Serendipity..

Winter is approaching in Kolkata.

When I find my lips chapped, I roll my lower lip into my mouth and peel off the dry skin 

with my teeth. During winters, this is one of my favourite activities.

The man enters and stares at me. I returned the favour, still engaged in the favourite 

activity.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

Me: By doing what???

“By doing the Vidya Balan thing she did in the Dirty Picture!”

Me: You are weird.

**********************************************************************

Yes, he is. Very weird. Like my mother.

When I was in school, I realised that my mother was strange. In my entire school life, she 

never even once asked me to study. NEVER EVER. I found that strange. I felt, to be a little demanding about your child’s academic results was acceptable and infact, normal.

Similar is this man. He is just WITHOUT ANY expectations and that irritates the hell out of me. I wish he would break my favourite bone china dinner set when he finds me talking to a man friend at 1 o’ clock at night, or hand over a questionnaire demanding reasons for my coming back home late or at the most, be terribly possessive and create a lot of drama at the home front. Arrey, if you do not have material demands, atleast demand explanations! But I told you, he is weird. Very weird. Like my mother.

“JD, I am running out of ideas for your Anniversary present. Lend ideas. What do you want?”

“You.”

“Stop being nyaka and tell me things you DON’T have.”

“Beyond the Crash by Gordon Brown, The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford and socks, 

preferably black.”

“What a paradigm shift in the answers!! Ok, you get the last 3 things you asked for. 

Anything else?”

“Will you learn to cook the mutton, Annapurna cooks? Just like her? Would be a great gift.”

In so many years, apart from one or two Rabindranath songs, this is the ONLY difficult thing he has asked for. I forgot to get jealous of Annapurna (my friend from school). I was too 

overwhelmed to think of anything else.  

“Sure JD, why not?”

***************************************************************

I think it was our 4^th. He presents me slabs of Dark (very dark) chocolates.

“WHY dark chocolates?”

He: Because you love them.

“Why DARK chocolates?”

He: Because we love them.

“WHY DARK CHOCOLATES?”

He: Because I love them.

“So, you’ve started giving gifts which you like!!! Selfish giant, I don’t want them.”

20 minutes later.

He: You had gifted me a LONELY PLANET last anniversary, remember?

“Hmm.”

He: You were also looking for the Calvin and Hobbes complete collection on Flipkart to gift me.

“Hmm.”

He: Have I ever asked you similar questions?

….

…..

……

********************************************************************************

Barring those innumerable instances when I am generally very hassled by his existence, there are moments when he is like this picture.

 A brownish winter afternoon, a large cup of tea, a favourite book, a comfortable couch and a lovely picture on the wall. Bliss!     

If feelings were human beings, this feeling would be him.

****************************************************************************

About the ‘hassled by his existence’ part:

The man buys me a Saree for Pujo.

I wear it and excitedly show it to him.

“JD, You remember this one?”

A confident YES follows.

“Tell me what it is.”

JD: It is a Saree!! (expecting ‘sahi jabab, aap jit gaye hein 15 laakh….’)

“! ? !”

JD: Yes, it looks like a saree. No?

…..

…… laaaawng silence……

…….

………

“OK. Ignore the last question. Tell me how am I looking?”

JD: Bhishon hawt!

“Are you serious?” (school girlish giggles)

JD: No.

……

…..

…….

School girlish giggles fade in oblivion.

****************************************************************************

One night I had a dream.

I saw a man sitting on a branch of a tree by the side of a river. His face was not clear. But I 

knew that this was THE man. The man I love.

And I found that, with an axe, I was cutting the branch where he sat.

The branch fell down into the river and so did the man. I sat on the bank of the river and 

wept.

The God of water appeared. I told him the whole story.

He dived into the water and brought Johnny Depp.

“Is this the man you love?”

I could not remember the face, but I was sure this wasn’t him. I nodded in negative.

He dived into the river again. This time he brought Amitabh Bachchan along with him.

I chose to be honest, though the choice was tempting.

“I don’t think he is the one. Noh”, I said.

Water God dived for the third time and this time it was Uttam Kumar.

“This must be the one”.

“I wish. But no!”, I confessed.

Utterly pleased with my honesty, the Water God went inside the river and brought Joydeep Ghosh.

“I don’t know why, but I am pretty sure he is the one.” I smiled.

While I held hands with the lost-and-found treasure, God called me.

“I know, you are thinking about the woodcutter’s story. And, also wondering why I didn’t 

give you the other three men as a reward for your honesty…”

“Exactly”, I said.

“You will know why….”

God disappeared.

I know why….

The best things in life come in a single piece.

*******************************************************************

In our last Delhi trip, I noticed a thing about Ma.

Every time, she saw an aeroplane in the sky, she would get ecstatic. She would invariably 

point her fingers towards the sky and shout, “Dekh, dekh, Plane”.

I found it quite juvenile in the beginning. Ma has been riding airplanes since she was a 

child. Then, why such excitement just at the sight of it?

