if 45 brought us here,
46 was turning up the heat further.
yesterday it seemed like a duel to me, but today i realised it was really a dance. an exotic, essential tango; desire its wellspring, need its reason for existence. everything raised the mercury, each move came with multiplied effect.
the most svelte and passionate steps had been worked out by the writers, choreographed by directors, but to heaven it was taken by the dancers, none else. how intensely, these fairly uncelebrated, idiot box actors understood and expressed an emotion, as they locked in an embrace poised for explosion through eternity.
if i look back at 45, it was all about movement revolving around that embrace wasn't it? their stage, an empty office on sunday, the area in spotlight: the storeroom, locked. he entered stage first. then she. and like people in perfect rhythm with each other, he knew she was there. she sensed he was. he moved out, she moved in, their eyes met, a flip a swirl, and she bit the rose between her teeth and careened away, looking back once to see if he'd follow.
his music was his cue and he glissaded to her on a rage, a search, an incomplete conversation. she turned, and fell taking him with her, perfect harmony. and again a fierce embrace, stare, apart. he held out his hand, she turned away, he was provoked. he moved in.
and so it went on. till the dupatta added in its own wanton wayward steps, wrapping them in a whirl of longing, pirouetting, challenging, clashing, and when it all rose to unbearable heat, a smooth transition to gentle, tender, tremulous.
hold out the dupatta, look away, restore her sense of self, complete a circle, as life demands, as dance gives itself to. for a moment there was respite, but that intimate caress of the flowing fanciful dupatta, lingering across his body.
and the seething heat returned.
so hot, he had to whip off his jacket and reach the water dispenser fast. but she was already there. hands reaching out, on the edge of an embrace, then a swift chicane and he's got the water first. maybe he needs it more? his eyes look skyward, intense, as the water is taken in long swallows, so much thirst. a glass of water quickly filled and held out to her without word, a concentrated stare in his eyes, what's he looking for? a roll of drums and "hume nahin chahiye."
instantly, water is aflame. voluptuous heat. he flings the glass with force, perfect move, a high point in the tango. what will she do?
sab kuch tod dijiye... haan tod doonga.
yes, i will break, the way you've broken into me. shattered my peace.
and he moves forward, she back, the stage sizzles. she's heaving with tension, that hurtling of her phone has thrown her beyond a point.
ek ek cheez tod daloonga taki har tutne wali cheez se tumhara kaan khule... aur tum meri baat suno. i will break everything one by one, so that the sound of things breaking enters your ears... so you hear my words. oh the plea almost in that "so you hear," asr doing all he can to make someone hear him? unbelievable. and beautiful.
she has no idea why she feels the way she does. a girl from a small town, with a sheltered middle class life, notions of love and marriage shaped by family and tradition. the idea of the group is hers. and in that there's no space for this inexplicable pull and surge, this entering of a man uninvited into her thoughts, her sensations. a man, from the moment she's met, she's perceived as money and power crazy, an atheist, rude, peremptory, arrogant, who has only hurt her. and after the night of the guest house she's convinced he's the worst kind of creature, who'd send someone to danger without thought.
yet.
she thinks of him. she wants to see him. her perceptions are coloured by nurture and tradition, but her response from within flows out from the woman in her. a woman waiting to become. and no one need doubt that. look at the expertise with which she takes him through the steps. not consciously, in fact, she's tired of the heightened emotions, utterly frazzled. and that temper soaring of his, echoes crazily in her. her voice is rising, her nerves shaking, but she doesn't give up. fire is answered by singeing flame. tango is really a duel of passion, of amore. a duel that we call a dance.
hum kuch nahin sunna chahte hain... hume bas yahan se bahar nikalna hai. i don't want to hear a thing, i just want to get out of here, that's all.
tum sunogi.
