i could have kissed shyam on his lying snout today. what a man. how well he chooses his moments. how utterly he fails and yet he succeeds and brings us moments most divine.
what would we do without shyam twitching and saying he needs to put holi gulal on khushi ji.
what if he hadn't.
what excuse would the writer have come up with for asr to veer all the way from i hate you to "pati jo hoon," husband that i am, with my right to put gulal on my bride first.
no shyam, i will not curse you today. evil has always had its uses. you have yours. i only feel bad that a character with the potential to have a real story, became meaningless in a tale. that's all. and abhaas thought he was doing a brill job perhaps, but no, it just wasn't really so.
a lovely interpretation of holi, the day of colour, to explore all the shades of a feeling. today, floating light red to deep red its colours in focus. colour became the metaphor for their love i felt. if on diwali, the darkest night, a searing flame of overwhelming awareness had come into being and an exploding attraction split the night... then today, on this spring day, another side of love came to visit.
there they were man woman... sexual, sensual, predatory.
here, boy and girl, gorgeous, loving, exciting, embracing.
oh there was something animal in it too, a marking of territory by a man pushed to the edge, and the wonder filled acceptance of this claim by a girl who so wanted him to be her churi giver, her bindi giver, her eternal lover.
krishna coloured radha in his rang, his colour, on this day. i wasn't there to see it. but i was here when asr reached out with flaming red gulal in his hand, a flagrant rampant right, haq, in his eyes, below that a tender melting question, to streak khushi's cheek. something ethereal in the act.
and she looked with bemused eyes only to return this feeling with her nervous yet eager hands, her eyes full of questions and a certain wonder.
nani ji had to say the most significant thing that could be said, love melts huge mountains, this is but our little one, our chhotey.
but today really was all about that which cannot be said or found words for, a feeling that floats in bursts of gulal misting the air, in the sound of the drums, the touch of fingers, the looks of bewilderment, the locking of gazes and the silences that murmur sweet love.
if shyam brought two lovers together, his wife was instrumental in making them step right up to each other and she made sure khushi was united with her family. anjali loved her brother and knew in khushi's happiness somewhere lay her brother's peace of mind, his joy.
she called bua ji and garima ji over for their daughters' first holi at rm... a break with norm, for she wanted them all to meet and reconcile and blow away the bad blood created during the wedding.
when garima ji and bua ji demurred she urged them to forgive and forget. for khushi, her mother's embrace was like life returning to her bothered heart. how complete her hug, and garima too so relieved she can express love for teh one she loves perhaps more than herself.
later, when anjali's brother might have walked away after making his claim, she pushed him to take the step he must take... you can't leave this way today, she said, a tone of authority in her voice, a spirited woman in evidence, not the snake's charmed one... he listened to her as always, but perhaps his heart really wanted to anyway, which is why he had to refute nani ji's words with a it's nothing like that.
the family was as key to holi as were the lovers. for the two of them the family was always most important. on diwali everything happened without anyone's knowledge. today, the barriers fell before all. love was ready to come out perhaps. that night it needed the seclusion of tumultuous attraction, a thing you only share with the other. (wish the kiss had missed my sweet mano's, bless her sensible skin, hawk eyes and was not included in her gushing cooky sangeet song.)
frame by frame the creatives worked with love and style and understanding to give us pure fascination. there was the colour of love, the air of possessiveness, laughter and joy, and even a note of danger, all balanced perfectly to a heady concoction. even before khushi ran to fix bhang i was drunk and teetering with joy.
earlier in the day, the gullak broke and said, enter the magic. soon the bhang will take away the restrictions of rational thought. thoughts that make our anger create walls. instead love will flow, through all the resistance. liquids reach places solids never can. love seeps in where anger cannot enter.
she made friends with her family, there too love had its way. then in the most charming way ever she pacified nani ji. khushi needs family, everyone to be happy, for festivals to mean something. and she's determined today her world will come back to normal.
is there any other actress i know who could have pulled off that nana ji dance quite so charmingly? she was fun, cute, loving, and absolutely endearing... sanaya looks years younger than her age and she moves like a gazelle, light on her feet, her arms flow lissome and smooth, her smile reaches her eyes...for a moment you forget this is a show, it is a young woman doing all she can to make someone she loves feel better, her grand mother in law.
nani ji perhaps saw a lot of herself in khushi. and khushi perhaps sensed, this was a great role model, some day she'd like to be like nani ji when she's old. just my little mutterings to self i share.
it all started with a lovely family sequence. great acting all around. bua ji's apology may have been in that yellow colour she rubbed on kkg's face. a strange bond the two share, sanka devi is part of bua ji's heart. perhaps that's why so much anger she feels if the girl does anything wrong.
ajeeb indeed is love. and how it makes us ponder. why hate isn't hate, why you are not my own is you can't be anyone else's but mine.
to appease nani, comes missy in a turban as nana ji. i am so reminded of another time and a very handsome actor called balraj sahni wooing his simpering shy biwi, achala sachdev, oh a grand tale told by a grand film maker. waqt.
humri gulabo... khushi and sanaya are both a scream and fantabulous in this scene to use sohara's word. bas.