On a second thought, I thanked her (mentally).

Thank you for explaining Ma, why I get butterflies’ somersaults inside my stomach every 

time I see him in the parking lot after a rough day at my office.

Thank you for explaining that some things cannot be explained.

******************************************************

Me: “You are my life’s worst mistake. *******, @#@#, *****^^^^^, @####@, ********, @@@@@@@@, ********, *******, @#@#, *****^^^^^, @####@, ********, @@@@@@@@, ********, *******, @#@#, *****^^^^^, @####@, ********, @@@@@@@@, ********, @@@@@#...

I am going home.”

He: But this is your home.

“*******, @#@#, *****^^^^^, @####@, ********, @@@@@@@@, ********,*******, @#@#, *****^^^^^, @####@, ********, @@@@@@@@, ********,*******, @#@#, *****^^^^^, @####@, ********, @@@@@@@@, ********. I am going.”

He: This is your home. Where will you go?

“In the entire conversation using choicest of words, ‘I am going home’ was the only thing you noticed??

He: That’s the only thing you said that was NOT CORRECT.

THIS is your home. Our home.

Me: “Welcome Mr. Sooraj Barjatya.”

He: No I am serious. This is your house as much as it is mine. If we have fights, you may 

drive me out of the house. But never say this isn’t yours. Fight, but don’t disown. It hurts 

me more than you saying I am your life’s worst mistake.

Invisible violins play the ‘Hum saath saath hein’ tune and well, I laugh, cry and forget that we were fighting a few moments back….

*********************************************************************

I preserve and flaunt compliments like grandmom’s jewelry. Till date, the Kaahani compliment was the best I ever got. “The Kolkata they showed in the movie was you.” Lump in the throat, goose bumps.

And then, came this one.

“The greatest proof that you are intelligent is Joydeep. Your intelligence is proved beyond doubt by this one choice you’ve made. Where you could score 100 out of 100, you managed a 120 by choosing him.”

I wish compliments could be framed….. : (

************************************************************************

The way we met and got to know each other is very filmy. (And terribly exciting)

When asked, I babble about it incessantly, while JD keeps quite or says one or two words. I often think it doesn’t excite him anymore…talking about how we met, that is.

One night, we were playing flashback.

I asked him, “When we have children and you have to tell them ‘How I met your mother’, what will you say?’”

It was again a single word answer.

“Serendipity”.

:)

**************************************************************************

P.S: OK. I completely made up that woodcutter’s story. That’s a gift I made for you for our Anniversary. Happy 6^th, JD!

Mary and Max

There are sights. And there are sounds. Which when perceived, evokes one overwhelming emotion: “I wish he was here”. On my first tour abroad, this was one emotion I carried everywhere I went.

I never quite realised that “I-wish-he-was-here” could happen to movies as well…until I watched Mary and Max. Having watched the movie alone, I almost felt guilty that JD hadn’t watched it. (Like, I finished a whole Lindt, leaving the wrappers for him).

But then, the movie was disturbingly irresistible. And, ignoring those guilty pangs, I watched the movie thrice. (I promise, my fourth shall be with you, JD!)

Writing about a movie does not necessarily mean a review. In my case, for sure, it doesn’t. Reasons are two:

1.      This movie is very close to me….almost like an emotion. And, emotions cannot be reviewed. They can only be spoken about.

2.      I am a poor story-teller and give away too many details while narration. So I presume, I will make a poor movie-reviewer as well.

Mary and Max (2009) is an Australian clay-animation, written and directed by Adam Elliot (the same man who made a 22 minute 7 seconds long “Harvie Krumpet” and won himself an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2003).

To cut a long story short, I borrowed these lines from an internet movie data base (use of small letters is a futile attempt to hide the source).

“It is a simple tale of pen-friendship between two very different people; Mary Dinkle, living in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia and New Yorker Max Horovitz. Spanning 20 years and 2 continents, Mary and Max's friendship survives much more than the average diet of life's ups and downs”.

Mary Daisy Dinkle. The 8 years, 3 months and 9 days old lived in Mount Waverley in Australia. She had a distracted, indifferent father who worked in a factory where they attached strings to tea bags. Her mother was an alcoholic, kleptomaniac, cricket-fanatic and a “complicated soul”. She had two neighbours and one pet Rooster called Ethel (who didn’t lay eggs!).  She had no brothers or sisters. She also had no friends.

Max Jerry Horowitz was a severely obese, 44 year old man living in New York. He shared his house with a fish called Henry (the eighth, the ninth or the tenth as the case may be), three snails, all named after famous scientists (Einstein, Newton, Hawkins for example), a parakeet called Mr. Biscuit and a cat named Hal (after the disease, Halitosis from which he suffered). He too, had no friends.

