Life_In_A_Metro
The transition from an observant muse decoder to a male bashing juke box of frowns happened when an important person in my life contemplated divorce. The ‘he doesn’t call required number of times’, ‘would rather be at the club than home’ pace of living turned this cow like clam friend into a crying mess and then a jaded aloof. While indulgence brought about peace to some level, almost any visual stimulation would get us both connecting it to the recluse nature of men. My remembrances also added attributes to this and soon we decided to collectively hate men.
That’s when Life in a Metro gave us some perspective- not necessarily the required one. Life in a Metro is not our current reality check, which is a far cry from the dream of owning an island resort, but a movie of recent time. A confused state of quick but sometimes dreadfully dragging, anxiously anticipating god-knows-what, manic-depressive bi-polar mood swings, encounters and interactions with borderline retards, a progressive potential for the same or higher degree of retardation, momentary peace in an almost stable mad rush, a disbelief at something pleasant, a constant buzz intertwined with the afore mentioned anxious anticipation, a presently lapse of reason and logic, an open armed acceptance of the weird and above all an unsuccessful race against speeding time is what I would call my Life in a Metro. The happy ending, which lasted for 30 seconds, comprised 0.8% of the movie. But what remained with us is the content rambled along the movie’s length. The ease with which adultery slides into ordinary middle-class life. The ease with which it is accepted, as we accept a clumsy butter fingered coffee spiller at a table. Furthermore, one striking feature that makes me repeat ‘ease’ is reason for adultery, or rather the lack of it. The movie feels no need to harp on a reason for adultery, which other movies sell as a justifying point. Failed career, an injury, a feeling of neglect, a passing passion finding its vent, a desire to experiment, to avenge, to break free, to assert or to submit maybe reasons explored to depths in movies to justify adultery. This movie didn’t make a pick from the list. Though a combination of some of the above maybe traced. But it did raise one question.
Which of the two is worse? Casual sex adultery or falling in love adultery. And right enough my companion and I had a difference in opinion. And divorce the solution? While the movie advocated no such claims, it did make me give my friend a deadline. A month’s time, like a resignation notice one gives. Though there is nothing but insecurity I threaten her with. So while the movie has the greater bliss of wrapping up decade long sagas in a couple of hours, my dear friend has to undertake a life changing decision in a month’s time. Should she endure this hardship or should she break free? Is it ok to be in this mad rush without a husband and a marriage or it is only easier? Will the city care or is it too busy making or watching movies about life in a city?
With this making me a little more confused and disoriented than I already was, I could only think of one thing to say that I heard as a sound technician of a play – Life can be more like a movie than most movies.