so re do so fa mi do so... piano notes tip toe in. lilting, dreamy, breaking the bounds of hard reality. and we enter another space within, perhaps without. wherever this place is, it is precious, not often accessible, and when once reached, it's hard to leave. lovely that it is, and so so real.
that's where asr finds himself now, as he comes back out into the night, after all the drama and tension, the drunken girlfriend, the disappearing jeeja... to touch what's pure, untainted. just an emotion. one which doesn't even have a name.
it is felt. it is known. it will not be denied.
asr is not unaware that an ahsaas is swamping him. he struggles against it, making futile promises to bury it, to throw it away like those helpless little pearls. believing that is a sign of strength. yet his heart knows it isn't. it leads him back to the corner where he saw the payal drop from her ankle. he bends down and touches it, and the whole world changes in an instant.
hey... hey... is the warmth of her being still clinging to the moonlight hit metal? does it feel as though he is touching her, not her anklet, does it remind him of that night in the guest house when he caressed her hair, stroked her cheek, that very first time, almost hypnotised unable to control himself?
rabba vey... he stands there for nearly two minutes of serial time, not a word spoken, no disturbance, no noise. just him, his memories, her payal, their intimacy, and the night. the moon and the breeze play with the water, reflections undulate across his visage. a hint of the ankh micholi his mind played with memories running out of hidden corners, dupatta flying.
he remembers her by the pool, disturbed... her payal falling off as she walked away...
he had seen it on the floor but kept quiet, perhaps not knowing what to do do then, yet knowing he wanted it to stay close by... there she was in his cupboard uncovering one eye cautiously... and... why did i get the feeling, this is it?
this is when he fell for her. completely, just like that. many things had changed and gathered tinges of all kinds of emotions through their meetings. but if there's one moment where all of it came together, the whole array of sensations and feelings; and crystalised into a single sharp phenomenon, it was here. he fell.
"kahaan gir gaya hoga..." where could it have fallen, she'd wondered about her missing payal, and at that moment the director took us adroitly to the silver ornament being picked up by him... but in a lovely layered communication, i saw him fall at that spot too. the payal took him pronto to that lovely sight of ms khushi kumari gupta sitting pretty inside his most personal world. she was so khushi there, fitting he should just flip for her right then.
a delicate, malleable, happy, sparkling skein of silver, with little bells that make the prettiest of sounds, a simple innocent anklet. but in the moonlight, suddenly sultry, sensuous, sylph like. is this a little glimpse into the girl who wears it? his fingers don't want to let go.
and the payal that he was engrossed in. that couldn't run away. that didn't even seem to want to, how resolutely it left the ankle it had been around for years and settled into this place, as though it had a right to be here. it wished to be here. it was her mother's payal. a sign of her amma.
much later, when anjali set off to persuade her "solution" her "key" to all problems to buy into an idea, and with that bring khushi right back into rm, into his home, "mere paas, mere saath" near, i couldn't help but notice the red roses scattered across her verdant green saree. roses red. didn't we find out later that was something he associated with his mother? a sign of maa.
so were mothers trying to be mothers even from far away and working to get the two together? there are timesin life, i do feel this happens, mothers never go away, never abandon you. whoever wrote these bits possibly had a similar inkling, and let it in gently, without making too much of a point of it. or maybe not. i saw what i wanted to see.
but again, as life and a great ad campaign has told us, perception is reality.now you may ask, which reality, indi. this 3 dimensional restricted one or the one in which asr is lost right now?
he recalled how she'd stopped and looked at him when she leapt out of the closet before disappearing without a word, he'd held on to her without knowing why, just needing to i guess, she'd said she was going away forever, and now she was here, oh the feeling of it all. he clasped on to each of those unsaid, unspoken inner meanderings now and stayed on. no hurry, no running away, just for a while asr submerging slowly into the depth of an ocean, exploring, wandering, just letting it be.
very unusual. lights like fireflies sparkle on the water, camera tracks over them and up to see a man no longer struggling.
i have loved this quiet, penetrative side of asr always. man of action, but man of introspection, and an ability to dream. only that his trust is broken, and something must restore it.
8:42 to 10:10, really caught me this episode. while a lot happened to take the story forward, and it was told with style, great dialogues that neatly fitted into each other, clever connecting of dots, and i thoroughly enjoyed myself, yet it was always for moments like this that i stayed on to get attached to a serial. this understanding and exploration of a feeling we've come to call love. and its expression in what is often called romance and we have less and less space for it in our lives.
if i think about it though, this is what makes us feel alive. just feel. feel the spark of life itself. and without that, can we be human?
other thoughts
three women with head in hands and two pickle jars framing them. while biuaji and girls were despondent, and most unlike themselves in the face of this loss of money and work, why were two piclkle jars so prominently displayed? story still pickling slowly, taste seeping in, ufff point getting ready? or maybe with all the connotations of "achaar" and purity, etc., associated with it, it has deeper meaning.
la and shyam will become instrumental in bringing khushi into asr's life. when something must happen, and if it's to be for the good of two innocent clear hearts, even the devil will become nursemaid. and every adversary turn friend. such i guess is the power of an idea whose time has come.
of course nani, and di ably help in this mission. right in the nick of time nani says, "ek taraf khushi hai... itni samjhdar, itni samhli hui... har shabd mapa hua... her kadam suljha hua." on one side is khushi... so intelligent, together and measured... every step thought out...
"aur doosri taraf? woh mees kassyap... agar ek pratishat bhi agar woh khoosie ki tarah hoti toh..."on the other! that miss kassyap, if she were only one percent even like khushi...
shyam was lost in his dingy dream of khushi and talking "wise," having completely failed with naniji this time (yay yay yay clever nani), his besotted wife pondering his words (dialogue writer filled this bit with leads, clues, hintwas galore), when the truth slipped out,
"khushi ke liye kuch toh samadhan dhoondna hi hoga..." he was looking for a solution to his problem, wanting to find a way to khushi.
"ji?!!" jumped in his wife... and he showed her the way...
"aisa koi upay jisme sabka khushi ho"... a solution that would make all happy, he stuttered in looking to cover his gaffe.
and she got it. the key is khushi. shyam unlocked the door and held it wide open for her. bless the snake. in lucknow style though, i want to kick him out with of the same door with a "pehle aap," first you, sir.
khushi is deep in devi maiyya conversation and tells us a bit about herself."ek aap hi toh hai dm joh hamare iss hasin ke peechhe ki pareshani samajh sakti hain?" you are the only one who understands the tension hidden behind my smile. so that's her defence... humour. we'll see plenty of it. some of it delightful. the rest, ah well.
aisa kyun hota hai...
asks anjali and my heart skips a beat, remembering holi.
"himmat... ab kauno heel tap se kude ka padi ka?" courage... do i have to leap off a hill top, screeches mami. again my heart goes zzzup. don't tell me the 3 july 2012 cliff top scene was already on the cards almost a year before that? her words like a payal bring on a tumble of flashbacks. mami is a sweet one, i say.
shyam tried his best to "hide" khushi, but she refuses to budge from delhi and run to lucknow... "devi maiyya ka ishara galat nahin ho sakta...
upay khud chalkar hamare paas aaygi"... the solution will walk over to us.
wrong khushi, it will race to you on wheels.
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
~~~ e e cummings~~~
~~~ e e cummings~~~
......................
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