Earl Grey was her favourite tea bag from the ones her father made.  She loved saying “Earl Grey” and some day, wanted to marry a man with that name and have kids and pets with him. Mary loved the smell of her wet rooster, the sound of rain on her roof and believed that nothing could beat the taste of sweetened condensed milk straight from the can while watching her favourite cartoon. And “The Noblets” was her favourite cartoon. She adored them because, they had oodles of friends.

“nothing could beat the taste of sweetened condensed milk straight from the can while watching her favourite cartoon..”

Max had troubled sleeping and sleeping troubles. He loved Chocolate hotdog and invented the recipe for it. He also invented an invisible friend called Mr. Ravioli who sat and read on his own. He attended the Overeaters Anonymous classes on Thursdays. He wished there was a Fat Fairy who would be a bit like the Tooth Fairy, and suck out his fat. He had 8 tracksuits of the same colour and size. He loved buying lottery tickets. Again, same numbers every time. He also loved “The Noblets” because they had oodles of friends. 

“He wished there was a Fat Fairy who would be a bit like the Tooth Fairy, and suck out his fat…”

Grandpa had always told Mary that, in Australia, babies came from beer glasses. She wondered if it was true for USA as well. May be not. She flipped through a New York City – address book and randomly chose one Max Jerry Horowitz to ask her most sought-after question, “Where do babies come from, in America?”

And that was the beginning of a long chain of letters between the two strangers, who became each other’s friends, the only friend…the best they ever had. 

*******************************************************************

The poster shall catch your attention. It caught mine. While “Mary” is a hand-written font, “Max” is a typewriter version. You will figure out why, once you have watched the film. It is a very simple yet minute detailing. And how I love it!

The other striking feature of the film is the absence of colours. Except for Mary’s hairpin, the pompom on Max’s yarmulke, letter boxes, everyone’s tongues and a few things here and there, the film is set in sepia and black and white. The only other colour used is red, on the things I mentioned above.

Mary’s world was sepia. It went well with her, I presume. 

“My favourite colour is brown”. 

“To fill in time, she scanned the room and counted how many things were brown.

There was sticky tape, rubber bands and a phone book with a picture of a lady standing in a brown lake with her hand on fire.” 

And she loved the “Noblets” because “everyone was brown and lived in a teapot.”

Max’s world was set in black and white….like his mind was. “Literal and logical”.  (watch out for that scene in a doctor’s chamber where a sign read “please take a seat”)

Barry Humphries’s voice worked wonders for the narration. And so did Bethany Whitmore’s voice as little Mary’s. If voices could be hugged, her’s would be the first I would want to. 

Yes, it is an animation with characters being clay figurines, but I do not think it’s a movie for children. The film deals with complex issues like lonely childhood, friendlessness, alcoholism and most importantly Autism. The film’s treatment of Autism as a subject is one of the best I have seen. 

PS: The film also deals with friendship…one of the best I have seen. 

*******************************************************************

The correspondence between the two friends went almost unhindered over two decades, as Mary grew taller and Max grew wider. In the meantime, Max had a couple of anxiety attacks, was institutionalised and diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, charged with manslaughter once and acquitted on account of insanity, won New York lottery and a fortune that bought him a lifetime’s supply of chocolates. Mary, on the other hand, went to college, earned a degree on Psychology, wrote a thesis on Asperger syndrome, based on her communication with Max and married one of her next-door neighbours, Damien Popodopoulos.

In the midst of bizarre question-answer sessions, anxiety attacks, Henrys’ deaths, Mr. Ravioli’s final farewell, failed marriage and all the confuzzledness that never left their paths, what emerged as a clear winner was their friendship….Like Max’s doctor had said, their lives were very long sidewalks. Not smooth at all places, but with cracks, banana skins and cigarette butts. Whether their sidewalks meet in the end, is for you to find out.  

PPS: This may be just a figment of my imagination, but in one particular scene I felt their worlds met. Mary had sent Max a chocolate with her letter. The chocolate got crushed, so he blended the bits with milk and icecream and drank it. The chocolate milk shake was a tone of sepia amidst Max’s black and white world. 

Just a figment of my imagination!

*******************************************************************

My best friend said the other day : “Fantabulousome!”

It instantly reminded me of Mary and Max. 

The film also reminded me of my favourite word as a teenager. “French Manicure”. Of my 5 most favourite-sounding words, this happened to be one. I wondered whether he was a French man who could cure everything. I also wondered if he could be married to.  

I know people who treasure letters like water and oxygen. And preserve them with all their might. I know people who LOVE, barring distances, geographical impediments, age and many other things. One of them happens to be my ‘French Manicure’.   

I know of people who cannot cry. And I know situations where I wished teers could be collected in empty shampoo bottles and sent to them…

*********************************************************

PPS: After ages, I copied dialogues from a movie in my secret diary. For, when I grow old, I shall drink the words like a bowl of alphabet soup. 

PPPS: I haven’t thanked the person who recommended the movie to me. Instead, this post is dedicated to her….entirely.

PPPPS: Watch Mary and Max….cause, you haven’t watched anything like this before.