Sunday, August 20, 2017

And there was silence

Sanjay was the only child of a cricket player who went on to represent India.  But one didn’t have to know a thing about the sport or his father Vijay to get to know him because he never played or followed cricket.  His mother Lakshmi never had an issue with that.  What she had an issue with but rarely voiced was the chasm that existed between her religious beliefs and his atheistic leanings.  He would accompany her to temples but wait outside until she was finished.  She would pray for a bit more quiet to silence the din in Sanjay’s mind, a place where events from 1998 routinely paid a visit and played off-key notes.

***

March 20, 1998.  MAC stadium in Chennai, India. 

The stadium emanated heat like a frying pan.  Beads of sweat ran across Vijay’s forehead.  The heat was not the only culprit; the game had come down to the wire.  His opposition needed 16 runs to win off the last six balls, a stiff but not impossible task.  After he made changes to the field, he sprinted to his fielding position, barely a few feet away from the batsman. 

No sooner had the bowler completed his delivery stride than the batsman hit the ball in Vijay’s direction with the ferocity of a howitzer.  The ball traveled at a pace that even a cricketer blessed with Vijay’s reflexes could not stop the ball from hitting his forehead.  His wail echoed all around the stadium, most notably in the direction of Lakshmi who had been watching this from the pavilion, with six-year old Sanjay seated on her lap.  As Vijay collapsed, she rushed to his side. 

The clock in the hospital seemed frozen.  Lakshmi’s stomach felt like the insides of an overpowered blender.  She was surrounded by her family and Vijay’s teammates.  Meanwhile, Sanjay was at home wondering why his grandparents had come to spend the night with him.  As the doctors and nursing staff flitted in and out of sight, Lakshmi chanted prayers under her breath.  The silence was sickening; she could hardly hear her own prayers.  24 hours passed.  It felt more like 86,400 seconds.  The doctor walked up to her and said something that she heard but could barely register.  Regaining the voice in her mind, she signed a consent form.  As she got up from her chair, she shook the doctor’s hand and said, “Thank you for trying your best, Doctor.”

***
March 20, 2017.  MAC stadium again. 

Lakshmi held a gathering every year on this day, where she presented cash awards to three budding cricketers.  She alighted from her car along with Sanjay and her husband Anil – she had remarried in 2003. 

During the course of the ceremony, the batsman who had struck that unfortunate, fatal blow 19 years ago, walked up to Sanjay.   

He put his arm around Sanjay’s shoulder and said, “Sanjay, you know, I felt so miserable the day Vijay left us.  I wanted to quit the game.  But the day after the funeral, Lakshmi visited my house.  She comforted me and my wife that what had happened was an accident, that my going on to play well for India would be the best tribute to her husband, a person who simply loved the game, almost reverentially.  I don’t remember her exact words but they meant a lot to me, my career and my life.  And I thought you must know that.”

Sanjay smiled faintly and replied, “Thank you, Uncle.”

After the ceremony, as they approached their car, Sanjay said to Anil, “Pa, I need some time to myself.  Could you drive back home and I’ll come later?”

Anil smiled, patted him on his cheek as Lakshmi responded, “Don’t be late, okay?”

Sanjay went back into the desolate stadium.  Save the bees buzzing around, there was not a sound to be heard.  He stood behind the ropes, in front of the pavilion.  For a few seconds, his eyes were fixed on the area around the 22-yard pitch located at the center of the magnificent stadium.  He sat down on the grass and gazed at the stillness of the azure sky, vast in its expanse and rich in its simplicity.  He looked at the center pitch again and sported a smile.  By now, even those nearby bees couldn’t punctuate his silence.

Nowadays, whenever he accompanies Lakshmi, Sanjay continues to wait outside the temple.  But then, the means never mattered to Lakshmi.  

***

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Autograph Memories

Note: For the scenes described below, I have pointers to the specific portions of the youtube video (of the full movie) just above the snapshots.  The youtube video is embedded at the bottom of the article.  Thank you, Anu Warrier, for introducing me to your style of movie essays - that's the format that I have adopted for this piece.

