Opinion Loss and its side-effects

I try and sit as far as possible when I see a concerted teen ninja attack inside a theatre. But my seat for The Fault In Our Stars was bang in the middle of a row, and it was a full-house, leaving no wiggle room for senior citizens such as myself. I’m not exactly old, not yet, but if you are not 16, carrying a phone as large as a house, and surrounded by others of your ilk, you are not only ancient, you are invisible.

The buzz begins before the first frame comes on. I luvvved the book (of the same name, on which the film is based), says a girl sitting next to me. Me too, says her friend, on her other flank. They do not bother to lower their voices. The film  starts, and I wonder if I will have to act spoilsport and ask them to shush, which they will, of course, ignore. But I am wrong. The kids, about as old as the lead players on the screen, settle down and start receiving the film, which, along  with the book, has become an unstoppable global sensation.

The Fault In Our Stars is about teens dying of cancer. There is no other way to put it. As its spunky young heroine, Hazel Grace Lancaster, memorably puts it, “Depression is a side effect of dying. Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.” Put as baldly as that, it is pointless trying to soft-soap the hard reality of death.

John Green, the author of the bestseller that led to the film, has a fascinating backstory about dealing with the loss of a young cancer-stricken friend, re-discovering how to communicate, and eventually finding healing. I read the book, like a million others, before I saw the film.

Unlike its worshipful young adult target audience, I managed to get into the book just enough to catch the salient parts. More than anything else, I was struck by the conversations — smart, funny, brutally honest — that Green creates for his teenage pair, Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters, and their friends and family. Even though Hazel and Gus sound a little better read than many of their contemporaries (the title is, aptly, from a Shakespeare play, dear Brutus), they are still only 16-year-olds, who may never be 17.

By the third act, when death catches up with these sassy, battling-bravely-with-the-big-C lovers, the sniffling had begun. All the facetious wisecracks, which had been coming from both the girls and the boys (yes, there were some, mostly boyfriends, who were along to hold hands, and a few others, who seemed like they were there for the film) were replaced by silence and muffled sobs.

Death comes to us all. But when the young go, it seems like a bigger loss. Especially when the ones about to go have just experienced romance, and what it is like to breathe as one. Hazel Grace’s lungs “suck” ( her word) at being lungs, so she lugs around an oxygen tank; Gus has only one leg, having lost the other to the cancer. They josh, they natter, they talk about stuff, but always, always, know that their end will come sooner rather than later.

I was taken aback at the wash of sudden feeling as the film winds down. I  wasn’t expecting it: case-hardened film critics are meant to point out manipulative scenes and schmaltzy lines. But then I flashed back to how devastated I felt after watching Love Story, in which Ali McGraw’s character succumbs to her terminal disease, leaving not just the handsome Ryan O’ Neal broken, but entire legions.

Green has denied that his story is the Love Story of this generation. But loss and heartbreak is timeless. It can be the side-effect of a new film that treats dying teens as matter-of-factly as it can. Or of a film that was released 44 years ago and whose ripple effect is still so strong. Bollywood promptly cogged Love Story, and gave us Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se, in which Ranjeeta plays the McGraw role, leaving the bell-bottomed, pimpled Sachin, a far cry from the dishy O’Neal, to mourn her.

Even in the dark, I can see the tears coursing down the girl’s cheek. She makes no attempt to wipe them. And then it comes to me anew. It matters not whether you are a gawky teen or a stately dowager. No one can see a person sliding away from life, from light, and  not shed a tear.

As a line from the haunting theme song of Love Story goes: How long does  it last/ Can love be measured by the hours in a day?

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com