A Heart Rending Tale of Love

100 Happy Days – Day 64

I went into the movie theater. After around three hours, when I walked out, I was devastated. My heart was heavy and I was too tired to even think. Yet, my mind was working fast. Grieving, in fact. Thinking about all the loss, trying to gather all the thoughts, trying to accept what I had just seen.

He asked me how the movie was.

There was only one word I could say, “Heart-rending”.

“Loved the one word description.” He said.

This is about a movie that 90% of Kerala must have watched long back. Hence, I am about to write stuff from all over the movie. It is a story of love. A story that you have never heard, that will leave you broken. It has been three days since I watched it and even now, very often, my mind wanders through certain moments.

He looked at himself in the mirror. A few stray white hairs were beginning to show.  As someone said, time is a fickle friend. I wouldn’t say a ‘friend’ in this case.

I remember, at one point of time, I came to my senses and noticed that I was sitting uptight. I do not have the habit of biting my nails. But my fists were pressed against my mouth in anticipation and I was holding my breath. I was anticipating something terrible and so, I was willing for the scene to end lest my fears came true. I was very much into the story that, I was & still am unable to leave the story behind.

I decided to write about it. But I couldn’t find the right words. It was so moving and repeatedly disheartening, yet too beautiful. Deep love and sorrow is a deadly combination. It leaves you helpless. You cannot leave, you cannot stop watching what happens and finally, you cannot let go. The situation is too overwhelming that words become insufficient to describe the intensity of emotions working within you.

As she walks towards the boat, he grabs a handful of soil on which her foot had made an imprint. He clutched it in his hands – a souvenir.

Image courtesy: Olakka graphics

If you ask me what hurt me the most, I do not have a single answer. They were a number of things;

The peculiar way through which he let her know how he loved her. The decisions they made. The efforts they put to communicate. His witticisms and the sheer will to find a way around each and every situation. The language they invented for themselves. Their determination. Her struggles. The tortures. The intervention of fate. They were a world in themselves.

Maybe they are what people call ‘Old souls’.

Courtesy: Mukkathe Penne on youtube

At the end of three hours, I felt as though I lived their entire life. Even now, as I stare into empty space remembering those moments, I understand that many of you cannot make out anything from this post of mine. The movie is a shipwreck and I have floating pieces of the ship inside me. I need to get them all out – whether related or unrelated. Else, they will all weigh me down.

I walked into a theatre and I was never the same again. I have watched Veer-zara, Fanaa etc. These are incomparable. Yet, none of them affected me as much as this one.

The only flaw I found was the flawless character sketch of the protagonists. Though it is a real life story, I believe that no one could be that perfect. But, it helped the story-line a lot. I would say it is a fairy tale with a lot of depth. I do not intend to use the term carelessly. I mean to say that the characters may not sound real. But there was a lot of love. Painful love. The kind of love that could never be destroyed.

The moment the passport left his pocket, he extended his hands trying to grab it, as though his life depended on it. He kept trying, as though he was hopeful. He valued it more than his life. He valued the life with her, more than his life. That is the only image that remains in my mind after all else.

It hurts. I am not sure whether the pain is due to the story-line or due to the fact that I do not believe such a love exists, while a part of me wishes it does.