In sixth grade, I was taken to a pediatric psychologist. I had issues. I wasn’t able to survive more than a few hours without my parents – at school, playgrounds, summer camps and even friends’ sleepovers. On vacations, I’d imagine being abandoned at eerie hill stations or empty beaches. I had become the anti-Kevin McCallister, my greatest fear undoubtedly a Home Alone scenario. I’d be overcome by what I later discovered were claustrophobic panic attacks.
Cinematic parallels
I was locked in a room at the clinic, and told to write about my best friend. Of course, I cried my way out of captivity, afraid that the strange doctor lady would send my mother away forever. “You fools, have you ever seen lonely young movie characters?” I’d scream in my own head. Loneliness was an illness in Hindi cinema; family/love was the cure. The closest within convention were extroverted orphans ( Rangeela, Ghulam ) or brooding cops ( Main Khiladi Tu Anari ). A namesake, Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) from Darr , was ironically the only real answer; I wasn’t ready to turn into a psychopathic villain yet. The others were mostly old, nutty and not Indian – Mrs. Dinsmoor (Anne Bancroft) or Arthur Lustig (De Niro) from Great Expectations , Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino) from Scent of a Woman , and psychiatrist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) from Good Will Hunting .
Twenty years later, I’m the loneliest adult I’ve ever known. I found a way to recover from those crippling bouts of Separation Anxiety Disorder so well that extreme isolation is now my default lifestyle. It’s not out of choice. Cured by cinema to the point of secondary infection, I overcompensated. Which is why I try to cover up these communal deficiencies by romanticising the concept of urban alienation, choosing to emotionally identify with the younger counterparts of those cinematic oldies: the artistic selfishness of Finnegan Bell (Ethan Hawke), the moral estrangement of Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell), and the troubled intellectuality of Will Hunting (Matt Damon). I’m all of them and, inevitably, Bruce Wayne and Forrest Gump and Truman Burbank – only because I can’t be better.
Writing is catharsis
I can’t look into a person’s eyes. Most of my relationships start with the written word, online or otherwise. I’ve chosen writing as my profession, swimming as recreation, and traveling solo as my passion, all as convenient ruses to justify my inherent awkwardness with human society. The fear of being judged is a disease that can’t be contained. Which is maybe why I’ve taken up a career (film criticism) that judges others. Those hours in a dark movie hall allow me to project all my desires onto the faces I end up writing about. In fact, I might have been scared of pale Edward Scissorhands (Johnny Depp) because there was a small part of me that wanted to be like him, and another part that was afraid I’d succeed. My favourite scenes occur when town residents not only stop being suspicious of him, but also celebrate him for what he is. He becomes an artist for them because he can’t be understood. It’s how I temporarily feel when somebody tells me that I’m refreshingly silent, studious or unnaturally pokerfaced.
Dysfunctional protagonists
I’d silently cry after watching Mr. Bean reruns because his low-functioning friendlessness was almost aspirational for a kid who could foresee his volatile equation with the monotony of adulthood. He is so incredibly lonely, I’d think, because he is incredibly conscious about what others think of him. We laughed at him because he chose to be deluded and not depressed about it, like legendary Dunder Mifflin manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) from The Office . They thrive on their dysfunctional status only because they are being watched. Think of them back home after work in their private space. This is where they are solitary and unremarkable, painfully aware of what they lack. But like me, they won’t admit it, simply bolstering this persona in public as an accidental choice.
That we are socially inadequate makes us view the smallest of things through a more heightened prism – a simple chat, brush of the arm, Facebook message, visit from a relative, or most of all, rejection. The heart beats faster in seemingly ordinary situations. A regular night out becomes a reservoir of unfulfilled expectations. A cancelled plan is construed as a sign of personal insult. A romantic relationship becomes an invisible battle of wavelengths. We become a sum of all our heartbreaks. We crave to the point of neediness, and then overcompensate to hide these castles built in the air.
For instance, take the cases of lonely Bandra widower Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan, in The Lunchbox ), and reclusive Shimla spinster Maya Devi (Manisha Koirala, in Dear Maya ). You can sense Saajan’s excitement growing with each letter he receives from the married lady. He is ecstatic about this connection. But he remains cautious about expressing himself. This is visible in the scene he casually informs enthusiastic colleague Shaikh (Nawazuddin) and his wife over lunch about the “girlfriend” he has. The letters mean much more to him; they give him life, whereas they only promise to alter hers. Timeworn Maya Devi is equally ecstatic by the poetic letters she receives, unaware that two schoolgirls are merely playing a prank on her. She sees the light, opens her windows and frees all her caged birds, both literally and figuratively. She even decides to blindly move to Delhi to track down this mysterious suitor. That’s how hard she reacts to a whiff of intimacy as compared to, say, “normal” people.
In hindsight, every relationship I’ve had feels like these fake letters, too. Bit by bit, they lead me out of darkness. But once it ends, the sense of abandonment is paralysing. I resent them for nudging me out of my cave and then vanishing. In an optimistic movie world, Maya rediscovers the beauty of the civilisation in pursuit of a phantom lover. In the real world, I recoil and bury myself deeper into an abyss. And I become that anxious sixth-grade boy, locked in the psychologist’s room to write essays, convinced that there’s nobody waiting outside the door.
The writer is a freelance film critic, writer and habitual solo traveller