A bunch of friends are having a get-together at a restaurant.  They await the arrival of Divya, the lone girl in their group.  She walks in wearing a checked shirt, carrying a backpack, sporting an unfussy hairstyle, her hair kept in place by a black band.  Looking a little pensive, she apologizes for being tardy.  When her friend inquires, she responds by stating that she bumped into her former beau.  As he (wrongly) guesses the nature of the meeting, her face slowly turns red.  Unable to digest her friend’s comments, she stands up in the middle of the restaurant and creates a bit of a scene, slapping her friend.  Regaining composure, with her eyes welling up, she explains to him that the reason she could face her ex was because of the security that his friendship offered her.  This explanation, coming from a girl who had attempted suicide after being spurned by her boyfriend, says a lot that there is to be said about the ability of a genuine friendship to offer a sturdy pillar of support when the emotional foundation of a person is on shaky ground.  Sneha, the actress playing the role of Divya, handles this scene exquisitely.  Anger, sadness and strength all form part of the gamut of emotions she undergoes in this sequence.  She expresses and internalizes in equal measure – this balance is what makes her performance in Autograph the crown jewel of her career. 

Scene starts at the 2:03:40 min point

This ‘balance’ deserves elaboration especially because the creative brain behind this movie – writer and director Cheran – is not known for understatement.  Cheran’s movies invariably elicit polarizing opinions.  Some find them unbearably preachy but others find them sweetly old fashioned.  Irrespective of the camp one belongs to, it is hard to deny the strength of some of his characters.  Actors like Parthiban who can internalize effectively (Bharathi Kannamma) can serve as a counterpoint to the dramatism (sometimes loudness) of the scenes, making the characters lifelike and the sequences more realistic.  Never has this been illustrated better in Cheran’s oeuvre than in Sneha’s masterful performance here.  An actress blessed with large, expressive eyes, Sneha had the acting chops to make her emoting look effortless.  Rarely did she look awkward on screen because she seldom tried to oversell a moment.  But on the other hand, for tragic sequences, she used every facial muscle to bring the moment to life.  The scene where she realizes that her mother has passed away is a case in point.  Especially poignant is the way she cradles her mother, tearing up uncontrollably.  It is raw, powerful emotion erupting out of a face that looks like it stored each iota of sadness in every cell only for them to tear asunder.

Sequence begins at the 2:14:21 min point

Two other moments deserve mention because Sneha, at first glance, might appear to do very little.  But owing to the thoughtful writing and deft direction, she is resplendent.  The first of this is the brief scene outside the orphanage where she has decided to live, following the death of her mother.  Her friend Cheran is a little upset with her decision but understands and respects her choice, describing the inevitability of separations in a relationship.  We hear her voice (splendid voice work by Savitha) in the background as she talks affectionately, almost reverentially, about her friendship with him.  The casualness of Sneha’s body language is in perfect contrast to the heavy duty lines that we hear in the background.  As I mentioned earlier, you need a natural like her to make this kind of drama work.

2:19:36 min point -- 

The other moment is in the climax at the wedding hall.  In a small but lovely moment sans any dialogue, Sneha teases Cheran for removing his beard.  The impish smile is just about perfect given the comfort level that exists between them.  Again, this is an instance of a talented actor bringing a touch that helps make the character well-rounded. 

2:36:30 min point -- 

In the hero-dominated world of Tamil cinema, it is rare to find well-fleshed out characters for women.  But upon closer inspection, the true torchbearers of sensible cinema have always invested their female leads with agency.  Seasoned veterans like Balachander, Mahendran, Mani Ratnam and Vasanth to the latest generation of filmmakers like Karthik Subburaj (Anjali and Pooja Devariya in Iraivi) and Seenu Ramasamy (Tamanna in Dharmadurai) may have had markedly different filmmaking styles.  But the one common aspect of these perspicacious creators is their vision to project their women through the lens of feminism and not just through the male gaze which can be sometimes be covered with the blinders of chauvinism and sexism.  It is when we see roles such as Sneha's in Autograph that we see the value of this thoughtfulness.  Sincere thanks to Cheran and to Sneha for giving me such an abiding memory of a well-etched character in an unforgettable movie.