"khushi? kaun khushi? kaheki khushi...?"
he enters frame from left, head tilted, eyes a little narrowed, looking at the spectacle. he's wearing a white shirt. the faintest smile on his lips. paagal she is, and he adores her for it.
she's going nuts. i have to repeat... is there any other actress i can think of who can look so sylph like in a moustache or so lovely, so nutty and so sexy... plus she can dance.
he is definitely smiling now.
she dances with filled pichkari... about to take the risk of being royally snubbed in front of everyone.
a curtain of colour passes before his face.
"nani ji!!! holi mubarak...!" she's spraying nani with nana's pichkari.
nani looks up aghast.
tension.
"holi mubarak aapke liye hai... humre liye nahin." nani ji's terse, maybe holi mubarak for you, but not for me.
he looks tense. is he concerned for her?
she takes off her moustache.
he looks a bit sad as though feeling her disappointment.
she turns her face the other way.
nani stands with rigid back.
"khushi!!!"
and nani sprays her... "yeh hai humri holi!" this is my holi!
a burst of relief, joy, laughter all around and the holi music comes in...
he smiled. i think, uff, he fell again.
shyam fumes... the perfect anti-happy is he and the contrast makes the moment only richer.
heartbeats everywhere... below the colour, between the colour... of a mother, a sister, a husband and a wife, two lovers, two people meant to meet...
he smiled when he saw his nani and khushi embrace. that morning perhaps when he he heard her talking her innocent prattle in her sleep, and saw her stunning khushi smile, something melted in him... perhaps this asserted itself over the scene on the terrace he carried in his mind. then he saw her shying away from shyam. suddenly that faraq padta hai of his had hold of him it seemed.
"khushi bitiya, bua ji ne aapko sahi naam diya hai.. sanka devi." khsuhi, bua ji has given you the right name, queen of craziness. despite all her mistakes, and her nasty words, bua ji loved this orphan child of hers, and khushi loved her right back, a funny unique bond.
nani ji said khushi had to have colour on her.
"sahi kaha nani ji aapne..." on cue said snake, right you are. oh what timing, come let me hug ya, slither.
he was about to leave. he heard shyam's voice and stayed back.
a face turned hard, jawline set, eyes became steel. that lip dragging down to the right looked more pronounced. arnav singh raizada's gussa had arrived. how dare shyam. this is his wife.
shyam approached. asr stood grappling with rising fury.
thanks to shyam asr had to feel his feelings and make khushi his in front of everyone. tell her she was his.
he started walking toward khushi.
oh that walk... face dark and determined... loping long strides. i want to watch it again and again.
shyam stood with red in hand, khushi cringed. a hand entered frame and held shyam's wrist. stopping him.
she opened her eyes, saw who was standing there... and slipped behind him. her protector he. he may hurt her, he may hate her... but he is hers and she his... some things don't have to be said.
lovely the way she sought him as he called out... the rock between her and any harm that might come her way... ( a thought strays in... even he doesn't know whom he was trying to protect when he married her, does he.)
"ek minute, jeeja ji... khushi ko rang main laga loonga," one minute, bro in law, i'll put the colour on khushi. nani is thrilled to hear that.
"PATI JO HOON," i am her husband, after all. "rang" in hindi has as many connotations as colour in english, if not more. there's a certain passion pulsating in its sound.
he turned and in one fluid motion, reached out to put red on her face.
the touch of colour.
on her self, her heart and her soul...
hey hey... there seemed to come a magical connection in that sacred moment.
he had put red on her before, her sindoor... this felt as sacred, as connecting, as timeless.
he was lost in that moment too, she opened her eyes and looked at him with all her heart in her gaze. his hand rose again. the other cheek.
and in the shower of colour they stood. vis a vis. spring awakening them.
and nani asked khushi to put rang on chhotey. he started to leave. she was in a quandary.
again it was his sister that stopped him... she won't let him go like that. he must put colour...
nani insisted.
he was looking away, but as her fingers touched his cheek he looked straight at her. rabba vey had to enter frame.
what is in his eyes. why are my cheeks flaming? that undertow of the ocean...
they both began to turn away from each other. then he touched his cheek, her colour on it... felt like they were touching each other intimately, entangled, lying close, hands roaming, stroking, caressing, desiring, breath haywire... felt as though i should look away.
he touched her and looked back to see her. what was in his eyes. what did he want?
and she touched the place he'd put rang, her pati.
"anjali bitiya... pyaar toh bade bade paharo ko hila dete hain... yeh toh chhote hain."
"bilkul sahi kah rahe ho, nani."
the rabba vey ascended... and they looked at each other... what got said?
aisa kyun hota hai, thought i. nice touch that "aisa" in both their sentences.
he was hazy behind the phag, the powder of colour.
she touched her rang and remembered her rang maker.
and oh the slightest smile on her face. "hum bhi aap se nafrat karte hain," i also hate you, it said.
next minute she in happy sanka mode went into the next thing of holi... bhang. she apparently the queen of cannabis of lucknow with several bhang ke kisse. stories of bhang.
sanaya looked stunning in her holi churidar, very much the khushi of teda choti and mojri fame. now she's donned a colourful "bhang maker" turban along with the lingo of such folk.
and he watched her... hey hey... bemused... i hate you...
he had to smile at miss nut case's screw looseness.
khushi said how all dil ki baat comes rushing out after bhang, shyam appeared leering and said, then i must get you to drink some of that stuff.
he makes evil face. i want to hug him and bless him... but really, must i see him on the end frame?
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