takes cojones (in the strictly english usage of the word) to do what asr did. what barun did.
it "reduced" asr to super cool lover. it signaled barun is indeed that ephemeral thing called star.
shimmy shimmy. one two bend flip. towel two towel four. mujhse shaadi karogi?
i couldn't breathe when he said "love can reduce anyone to anything." there is a strange and dangerous to one's health truth in that statement. and when he started his number with that little sexy pose i was prepared to sit back and enjoy but not leap up and hoot; and collapse into helpless laughter yelling "so cuuute." breathing had become difficult again.
this post is devoted to a man in black.
i came across this poem by michael ondaantje the other day, was reading him for the first time. no knowledge, judgment, nothing, read the poem and the words jolted within me. hit me hard and wouldn't leave. a bit like barun that first time i saw him. some things really can't be explained.
the poem's erotic images kept playing asr and khushi in my mind. was waiting for the right reference to share it here. then he danced. and the poem said, write me.
"if i were a cinnamon peeler
i would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.
your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. the blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.
here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. this ankle.
you will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.
i could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
i buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...
when we swam once
i touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
you climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
and you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.
you touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
i am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. smell me."
he has left the yellow turmeric paste mark on her. he will ride her bed no doubt. but when the hatred descends and the night is bereft, when a thousand dreams break, and there's separation once more, she will know his scent is on her. he makes love to her. and the dance goes on. she is arnav singh raizada's wife. (i wrote most of this take after watching the episode while the show was on... everything pointed toward a separation back then.)
but for now, i just want to stay with that dance. took asr to another level, this short crazy number. some truths our gut tells us, our brain processes much later, and our heart feels its joy for long afterward.
the fact that he got his girl. got what made her feel good. the fact that he was willing to shed inhibitions, step way out of his comfort zone, because that smile in her heart gave him a high, a spin, a buzz. it mattered more than his hard held ideas. he was willing to cross the line he'd drawn. that took him to another whole new level.
and then there was the execution of this decision. stop stop stop goes the heart, fingers slow down on the keyboard. did he plan it ahead, did he do an impromptu? does it matter? one look at him in his close hugging long jacket and narrow pants, legs endlessly long but planted firmly, face unmoving, except for the glitter in his eyes. you knew asr is here, and he'll make an offer you can't refuse.
it didn't matter i wasn't a salman fan, i'd never seen the towel step, i had no resonance with the song, in fact, had thought it was a pretty ordinary song before this. all that got through was the determined can do-ness of a beautiful man, a bit awkward yet hypnotic, a keenness in his eyes, a trust in his body, even if he didn't know what he was doing, he'd get it better than everybody. and he did.
a friend who'd never seen barun properly before but thought he was good looking in stills was sitting by me watching, she kept laughing and saying: wow, he's so cute, like a kid, so fresh, wow. today she said she hadn't slept much last night, kept on thinking of him. i smiled. happens.
the low angle shots flattered his build and looks no end. his teeth, those front incisors, hmmm. added something extraordinarily sexy to expressions.
he held out his hand inviting her to join him, then strode over instead to get her on the stage. asr takes command. always.
"will you marry me?" in the language he is comfortable in, but words weren't required, the heat and passion mixed with adoring tenderness, even your utterest sanak can't make you look away from that.
on my later watches i just didn't like the shot of asr in a "dream" sequence, though the first time i didn't mind it. but really, no, asr does not slip into dream scenarios where he is dancing giddily. teri meri during kidnap was different, it was tightly knit into their story and his anguish, his need. not so here, and felt just cheesy... off.
she had spoken to him of the future earlier, painted a picture which perhaps he never had for himself... a picture of happiness. maybe there was even a story there of asr, a young man who had become old before his time and who at ast could feel his youth, its exuberance, its spontaneity, thanks to this girl, her love, her ability to make his worl lighter, easier... director took pains to show us he was affected by what she said... stirred. perhaps that was used as "logic" to explain his proposal with dance. but something in it just didn't work. the dialogues too gooey, khushi somehow just not right. a spot of overacting... and really body language of sanaya not khushi. thankfully, it didn't mater finally, because i just was touched by an audacious young man, both the character and the actor.
that creatives had lost interest by now was most evident. an envelope lying on a table with a yellow cover kept being shown on a different background in close ups. an inconsequential envelope at that with a pointless story.
but my mind was really on asr.
1. he took off his shades and turned to the man begging for his attention and said: hai na... chachaji.
2. he walked as though drawn by a force unknown toward her, in control, completely out of it. the water in the pool swirled, lamps glimmered, all thought disappeared.
3. he looked up and roared ferociously at the elements; at betrayal and the breaking of dreams.
4. he sat with her still body in his arms on a cliff's edge, begging her to return, come back to him. he said her name forty three times, some said 75.
5. he did the towel dance.
then there's him smiling as she confesses to pouring mango juice into his shoes and not orange because she couldn't get any, and him saying "aur main," him switching from despair to determination in 310; him saying he needs nothing else. in each, the incredible evolution of asr.
i learnt something too as i watched this episode, i had never really known it before. love can reduce anyone to anything. it can reduce carbon to diamond. it can reduce emotions to epiphany.
mujhse shadi karogi?
more in black:
1. whom can i send flowers to for the three amigos scene? and how many times will the man who never wanted to marry say shadi, now shadi, only left shadi?
2. while it's lovely to show a merging of thoughts and things as side effect of pyaar, the "what the" and the "relax" repartee from khushi is beginning to jar.
3. kauon ka party. gahahhaha.
4. i want lavanya to jump out of a cake and vamp asr. c'mon let's see how devoted our man is. maybe kkgsr will arrive to make an offer he can't refuse? (i wrote this before seeing 348 and hyuk, she did exactly that.)
5. the necklace scene was beautiful.
6. yeh shyam abhi bhi ajeeb hai, aur dadi ek puri ajeeb dastaan hain.
7. anjali on that towel dance doing her girly one, intolerable.
8. barun sobti is a find.
9. when i was having a minor affair (in my daydreams, what else) with harrison ford, my husband bought me a book on him, two turtles called harrison and ford, and the entire indiana jones series. i didn't mind that i was called indi. i reminded him of that just now and he snarked: hah! how fleeting is thy love! he also said if i wanted to meet barun, he'd arrange it. uff, towel dancer, kahinke.
that thing in barun, in asr, that always speaks of innate intelligence and a most sexy snarkiness.
he was in love and he could do things for his lover many would balk at... now why is that so so appealing.
feet firmly planted, long legs causing mayhem, he prepared to let himself become a laughing stock if need be, but he had understood love does reduce you...
to your very essence.
......................
fanfiction
No comments:
Post a Comment