A boy grows up to exact vengeance on the man who rendered his father jobless. He remembers when his wronged family went from limitless to penniless. He will never forget that rainy night. His baby sister died because his impoverished father died while buying her medicines. He remembers the trauma. It defined him.
It always starts with Abbas-Mustan’s Baazigar . Almost every one of my flimsy childhood philosophies found its roots in this mainstream potboiler. I was convinced that a lost job would lead to uncivilised consequences. Call it fate or cruel irony then – for I was made to feel like that angry boy for longer than I can recall. I’d watch, envious, as my friends’ parents – doctors, lawyers, business owners — secured safe careers that never required their kids to worry about economic status. The children were in a position to take for granted that adults earned a living, irrespective of what they did.
By the time I was 16, my father had secured his sixth job. My “revenge list” of remorseless bosses expanded at an alarming rate. Avenging my father’s honour would require nothing less than the prolific machinations of a vigilante serial killer — one who history might remember as India’s notorious “Corporate Cleanser.” Of course, life is rarely as dramatic as the movies that juxtapose it with death. It takes ages to recognise that the real villains in fact lie within.
Looking inwards
I made peace with the lack of it. I never blamed my father for our lapses in financial stability; it was probably just injustice, recession and bad luck. One month we were occupying a swanky penthouse in Gurgaon, the next we were back in our modest Ahmedabad apartment wondering if we could steal the company car. Whether it was upscale Delhi or posh Juhu, I treated these phases as fleeting oasis peppering vast stretches of aridness. Homelessness was a stretch, but I was insecure enough to expect it. Midnight, for us modern-day Cinderellas, was inevitable; the glass shoes always had to be returned. We were invariably a somber phone call away from that tragic Baazigar flashback.
I even imagined the voice at the other end of the line — something as reluctantly soulless as Ryan Bingham’s (George Clooney) in Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air . Over time, this film assumed the air of a blood-curdling horror flick for me. It focuses on Bingham, a jaded professional who fires people for a living; his HR firm specialises in conducting mass layoffs on behalf of downsizing companies. Clooney’s character allowed me to put a face to all those I never saw but completely resented.
Was I expected to empathise with a compassionate executor whose “personal touch” would ease the indignity of termination? The joy of an otherwise well-crafted film was lost upon me, because such monsters didn’t deserve to be humanised. I’d react with a mix of disgust and fear, not unlike Ajay/Vicky if he were to watch a fictitious biopic of Madan Chopra.
Corporate villains
Here was a man specially called in to inform blindsided employees that their unsettled families will have to go back to Ahmedabad. Here was the man responsible for my lifelong tendency to view prosperity with a crippling sense of attachment and cynicism — the kind one reserves for escaping into a three-hour long multiplex romance before embarking upon a dreary week. And here was the man who made sure that every morning my father left for office, his son would pray for him to return with a briefcase and not a suitcase.
Yet, only once I embraced adulthood did I understand that while I was only a naïve onlooker, my father was at the epicenter of every storm. It was never about me. What must it feel like to play the underdog despite being better than the rest? What must it feel like to suppress your own doubts to project a fierce visage of pride?
The answer to the first question lies in Gabriele Muccino’s The Pursuit of Happyness . Chris Gardner (Will Smith) has compromised on opportunity so often that he isn’t at a stage where he can protect his five-year-old son from the harshness of his shortcomings. Chris Junior sees his father’s desperation, failure and fire to be counted. Gardner repeatedly swings for the fences, because he wants his boy to dream early. He dares to go for broke — from homeless salesman to elite stockbroker — because he is honest enough to admit, “When I got As in school, I had this good feeling about all the things I could be. And then I’d never become any of them.”
My dad may not have been pushed far enough to be this vulnerable. But every time a new headhunter called him, the hope in his voice conveyed the core of Gardner’s words. From wanting to provide a solid future for his son, somewhere along the way Gardner’s story becomes an exercise in rediscovering respect for himself. He has always been his own man, but he wants to become his own hero. My father, too, continues to look for that one last high-profile gig well past his retirement age – not for me, but perhaps to conquer his own Everest.
Hungry for work
I found the answer to the second question in a supporting character named Lou Wheeler (Alfred Molina) in Mark Williams’ A Family Man . The American film, again, circles the coming-of-age “humanity” of a ruthless headhunter (Gerard Butler, as Dane), and his struggle to balance work with family. But it’s Lou, his oldest client, who injects some heart into his journey. Lou is at home after working as an engineer for 30 years. Unemployable due to his seniority, he is restless and depressed, but puts up a brave face for his wife. He hates asking for help. His hopeful phone calls to Dane are disguised as friendly reminders.
When Dane ultimately lands him a job, Lou pretends to be calm when he hears the news. “I told you it’d happen,” he tells his elated wife matter-of-factly. What she doesn’t know, however, is that seconds ago he had locked himself in their bathroom. He shed tears of relief and theatrically punched the air like a winning athlete. Much like an emotional Gardner, who celebrates by clapping wordlessly on a crowded San Francisco street, Lou too is saluting himself. Privately. Because nobody else will. For the world, it’s just two men getting another job. But for them, this job means the world.
I can’t imagine the number of times my father may have downplayed his career’s finest moments because of the failures that preceded it. The family man’s pursuit of happiness has always been impersonal. Now, every interview is a victory. Now, it’s my turn to clap for him, on the very streets that once threatened to be our home.
