Thursday, July 28, 2016

Exploring the ruins...

This changes everything. Every damn thing about my life. Because if this was not God speaking to me, then I know not how else He speaks to us.

It's nothing much. I don't even remember where I heard the song. On the radio? I don't know. The song kept coming back to me. Phirse aiyo badra bidesi...I listened to it on YouTube and explored around a bit. Saw the picturization...a lonely girl with her reminiscences. It appealed a lot to me. Somewhere they mentioned the name of the film as Namkeen. Is this Gulzar saab's film? I wondered. Because this extraordinary combination of RD, Gulzar and Asha was difficult to come by in other productions. The movie was freely available on YouTube and actually I went to the link. Then I remembered that my self imposed data limit doesn't allow me to watch a movie with my tab Internet. I made a mental note of downloading the movie at office. I did start watching the movie and wondered what the storyline would be with two major heroines...this was on Sunday night.

Monday, almost towards the end of day at office I remembered to download the two movies - 36 Chowringhee Lane and this one. I was planning to watch the former for a long time now, so obviously it got precedence. But then, I have got this movie block for a long time now. I am simply afraid of watching movies and being rattled by them. I can't handle my emotions anymore, I have been rendered totally hollow from within. It took me two nights to complete the movie. Today, after I retired in my room for the night, I asked myself gently, if I want to watch Namkeen. And I reached a truce with myself. Let's start watching, we'd give up if required.

The movie started off low key. No surprise except this being a Samaresh Basu story. And this actually being a Gulzar film, which anyways I had guessed. And then the story progressed...and kept seeming to be very very familiar. I started remembering Rito telling me the story. Three sisters and a truck driver. But I couldn't remember the context. Why did he tell me the story? Not to tell the story of the movie, like he had done for Ijaazat, that much I remembered. There was a context. I couldn't remember that. The songs went by one by one. Aake chali, baake chali was there in the cassette of Gulzar songs that I had bought with my precious little savings, when I was in college. Then came phirse aiyo badra bidesi once again - what a tribute to silent, unspoken love. But my mind was restless - there was a missing link which I couldn't remember. And then came the song khush raho...and the memory knocked at my mind. There's a beautiful song, raahon mein rehte hai, it's in a Gulzar movie - a truck driver and three sisters...

I talk of loving other people - playing with other memories, nice old memories of people who had loved me once...I create stupid illusions for myself, of loving impossible people in impossible ways. Only because my favorite person has hurt me, has literally kicked me out and split me apart. I don't want to acknowledge my love for him, I don't even want to remember him. While my mind, it is a storehouse for his memories, long forgotten memories that keep surfacing at the slightest unrest. And despite this being a fact, that he has always been the closest man to my mind, I never realized my love for him when there was still a chance. How can I deny it now only because he has turned me down?

And with this realization my world went topsy turvy again. There's no respite. Bandini songs were also written by Gulzar saab, perhaps mere sajan hai uspar as well. Chhod aaye hum as well, the first song that gave me the realization that I love him. Love doesn't happen just like that. A person becomes a part of your life, his thoughts merge with your own and become one - it is then that you fall in love. What else is left there for me to do after having loved a person in this way and the knowledge dawning on me when it is too late?

The song kept playing as I burst into tears. Rito, Rito...deja vu from September 2013...

No comments: