved and are content with something in-between. This is also called marriage.

Films are full of them and emotional understatement is an art alien to most. So it is in life. Even our rites for the deceased are an emotional overstatement. Or look at the ceremonies accompanying birth, our festivals, the lights, the colours, the incense, the sweets, the long-voweled pujas, the populous pantheon, the elaborate bartering in the bazaar, the rambling politics, the tedious papers, the Constitution, the sari, we go yards and yards and yards, we always remain well covered.

It is only in excellent art of the quality that hides itself and is understated that there are exposes: plots are revealed, characters shaped, twisted, left broken or put together again, incidents scattered, cajoled out, cutshort, joined, lines rehearsed, unrehearsed, and everything, finally, made meaningful.

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Not like this, not like the film, not like her with whom I sat. For she is, like Kajol, an image canned, ran at a certain speed, projected, and the reel finished, shut inside the can again. The next time you go to see a film, about four months from now, take her out. I will drape a Martian over my arms. After all, you need someone who can identify with Anupam Kher too, right?