Chronicles of Transformation:Life to Movies
*Disclaimer Number One: This post has no whatsoever connection with Chronicles of Narnia.
** Disclaimer Number Two: The post doesn’t talk about cinema, but my road to cinema, so those not interested, don’t scroll further.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
We all have incidents in our life, that could either break us down, or bring us up there, and sometimes God makes us break down at first, and then show what its got in store for you. My journey, my passion, my commitment, my determination to make movies, to take up self indulgence, to be ignorant, and yet at the same time, be emotional, be warm and be loving, it all tails back to something, and when we all look back at our lives, we all realise how it’s one big motion picture, and its yet to release, some people are unfortunate enough to get a quick release, how ironic.
“And life is all about when you fall from the snowcapped mountains and fall into a puddle, and smile when you smudge your face with mud, and frown with cream, cause in the end youre not alone, you kill a life with birth, and free a million with death”
- A certain Jehan Handa
I was listening to Last Kiss by Pearl Jam, my ipod had Last Kiss and Duniya from Gulaal, as diverse as they may be, as a tear rolled down my cheek, it urged me to reveal my most personal post, after all PFC’s like family now.
——
My head jerked upwards, as I woke abruptly. My body was covered with sweat, and I was shaking. I groaned and looked at my phone, 3 am. It happened again, for the umpteenth time in the month. I had been woken up by the re-run of the same dream playing in my head again and again. Fear, nostalgia and a fair sense of loss were the only emotions I could feel. I was worried; I was going to tell her, finally. Standing at her door, not knowing what would happen next, I was waiting…
*Going Back Six Months*
I met her for the first time. She was loud, crude and jovial. She knew how to laugh at herself, she didn’t even turn back at me, I didn’t expect her to. Popular in school, popular among everybody, she didn’t even know my name, I didn’t expect her to. The huge green school lawns and I went near the basketball court, she was sitting there, and she walked off. I shrugged and hid myself, and ate my lunch. I, Jayvardhan Singh was the best cricket player in the colony, I had the best knowledge when it came to movies, and I was shocked that she didn’t even look back at me. Some people blamed it on my ego; some people just didn’t give a damn. I met her through Aaron, she was her ex. Basically I got an introduction, and I expected things to fall in place, they naturally wouldn’t. I kept asking Aaron the matter, why did she never talk to me? Why did she never talk to anyone? And all he had to say was that her previous boyfriend had dumped her, she was shattered, almost finished after the incident. I insisted on our friendship, on our relationship, we started chatting, meeting up, slowly started calling each other. It seemed nice, but somewhere forced; both of us were trying to force us into talking, and knowing each other. I slowly became her close friend, she told me many secrets, I told her many secrets, and somewhere we became the centre of each others lives. We hung out at lunch together, became high school mates, and rumors flew all over the school, it didn’t matter, slowly Aaron moved out of our conversations. Aaron was the perfect friend, anybody could ever get. He could go any extent to see his friend happy, and he purposely moved out of our talks, and somewhere out of our personal lives. He was still our best friend, our most trusted friend, but he moved himself out, for my happiness, little did he know what future had in for us. Her name was Patricia, she was cute, adorable and I slowly fell in love with her. Everything revolved around her, eating with her, studying with her in the library, catching a movie with her, talking all night with her, we did everything in extreme, as if today was our last day, our last lunch, our last test, our last movie, our last night. I loved her too much, to let go off anything, to let even that one moment loose, after all she was everything that mattered to me, more than anything. If she did not talk to me for one hour, it would rip me apart, if she was annoyed with me, it would tear me apart to convince her. That didn’t cut Aaron out of the picture, he advised me on my next move every time, he found his love in Donna, he always had his optimistic quotes to cheer me up, little did he know that quotes one day will not be of much use. All three of us became the best of buddies, obviously we hung at places, and we increased the coffee business in New Delhi, we bottled down every brand of alcohol, we called each other names,we laughed together, we cried together, and sometimes I wish we died together.
Aaron was well aware, that I loved Patricia, he left us alone most of the times, I still owe him those times.
She called me Jay, and I called her Pat, and nobody dare could call us by our names, other than both of us. And our Nazi Soviet pact stated that she couldn’t talk to the boys, anc I couldn’t talk to the girls, we never broke it.
