Jayakar Jerome had warned me. The hyperactive former head of the Bangalore Development Authority, who had revived the organisation from the death bed to a national success, had said retirement would be fun at first. I did all the things I hadn’t done for decades, he said, like walking down M G Road munching peanuts, but I soon got totally bored.
I was determined not to let this dampen my spirits — get the best out of it while things remained fun. Writing columns and edits out of home was almost business as usual, and what was particularly pleasing was to be able to read in a freewheeling way without having to look at the clock. But as the weekend approached, I decided that things have to be livened up a wee bit and so proposed to the wife, let’s go see a movie. Do you mind, I have a job to do, she replied firmly, and prepared to go to work as I enjoyed my nth cup of tea. I mean over the weekend, I replied meekly and added a sweetener, I could get the tickets; the Lido multiplex is nearby and it will be premiering The Last Lear.
That was a winner. She has been a cinema addict all her life and had been forced to get her daily fix off the TV screen after dinner while I invariably fell off to sleep in 10 minutes. She obviously liked the thought of going to the movies once again (the last time we did it was to see Mirch Masala in south Delhi’s Savitri cinema two decades ago). So there I was, happy to have found a parking slot without any difficulty (since I was doing something youthful I had decided to let the driver go) and trying to find my way without asking too many times so as not to show that this was virtually my first visit to a multiplex.
The fun was in watching all those ads before the actual movie started and it was almost like the old times when they played the national anthem. That set the tone for the whole experience, a journey back to the future when you revisit the past but not entirely as there are critical differences. The national anthem was not played to the visual of the fluttering standard but the unique recreation of it by A R Rahman, complete with great improvisations by Bhimsen Joshi and the Mangeshkar sisters.
It could not have been a more complete return to the movies for me as, from beginning to end, the screen was dominated by the as-large-as-life persona of the Big B. The great thing about a modern multiplex is the bigness of its screen despite the smallness of the hall and the richness of its sound. The film, tailor-made to showcase the intrinsic brilliance of Bachchan the actor, shone every time he delivered lines from Shakespeare with the full grandeur that they carry within them.
During the interval, I was determined to do all the things you ought to do when you go to the movies, spend an absurd sum munching minuscule portions, which the wife did, and I sipped a cold coffee, telling myself it tasted exceptional considering how much it cost. The tone of a multiplex is set by youngsters old enough to go out with boy/girl friend in the evening and has to be made complete by the boy standing in the queue to get popcorn and iced coke for the two. Of these there was plenty all around.
The second half of the movie was mainstream Rituparno Ghosh, who excels in exploring personas of women. As three women slowly unwound and laid bare their less-than-perfect lives, Preity Zinta shone with a fine portrayal of a model-turned-heroine whose marriage was gone but heart, in terms of being a good human being, remained in the right place. All enjoyable movies must have a villain who is not too heinous and this one was no exception. The fixated director of the movie in the movie was insensitive without being ghastly
As we left the hall, the last thing in my mind was to judge the film in terms of its technicalities, the way a critic would and the mantle every cinegoer adopts for at least a short while after the end of a show. If you are going to the movies again as a kind of a milestone in your life then the last thing you want to do is sit in judgment. It more than wins your support if it has big stars, who deliver themselves ably and the product is smart, neatly wrapped up and manages to pull at your heartstrings a little. The film, a bit of a cameo, offered a slice of the desolation of King Lear, packaged into good entertainment. I could not have asked for more, returning as I was to the movie hall after two decades.
