Love's journey

Watched a Malayalam movie recently. I generally do not watch movies taken in any different language other than the ones I know. But this one had good English subtitles! :-)

The movie was "Pranayam". It was a movie about three people, who in their twilight years, happen to experience a rare sort of happiness.

Well, the story starts with Anupam Kher's family and a father and son relationship. Anupam, known as Achutha Menon in this movie, has come over to his son's home in Ernakulam to recover from a recent heart attack. His daughter-in-law, a working woman, juggles around with a job, a teenage daughter, and an old father-in-law. Menon's son, who works in one of the Gulf countries, tries calling up from time to time to soothe the fraying nerves of his wife. The family lives in an apartment overlooking the beach in Ernakulam.

The story takes an interesting turn in the apartment lift when Achutha Menon watches a middle-aged woman Grace (Jayapradha) walking into it with her grand-daughter. The aged couple greet each other with a courteous "Hello" and at that moment, they freeze in shock. Neither one utters a word. And when Grace walks out of the lift at her floor, Menon falls down inside the lift due to yet another heart attack. Grace rushes him to the nearby hospital and does the needed to get him admitted. When asked for Menon's personal details such as age and house name, Grace flourishes them without even thinking twice. Which leaves us wondering about who she is and how she is related to Menon.

When Menon's daughter-in-law questions Grace's knowledge about Menon's personal details, Grace tells her that she is Menon's ex-wife and her husband's mother...

A little flashback then takes us back into Menon's and Grace's twenties when they fall in love and marry without their parents' approvals. Though both of them belong to different faiths, they stay put that way and become young parents to a son too. But such relationships need a lot of conviction and attention to survive. With small and trivial skirmishes, the couple separate from each other and Grace's parents play some ploys to split the couple apart. As a result, Menon gets away from his hometown and travels to the Northern states with his little son and Grace stays back and gets married again.

There is a third person who gets into the story now. Grace's husband - Mathews (Mohanlal).
Mathews is ailing from a paralysis stroke and a non-functional hand and leg. Grace takes care of Mathews and his needs and the couple live with their daughter's family.

After seeing Menon again, Grace is disturbed. She is transported back to the marital life they led together and the love they once shared. She is doubly disturbed when she learns that Menon never married again and that he had single-handedly brought up their son.

Menon is discharged from the hospital and comes back home, eager to meet Grace again. Until the moment Menon met Grace, he just wanted to get back to his house in his hometown. But then, he changes his mind after seeing Grace. Menon's son, who flies in from Dubai, does not like Grace coming back into their lives. He still harbors resentment towards his mother, who divorced his father and left him when he was a kid. But he never knew the truth about Grace's parents having played a role in his parent's separation. Nor did he know that his father was equally to blame for letting his ego play a part in messing up his marriage.

Grace's mind is at a turmoil when she comes to know about her son's resentment towards her. Her only solace is in Mathew's soothing words. But how does Mathews deal with this turmoil, and with Menon peeking back into Grace's life again?

Mathews handles the strife in Grace's mind with a lot of objectivity. Whenever Grace becomes a little too moody, thinking about Menon, Mathews handles her thoughts in a philosophical manner. He lets her know that it is only natural to feel certain emotions when someone meets the "ex" and the emotions are just to be left as-is without mulling over them too much. And when Grace's daughter and son-in-law lash out at her, accusing Grace of not telling them that she was married earlier and had a son too, it is Mathews who admonishes them and asks them to mind their own lives and not to interfere in theirs. The kind of maturity shown by Mathews, the love and affection he showers upon Grace, and the way he playfully needles her at been distracted from telling her prayers at night and kissing him good night reveal the powerful portrayal of a very sensitive and loving husband and the exemplary acting of Mohanlal.

Contrary to our conclusions that animosity is sure to spew between Menon and Mathews, the two of them shake hands with each other with respect. They chat up instantly with one another and share interesting episodes of their lives. Of course, a common interest to both of them is Grace...

Menon, at one such occasion, tells Mathews that he is jealous of him as he is loved so much by Grace. He witnesses the love and affection passing between the two and in his eyes, we see him longing for the kind of love that he knew for sure he had lost.

The children of both Menon and Mathews do not like the way the trio spend time with one another. Grace's daughter accuses Grace of being a Panchali as she thinks her mother wants to spend time with both her husbands. Mathews rushes to Grace's defense and takes his ire on his daughter. He consoles his wife late in the night saying that the younger generation cannot see relationships beyond the cloak of sex, and which is why they are unable to understand that relationships can blossom beyond the body too.

