For Want Of A Better World

It's that festival again, and try as I might, my mind wanders back to this day two years ago, in a three-bedroom house in a nine-storied building, with the smell of rajma and sounds of laughter coming from within. It was a nicer time, with friends separated by walls, not time zones; estranged lovers come back to meet; an evening of shopping for kurtas and talks of mulmul pajamas; and no sign or warning that soon you would be celebrating this day alone, fevered, bereft of the happiness only the presence of almost everyone you love being around you can bring. I've searched for the meaning of this love in many places; from the deepest of drug-induced psychoses to the desperate, lingering sensuality in the crumpled folds of a bedsheet. Nothing. It just seems to be one of those fundamental flaws of being born as this species: that no matter how much you try, some memories always remain, some to fondly remind and some to haunt you out of the merest shred of sleep for days. Maybe

Ever since I was a kid, a "good" movie always had a clear definition: one that made you think something you hadn't thought before, and one that made you want to be part of it; as the protagonist or one of the leads in some of them, or just a curious observer in others. Growing up, try as I might, I still can't rid myself of that second definition. In fact, the only that has changed with the passage of time is the level of detail I can create around a world which, in the reel world, offers little information out of the ordinary. It's childish, and maybe the vicariousness of it all is slightly depraved, but it still keeps one of the nicer things about movie-watching intact: that there are people in this world who have a similar pattern of thought. The latest flick to afflict me in such a way was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. A lazy evening with not much to look forward to the next day resulted in an uninterrupted watch, one of the more memorable ones lately.