you'll listen. (low urgent voice, a hint of coercion, and yet i hear again a plea, barun sobti never fails to add things you can't describe and how they thrill the senses)
hume bahar jaana hai... i want to get out (voice rising, wobbly, hysteria entering the fray, sanaya irani can change from girl to woman in a second with the most adroit use of her lovely voice. around asr, khushi is always woman, rarely cute girl in these early days. from the moment she set eyes on him, he aroused the woman in her, and she the tender sweet loving man in him. lovely, don't you think?)
main kah rahoon hoon... i'm telling you (through gritted teeth).
humne kahan na... hume bahar jaana hai... didn't i say, i want to go out!
khushi! main tumse baat kar raha hoon... tum meri... khushi! i'm talking to you, you're... (he twirls in at great speed, ready to hold her and do a heady spin)...
but she's not stopping either. head to head, till the bitter end...
pehle aap darwaza khol dijiye. first, you open the door.
he's losing his grip. she's in command. he storms to the door and kicks it down. violence. the audience holds its braeth.
then a pull back and a controlled: ab sunogi? will you listen now?
and the choreography throws in a neat surprise. she rushes to pick up her things and then pauses just in front of him. delivers the final blow.
i don't need to listen to anything you say. you hate me, my ordinary status, don't you? you don't want to see my face, right (oh, those words he'd said before sending her off to the guesthouse had hurt. badly.)... then be happy now. for i'm leaving your sight forever. i'm going to lucknow. forever.
hume aapki koi baat nahin sunni... nafrat hai na aap ko hum se hamari aukat se... hamari shakal dekhna nahin chahte hain na aap... toh khush ho jaaiye... kyunki hum aapki nazron se hamesha ke liye door ja rahein hain... lucknow ja rahein hain hum... hamesha ke liye.
nonplussed, he looks at her. his face losing its tautness, almost flabbergasted. early notes of rabba vey trill in. why does she always reach places others never do? somewhere beyond the line he's set for the world, at his dimaag. somewhere inside, just by his heart. his dil. only she.
winded, he blurts out, you can't leave like... khushi... khushiii!
tum aise nahi ja... khushi... khushiii!
she had lied to him. she'd made up the story of leaving on the spot. maybe because she couldn't take this confusing state of everything any more. who can blame her? only eighteen. but she had not left instantly. again the woman in her had acted with deliberate purpose. she wanted to know the impact of her words. something said to her as she gazed at him, this is what she wanted to achieve. she left.
neither was the same again that evening. the dance had drained both. exhilerating while it lasted, but now, a strange disquiet within. and those confounding memories. she's jumpy, insistent that they must return to lucknow, poor girl seems to be wanting the safety and security of her dear little but completely understood life back.
why is he thinking of the girl who says what she pleases to him, if "kissiki himmat nahin hai mujhe kuch kehne ki, and you know it." he's just asked his girlfriend to move in with him, yet in a locked storeroom amid junk and clutter, the suave, nothing makes a difference to me arnav singh raizada is grappling with a girl to make her hear him out. what does he want to say? why is it so important?
jacket off, throw! anger, his best defence called upon. and he hears her voice saying she's leaving... forever... hamesha. as we come closer to him, what is that in his eyes, surely not confusion... and a glitter of tears? no!
khushi talks to dm, her solid constant companion, an orphan girl's need for something concrete maybe. her beguiling conversation is full of khushi-ness... i am talking too much today, aren't i? that's because today i'm a little too happy. hum kuch zyada bole rahein hain na, kyunki aaj hum kuch zyada khush hain.
but then why do your eyes and lips say otherwise, khushi?
45, 46, 47 changed the tone and colour of ipk, fantastic writing, direction, performance to bring the story to its next phase. everything got richer, passion made a formal entry. not just from him, from her. the sense of two people tied irrevocably together took on a more dense and heady feeling. there was a different bite in it. and hamesha walked in triumphant.
he lay there in deep sleep. then her voice. she's going... forever. no, you can't go like that... khushi, khushiii.
he jerked up and sat upright in bed. shallow erratic breathing.
why do i feel you in the pit of my stomach. why do i want to go where you lead me. listen to me, will you?
......................
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