A thing of beauty

Some things have no names…and that’s their beauty…they refuse to be enchained to any particular definition. So I won’t call it friendship. But I have to write about this person.

I will not call him a friend as friendship is based on a firm feeling of liking and comfort. . There were patches of liking between feelings of irritation, curiosity, admiration and the feeling which makes you want to pour your drink on that person!

It is not important how we met…its enough to know that he was my colleague. He was also an aspiring director…a very talented photographer, a rebel, an egoist and over all a very weird man.

We would meet during coffee breaks and after office hours. We spent insane amounts of time in the canteen discussing movies. He would also talk about relationships, psychology and hair gel (he is the vainest of men)…and photography. But it was when he spoke of movies…then he had me mesmerized. He would talk about long shots, deep focus and camera angles. It was like listening to fairy tales.

He had very strange ideas about life. He was cynical and almost always rude! I being a person who likes to believe that I am a creature of mystery...his supposed insights into my mind irritated me. He didn’t believe in romance or love or friendship.

He would give me lectures about how I should stop being so blunt about my thoughts. He used to say rude things about my writing. .He would say you can’t write about anything you haven’t experienced! He would ask things like “the lovers you wrote about...did they make love (he used the three letter word instead) often?” or something equally shocking.

He could discuss openly about any embarrassing thing .I am an outspoken person myself…even then I would blush and mumble and get embarrassed.

He would laugh at my “forever/true love” notions. Or he would talk about hair gels.

When a pretty girl passed us by…he would totally stop talking and look at her till she disappeared. He is the only man who is totally unapologetic about it.

There was one day when we took a walk around our office campus. It was almost twilight and it was beautiful and serene. I don’t remember what we talked about…but that was the only time when we didn’t irritate each other.

The first movie he lent me was Fellini’s “La Strada”. To me the movie didn’t make sense. It was weird and the characters were idiotic. I hated the movie and told him so. He laughed and said he expected that and gave me a movie called “Nights of Cabiria”. The movie was about a stupid woman who never loses faith and is very romantic and trusting. When I told him that I liked this movie better than the first, he said that it was becoz I identified with the heroine. To date that comment annoys me.

He gave me some more movies to watch. Whether I liked them or not I noticed that they stayed with me. I constantly thought about those characters.

Till I met him..I saw movies as a means of escape…a realm where people sang to express themselves, where human story telling reached its pinnacle. He showed me that movies can be art..it can be a story…or a painting…a movie can be breath taking…sometimes becoz of the story and sometimes the way its told. I thoughts movies were something I lost myself in. He taught me that they can also be places where you can find yourself.

Now…I have seen so many movies in so many languages…and I think he opened my mind to these marvels.

No, he was not my friend. What we shared was too intense and was based on endless arguments. And unlike some of you doubt…there wasn’t anything romantic. Sometimes I think that we shared was an infinite ability to get on each other’s nerves. In my own peculiar way…when I was not annoyed, I was even fond of him.

Some things have no names…and that’s their beauty.