Most often it’s not those who die or are mortally ill and injured, it’s the people around them who make for the more poignant stories. How lives change inalterably in just the wink of an eye, how things come to a grinding halt, how another person suddenly takes priority over their own self, how they may often forget to even laugh or cry at things, how they may have to go through the motions of death while being alive themselves. And how they may also find a spot of happiness and sunshine and let their hair down once in a while in the midst of overwhelming gloom.
Waiting is about two such people. It affectingly catches the tentative pause in their personal lives in the shadow of a looming loss. It’s about swinging between hope and despair. It’s about a bond forged in the face of a possible bereavement.
Shiv (Naseeruddin Shah) and Tara (Kalki Koechlin) strike an unusual friendship in a hospital. He has been nursing his comatose wife for eight months. She is coming to terms with the critical brain injury suffered by her husband in a road accident.
A study in contrast
The two are a study in contrast: be it their age, personality or lingo. They are on radically different journeys when it comes to coping with grief.
He is in the autumn of his life, has accepted and reconciled with things, found a new pattern, people and associations, has read all the medical journals on his wife’s condition, blinded himself to any negativity while living stubbornly in hope, a perpetual but ineffective hope perhaps. She is a young hipster, at a point where he would have been in the past, smarting in the face of life’s vagaries, unable to come to terms with things, seething with rage, finding herself utterly lonely in her pain (despite the thousands of Twitter followers), trying to find her very own coping mechanism in shopping rather than god.
The film is a journey in which they both have to embrace contradictory tugs: to pull the plug and let go, or to hang in there and keep the faith.
It’s a tale which could have easily lapsed into soppy sentimentality or left the audience utterly depressed. It doesn’t, not once. It remains emotional without turning maudlin. The people, situations, relationships, feelings are layered, warm and humorous; ringing true in their complexities. All because of the writing that is sensitive, dignified without any false notes. There is an unmistakable lightness of touch in dealing with a sombre subject. Humour is woven in just as gently into the narrative as pain. Some bitter-sweet moments stand out. Shah explaining the different stages of sorrow, for instance, makes for a profound but not ponderous sequence. Then there is a senior doctor telling his junior how to break the bad news to the patient, funny but wryly so.
The performances match the script in their nuance and effortlessness. Shah personifies wit and grace and Koechlin is all energy. Together they share a great vibe. There’s something equally heartwarming about the characters around them, especially the hard-nosed, professional yet likeable doctor [Rajat Kapoor] or the restive friend [Ratnabali Bhattacharjee] who is there for Tara, yet torn by the demands of her own family.
One had misgivings about the film before viewing it. Is it poaching the ground already trodden in Pedro Almodovar’s Talk To Her and Anne Le Ny’s Those Who Remain ?
Not quite. Waiting manages to stand on its own emotional ground, gently reiterating the one thing we all know and have experienced at some point in time: the agonising fragility and precariousness that comes as a package deal with life.
Waiting
Director: Anu Menon
Starring: Naseeruddin Shah, Kalki Koechlin, Rajat Kapoor
Runtime: 98 mins
