A couple of blogs on Sulekha this week (by Bookworm33, Chayalife) were pondering about the roles each person plays in life - as a wife, daughter, student, etc. - and people knowing them in a specific role.
I find myself being different people too. The typical pattern is that at a given time, the same set of roles get replayed over and over.....with the same old routine. Life is really serious most of the time - go to work, stress out trying to get everything done efficiently, pick up kid, make sure kid has bathed, fix dinner, eat dinner, put kid to bed and fall asleep in exhaustion.
In each of us there are so many other roles, so many facets just crying out for release - telling us, in sometimes silent, sometimes not-so-silent whispers, that they exist. In the Malayalam film Manichitrathazh - the heroine buys an ancient home and opens a forbidden room. And what did she find? What made her change so much? Is it the spirit that haunted the room, her mind, or the facets of hers that she had long buried - that surfaced with a vengeance and a bitterness? Running amok and setting things on fire....
Fascinating film, that.
pazhanthamizh paatinayum sruthiyil
pazhayoru thamburu thenghi...
An old tambura pines for an ancient, near-forgotten tune....a tune it used to play, knew so well...but within the ornate room with the bejeweled latch, it lies motionless. The tune unplayed, the tambura mute in silent longing.
I wonder how many different people I could have been, would have been - had circumstances changed here and there. No regrets - none at all. But the ennui of being the same person day after day can get monotonous. How to get all these different people bubbling within me to express themselves?
Acting was the one outlet I found. Where else I could be so many different people - the easygoing college student, the evil temptress, the selfish material girl, the adoring wife, the warrior queen. Orthodox upbringing and all, couldn't even think of acting as a career. So the stage it was...that, and the radio. The radio is passe, but the stage remains.
Used to dream about being a moviestar in my high school days....Ah, wild, unrealistic dreams. But why not? Most of the time I was serious and studious, but I could listen to people without judging, get into their minds, see things the way they're seeing - isn't that part of playing someone else too? Each time I read a book, the characters danced around me as I watched, enthralled. And I was some of them.
No playing damsels in distress for me.....what point is there acting like a useless ninny waiting to be rescued by Mr.Macho? Nah.....Would've loved to play Kaurvaki in Ashoka - the one who is not afraid to defend herself and her little brother in the woods, weilds a sword with aplomb, yet is ultrafeminine when she needs to be....Now that is something I could play naturally (the sword would require some training). On a lighter note, a Kajol in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, singing
Mere khwabon mein jo aaye
or better still
zarra sa ghoom loon mein
in wonderful alcohol-induced freespirited-ness. Wouldn't have chosen SRK to play my hero, though....he plays SRK in every single movie. Same mannerisms, same speaking style, same stuff. Hrithik Roshan - now that's my hero to go traipsing through Europe with a la DDLJ. What do I need anyway? A backpack with some T-shirts, a couple of extra pairs of jeans and a comb and I'm good to go. We could walk through Europe - through lush green fields, stopping at brooks for a drink, grabbing food at roadside stalls - washing clothes in the river and still sporting sparkling white shirts and beautiful well-conditioned hair as in Yash/Karan Johar movies.....could be fun!
What if life itself was like that? The nice part about youth is that everyone knows it ends quickly. So they take their time to enjoy, to explore, to be goofy when they felt like it. Its the one license to be uninhibited and free. The rest of the time is spent setting and achieving various life goals. And that's how it should be - or life would start to seem aimless. How much wandering through green fields can one do anyways?
But that side of us remains. We try to hide it away, thinking its irresponsible, inappropriate even....Tell ourselves to grow up and end up becoming ultra-serious in the process. Think about bringing children up well, we tell ourselves. Spend this time updating technical skills. Or learning useful stuff. And we do - most of the time.
But at an unguarded moment, out comes Kajol with
zarra sa ghoom loon mein
and I forget to sing Arey na re na re na to send her back to the corner where she belongs. I let her come out, sing and dance - and have her moment in the sun. Of what use are locked up tamburas and locked up facets of ourselves?
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