But this never meant that she loved me, I was her best friend. Aaron always felt that she loved me back; he felt that I had an edge over all the other boys in school, I was special to her. She had cut me down into a much humane and lovable person, as my brother Vishal would say. People said that they saw a new Jayvardhan, who was caring, lovable, jovial, and not arrogant. I felt happy knowing that somebody had the power to change me. She showed concern for me, like the people I hung out with, the food I ate, the movies I saw, the time I slept, I felt as if she submerged herself into me completely, and the love grew. I told her one day, probably not knowing how obvious it might sound, that Pat, that never will I die for somebody, but if that made you smile for even that one split second, I would die a thousand times, to see you smile a thousand times. She smiled it off with an ‘aww’. I felt it was the right time to tell my feelings, and the irony was that there would never be a right time to tell her.
*Present Time*
I was standing outside her door, everyday for the past few weeks, rarely did I knock. I just left a letter and I went away. I found myself falling deeper and deeper for her, her cuteness. I could stare at her sleeping for hours, the cringe on her nose, her changing sides, the yawn on her face, and nothing of that could reduce that innocence of her face, that ecstasy from her eyes. She was an image beyond perfection; people said we were made for each other. I had lost my heart to her, she had the power to hurt me, I hope she did not. Love is like a hostage, it comes from nowhere, and it rips you apart, and leaves you crying in the dark. She hadn’t been coming to school for long now, she claimed to be in Jaipur. I knocked as I supposed she was here today, and some young lady opened the door. At being asked where Pat was, the woman broke down, endlessly and effortlessly, she kept crying. I asked her what the matter was, and there I found Pat lying on the bed, I felt there was a new Pat, her face pale, those dimples weren’t visible, her face stretched to smile, to see me after a few weeks, and the next thing I did was I found myself on the floor, crying endlessly, like I never had, all my life. Jay had broken down, into many pieces, I felt I didn’t know this girl on the bed, and I had no words, I couldn’t stop crying, none of those long scented hair, those dimpled cheeks, her trademark laugh, the cringe on her face every time she frowned, everything seemed to have faded away within a few weeks. I picked up a piece of paper, saying Patricia Kendall and below that Mesothelioma, the moment I read it all those tears stopped, I was crying but without tears. I shivered, I dialed Aaron’s number, I called him, and all that optimism went to a crash, that one sight at Pat, everything was suddenly shattered. Her phone rang and I heard ‘Our Lives’ by Calling, it was the best song that could fit this situation.
“Cause these are the days worth living
These are the years we’re given
And these are the moments
These are the times
Let’s make the best out of our lives”
I whispered in her ear, that Pat I love you, and you are the best thing to happen to me. She could not reply, I and Aaron broke down again, we all were speechless, I guess all those endless chat, and meet ups did eventually pay off, none of us knew what tragedy life played with us, none of us knew that life would steal everything in a split second,none of us knew when God would quietly blow away all those brightly lit candles
and for once I wished if I was a kid again, as skinned knees were easier to handle, than broken hearts….
——–
Now my life was bottled up in a small bottle, and whenever I felt like throwing it up, things pushed me down, it all made me cold, and I realised I had to do what I loved, what I’ve always loved, and something that nobody could come and snatch away, and this had to be movies. And as much as I love my memories, I’m the last person to open old albums, and I finally found PFC, where I could throw it all out, through my favourite medium: Movies.
P.S- More on my short film in my next post.
Tags: bottled up, change, feelings, handa, incidents, jehan, Life, longest post, love, Movies, prose, sad, Shakespeare, Short Film, transformation, True Story
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Loved the writing style. Touching.
Thanks Tanul
BRILLIANT BROTHER…..
Thanks Rick!
Your comment’s made my day :D
despite the post being a long one, i couldnt move without finishing it. beautiful!
Thanks Alot Amit :D
I’m glad you liked it.
Thanks Amit :D
I’m glad you liked it
nice
amazing..
touched my heart.. made me remember some1
Thanks Mehul and Mayank
@Mayank- I’m glad my effort paid off
Nice to see your coming of age story!Reminded me of the opening lines of comfortably numb. Cant wait for the short film you’re working on!
Haah!Thanks Alot Neeraj Sir
And Yeah will send you my short’s dvd as soon as its made