Fanaa

Where do I start? The day before yesterday, the boys and I were going mad with the routine of neverending work and home and decided to bust out and go and watch Fanaa; a new Bollywood movie starring the ever-improving Aamir Khan and the incandescent Kajol (redebuting after 5 years). It was an oddly sweet, sad movie about independence, violence and love and a lot of it resonated with me. There were two moments when I felt that Aamir Khan had nailed his acting, and it was perfect (and I rarely see those moments in Indian cinema). One was when he was half-dead, struggling through the snow, knocks on the door of the nearest house, sees her, and there was this look of horror, longing and love that was pitch-perfect. The other moment was when after he accidentally kills her father, goes into the Colonel’s house and transmits his message and then he sees the Colonel at the doorway, having listened to his message, and Aamir Khan looks so tired, and so defeated because he knows what he has to do and does not want to do it.

Then the boys and I went to watch the Tunisia-Something or Other match at a nearby bar and knocked back the gins and cuttlefish and talked about life and love (or more accurately love failure). There is so much hidden tragedy in the office, in everyone’s lives and we skate over it, bury it, recessed. One colleague remembers the 83 riots and his house being burned down, and having to hide in a neighbouring cellar for two days. One colleague’s brother was shot and killed by an accidental gunshot from a policeman in pursuit of an unrelated thief (and I thought things like that only happened in Mouna Raagam). One colleague had to sell jackfruit from the trees for 50 cents to make it through his university degree and now has a girlfriend who is suicidal. One colleague never got to go to university because of the war and the limited intakes. One colleague’s father left to go abroad and never came back. One colleague’s husband abuses her and she is having an affair. One colleague is an ex-child soldier and has nightmares to this day.Why, why all these hidden human tragedies, reflective of a nation’s larger, forgotten, recessed tragedies?