Frustrated that their own children do not understand the platonic nature of the relationship, the trio then plan a secret getaway across Kerala without informing their children. They go to places they love, breathe in the beaches, sing in the hotels, and talk all about their lives and experiences. During one such evening, Mathews ends up having one more severe stroke, after which he is admitted to the hospital. During this time, Mathews tells Grace and Menon that if in case he does not recover from the stroke, he would want Grace and Menon to live together and to take care of each other. A beautiful dialog captured with such sensitivity that you have no other option but just to cry.

What happens after that? Do Grace and Menon get the chance to live together again? Or does Mathews recover to resume life with his beloved?

When we keep wondering about what would happen, Grace dies...

A massive heart attack in the attendant's room. She dies after hugging Menon one last time when she is taken aback by a thunder bolt.

A sad twist indeed when we wonder if fate will smile at Menon again. But would Menon really smile if Mathews had died? Does one ending always bring about another happy beginning? What would have Grace gone through if Mathews had died and she was given a chance to provide companionship to Menon again? Would she have stepped in as Menon's companion? If she had, would guilt also have played a part in her providing companionship and solace to Menon? Can any relationship created out of obligation and guilt be a fulfilling one? And can the society ever understand any relationship that is formed in the twilight years of life? Or, would Grace mourn Mathew's absence from her life and keep away from Menon too?

We have answers to some questions and we don't have answers to many. Our answers might be a reflection of who we are. There are no rights and wrongs in relationships. The heart decides the fate of any relationship. Hence, the director did not take a chance. He must have loved the character of Grace so much that he let her die. A typical ending to a non-typical relationship.

While we keep pondering about the turn of events steered only by tears, the two men visit the graveyard together and lay down a bunch of flowers for Grace. A butterfly hovers over Grace's grave and kisses Mathews' heart. Menon smiles at Mathews with a silent salute to Grace's and Mathew's love and wheels Mathew's chair away.

An extraordinary friendship between two men who were united by the love of one graceful woman.

Watch this movie to experience the sensitive story line, to watch the emotions of love, maturity, forgiveness, and gratitude flit across the faces of Mathews, Grace, and Menon, to witness life and love in its glory at its twilight years...

Hats off to the director who has weaved magic with Pranayam and to Jayapradha, Anupam Kher, and Mohanlal who have proved that their acting is evergreen.

Pure love, Pure pain

I met this lady while I was boarding a bus from Bangalore to Chennai. It was a day-bus, a volvo with comfortable seats and an air conditioning. The lady must have been around sixtyish. But, she was wearing a salwar and had put her hair up in a stern sort of way.

As soon as the bus started from Bangalore and after the ticket checking was over, I pulled out an "Arthur Hailey" book from my bag and started reading through it. I didn't feel like talking to anyone in the bus - I usually don't too. I like the solace and the silence.

Sitting close to me but across the aisle, the lady was also reading a book. A spiritual one. She noticed mine and casually commented about Arthur Hailey and how interesting his books are. She also knew about how the author used to sit in a specific industrial setting for several months to write a book revolving around it.

The bus stopped for breakfast and we went inside to have our famous "idli vadas". I asked her to sit along us as she was travelling alone. I wouldn't want my mother to feel lonely, would I? We came back to our seats and resumed our dialog about books and the library chain in Bangalore which is doing a good job of making people read again. She then spoke about how she sweeps the part of the road that is before her gates and about her opinions on plastic, clutter, and the lack of civic sense. It was an interesting dialog indeed.

We then started talking about our families. I understood that she was from Chennai and that she was living in Bangalore with her husband. She didn't mention about any children. I assumed that she must not be having any because mothers do tend to mention about their children in their conversations. She then went on to say that she had a lovely park in her house made for the neighbour's children and how they come and play there till their heart's content. She gave me the impression that she loved children. When the conversation starting revolving around children more, I couldn't resist popping out the question about whether she had any of her own. To that question, came a sober "yes" and a "no". To my confused gaze, she replied that she had a girl and she would have been 30 if she was alive...

