Chennai Days

As the final credits of 'Bangalore Days' started rolling on my laptop screen yesterday, there was an overwhelming feeling of happiness but amidst it was hiding a tinge of sadness. I wished that I had seen it with my cousins siblings. The feeling would have been ethereal. 

It was a very good film with excellent writing and brilliant performances. But this film to me was not like the many other films I generally watch to analyse and understand the art of film-making. I did not care about the placement of the camera. I did not care about the back-lighting. I did not care about the fade-ins and cross-fades of editing. I did not care about the subtlety and the helpfulness of the score to the premise. I watched the film as a normal viewer would watch, after quite a long time and thanks to Anjali Menon for that - Thank you for making a film, unknowingly for you and surprisingly for me, about me and my cousins siblings.

Nazriya's role brought alive my (cousin)sister, Dulquer's to a very large extent my (cousin)brother's and Nivin's role, mine. I was stunned to see the exact replications of our characters - a girl with very simple yet meaningful ambitions, a boy/man in the search of a purpose for his life trying to fight against all the odds of the system and the society and a boy, faced with the simple desire of making his mom happy and the complex issue of making a girl like him. For about half an hour, I tried to think about how each character was so similar to each of us but I gave it up pretty soon because I found refuge in something even more beautiful - the unforgettable memories of the little yet everlasting times we spent together.

I had always been wanting to write about the 'lizard and death' incident that happened in our childhood but I never found a more appropriate moment than now when I am still reeling in the warmth of 'Bangalore days'.

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Lizard and death

One of the reasons I try to write down most of the important moments in my life is because of my understanding of my memory which is pathetic. Many charming moments I spent in the company of my brother and sister during our childhood have gotten themselves washed away by a few recent ones but still as I think about our childhood days, one incident that never fails to evoke laughter is the incident of the 'lizard and death'. 

The three of us got together for the most part in either my brother's home or my sister's. And despite wherever the location was, the 'scapegoat' of our lot was my sister until of recent, where my love escapades have made me the butt of all their jokes. 

But going back, it was about half past eight at my brother's home and having finished our dinner, me and my sister got up to wash our plates (washing our own plates was something my aunt very strictly insisted to my complete displeasure) and as we stepped into the backyard to wash the plates, a lizard fell on my sister's arm. And a scream erupted from my sister stopping all our hearts. But the being that had been scared the most had been the lizard and before any of us could shout "What happened?", it had jumped off her arm and had run away. But the sudden landing of the lizard had shaken up my sister so much that she broke down. And seeing her break down for a lizard falling on her arm, me and my brother started laughing out loud which made her cry even more intensely. 

And then my brother did something - he picked up a 'daily-sheet' calendar that had been hanging on the wall and turned it - for those of you who don't know, many of these so called 'daily-sheet' calendars have 'lizard-omens' written behind them that says as to what would happen if a lizard lands on a particular part of the human body - and after he saw what had been written, his eyes widened but he remained silent and hung it back on the wall. I asked him repeatedly as to what had been written but he did not answer. I could not let it go and I provided the finishing touch to the meaningless confusion that had resulted because of a 5 centimetre lizard. I took the calendar from the wall and turned it and as I read what had been written, I was shocked. Instead of remaining silent like my brother, I shouted out - "My God! It has been written here that a lizard falling on one's arm is an omen of death!". That completed the chaos. It took about one long hour before my aunt and uncle could convince my sister that a lizard falling on the arm would not kill her. 

Needless to say, me and my brother were subjected to a few harsh words.

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I don't know what you would have thought about the above incident because for many, it might seem a very childish or perhaps even a lame event. But that event in our childhood was a clear indication of our bonding that would follow - my sister was always the most vulnerable, my brother the most understanding and rational (looking at the 'lizard-omen' was the last irrational thing he did) and myself, the source of many a problem and a silent onlooker of few. 

There are many more such - the semi-erotic 'Maalai mangum neram' song in 'Rowthiram' when everyone else in the theater became silent and attentive (!) with just the three of us laughing, my sister hiding behind a chair and me running off to the next room as soon as the ghost arrived in 'Evil Dead', the unforgettable Mahabalipuram trip when my brother and sister very easily climbed up the rocks whilst I was left panting and puffing out of breath at the bottom helplessly, the awkward jokes me and my brother cracked at my sister's love, the absurd comments we passed at my sister's cooking only to completely devour the dishes prepared later, the digs that my sister and my brother took at my futile attempts at romance, the uncontrollable laughs that they had when the kittens at my brother's home that would have been playing happily with them till then would abruptly take off at the sight of me, the nights we spent sleeping on the terrace of my brother's home to be woken up in the middle of the night by my sister who felt that she heard the sound of anklets - and the list just goes on and on. But the post seems to have become long enough already.

Bonding with one another was never really a problem as all the three of us were single kids to our parents. But the way in which our relationship has shaped up after all these years is what amazes me.The silly fights resulting because of sillier reasons have taken a back seat (though they show up once in a while even now) and the understanding that each of us have about the other has come to the front. Certain small yet significant distances that existed when the three of us stayed at Chennai have vanished to bring us closer even though the three of us are separated by hundreds of kilometres from each other now. 

I guess I would not be wrong in speaking for my brother and sister as well when I say that we never ever felt that we were single kids even while growing up and with the passage of time, the sibling bond only seems to be getting stronger.

With my job being posted at Bangalore and my sister planning to settle there, it would be left to my brother to make a move. But if by chance, the three of us manage to get together at Bangalore, I would very confidently say that our 'Bangalore days' would be more interesting and more heartwarming!

(No offence please, Anjali Menon!)