I felt contrite for even popping out that question. I apologized to her. She hushed that away and continued along. Her daughter was in college. A bright 20-year old with dreams and hopes in her eyes. During one summer holiday around 10 years back, the family (mother, father, daughter) had been to Assam and the North East states for a vacation. One of their relatives had been working there and they had invited the trio for a sight-seeing trip across those states. The three of them had had a wonderful time going around many places. After almost 10 days of going around, the trio had to return to Chennai. They had to catch a train in another city early one morning. They travelled in a taxi in the wee hours of the fateful day. A speeding bus coming from the opposite direction rammed into their taxi, ending up in a screech of brakes, and shattering of glasses. On hearing the loud noise, the people close to the road ran across to pull out the people who were caught in the taxi. The lady had briefly lost consciousness and her legs were jammed between the seats in a painful position. The villagers started pulling her out of the taxi. She looked across the seat to where her daughter was sitting and pointed towards her and asked the villagers to pull her out too. They just nodded that they will take care but didn't move along to her daughter's side at all. Her daughter was seated with her eyes closed.

Her husband who was sitting in the front seat before her was also injured. Broken bones and shock. The driver had passed away. The lady and her husband were transported separately to the nearby hospital. What followed then was a whirlwind of events through which the lady was floating in and out of consciousness. Surgeries, relatives coming in, blood tests... All through these events, the lady was asking for her daughter. But no one gave her a straight answer. Then, one day, the husband came in to see her. He was undergoing multiple surgeries for the broken bones too. He was still heavily plastered when he came in to see her. His face was sober and stone-like. All he said was that their daughter had passed away. Hers was an instant death due to brain injury. Since the daughter was sitting just behind the driver, both the driver and she took the hit of the bus ramming into the taxi. There were no external visible wounds. The brain had taken the hit as the girl could have banged her head into the driver's seat. The villagers had found out about it as soon as they had felt the girl's breath under her nostrils. The mother blanked out when she heard her husband say this. A part of her knew something was wrong and that part was correct. Her husband's face had a vacant look. An overflowing dam that didn't want to be let off.

It was already three days by the time she knew about her daughter's death. She learnt that her daughter's body had been brought to the same hospital in which she was admitted, a postmortem was done in one of the floors below, and the daughter's body released for cremation. All along, the mother was not aware of it. She was not in a position to move an inch with all her multiple injuries nor was the father able to move around too. So, was the cremation over? Yes, it was. It was done by her husband's brother, who had flewn in from Chennai. She was set to fire on the shores of a river where she swam last week. She had loved to lay on the river bed so much that she had commented that she wanted so stay on at that place forever. She got what she wanted.

I am in no position to write about the mother's grief. Words cannot narrate the tears that would have eroded her heart. The family shifted to Bangalore, the father ended up with diabetes that sets in with grief, and the duo tried to pick up the pieces of their fallen life. Ten years have passed by.

All along, I was unaware that tears had started falling down my cheeks. She was crying too. She showed me the photograph of her daughter that she carried with her. A young, smiling, lovely girl beside a scooty. The mother gifted away all the jewels and sarees she had got for her daughter's wedding. When any girl in the family gets married, the mother buys her a silk saree and a matching pair of chain and earrings to go with it. With every young girl getting married, the mother watches her daughter getting married too. The parents set up a gold medal to be awarded every year to the best girl student in the daughter's college. The medal was made of pure gold. The first year, the mother had been to the college to give away the prize. But the grief was so great that the mother did not attempt it from the next year onwards. There was no point breaking down at the triumphant moment of another girl.

The mother had been to multiple gurus with the unanswerable question "why". When she didn't get any answer, she wanted to know where her daughter went and whether she was happy. She never got an answer for that either. Life moved on. The father and mother tried passing through one day after the other.

She told me about the magnitude of sorrow that engulfed both of them. The most painful of all sorrows is the sorrow of losing one's child and these parents have undergone the raw pain. They are immune to any other sorrow that would befall them in their lives. What else can pain them more? I could see her pain then. The pain felt by one mother to another. The cruelty of fate that made this mother go through this in her life. The pain of not seeing her daughter's face before she was fed to the fire. The pain of living with guilt of having survived the accident that took her daughter away. The pain of not having taken the pain from her daughter when she hit her head on the seat in front. The pain of not having fulfilled her destiny as a mother.

I couldn't talk anymore. I was with living her pain for a long time afterwards.

We arrived at Chennai and parted our ways. I escorted her to the auto stand and shook hands with her. I don't remember her name nor would she mine. But I do remember her sorrow. The sorrow that still lingers in my heart.

The sorrow of having lost someone whom you love...

Kalps