Fabrics of Fantasy – II

I could hear the sound of guns firing.I was in the middle of a war…

“Stop it, Sammy! Don’t let that monstrous sound echo. It gets on to my nerves.” No effect. I shook my head to clear the hopeless feeling of war and stopped, and shook it again. After around a minute of that insane bulleting, it was switched off. I sighed. Bad idea of having to agreed to direct a film on the meaninglessness of a regional war. And even worse was the idea of signing up a totally disobedient first time assistant to manage things around. All that he managed was to successfully irritate and fire me up. Like now, by trying to sound edit and sound check the recorded firing noise, a day before the film was to commence, when I wanted to lean back against the artificial fountain that had no sane connection to the story, and signal the end of a hard day of supervision, and swear at the skies and whichever Gods inhabited it.

“Sorry Girish, wanted to make sure things were normal.” He was standing next to me, pulling near a chair and flopping himself down into it. I groaned, not without exaggeration. “Normal? Nothing around here is normal, with you getting all eager about something totally grovelling. Something that is going to be insignificant and a major box office flop. Sagar, the movie is going to be written off as on-the-spur rubbish by critics. Or on-the-spur violent rubbish,” I emphasised on his proper name to show that I hated calling him by the pseudo with which he was addressed by others.

He smiled wanly at me. “I guess you must be totally tired, with the planning and organizing. Don’t worry Giri, chill and relax. Things will go fine. Don’t get all pessimistic with the strain. Nerves, man, nerves.”

I forced a mock guffaw at him for having suggested that I was nervous and shortened my name, but accepted the refilled glass of beer. There was silence till I drank it down and then I turned to him, to find him grinning at me. He hardly drank, except at group gatherings and on occasional saturdays and that was another thing that I found irritating about him. Yes, and also the fact that he was somehow discernably more matured than me.

“It is all a fantasy idea, Sagar. Violence does attract masses but those are of the thriller genre. Not war. War represents whole communities and countries of sufferings that none want to be reminded about. It is not that brilliant an idea to shoot stories based on war.”

Sagar had stopped grinning long back. I watched with appreciation as his hands reached for the beer bottle and he took a long direct swig. I then checked my appreciation, he simply could not have the privelege of my approval on anything.

“Girish, The world is too small for any of us to ignore events that happen in our backyards. We can’t sit in India, relish freedom and liberty and sigh with pity on the Sri Lankans, tut-tut on their fate and carry on with our frisk bee-ing, can we?”

“Is the only solution to awaken people, the filming of the craziness? With artificial sets and locations? How do you think we can manage to convince people that we are shooting in Sri Lanka when all that we are doing is wasting precious precious money on those so-natural set ups? And of course, to think about those shots to be done in Sri Lanka, by the ocean….” I faded off, and then raged, suddenly flamed, “You think we all want to glorify ourselves for the daring at having braved living in that pain-riddled land till the completion of the filming, in the middle of that stupid war? Money, man, money. That is plainly why I am working on this. The money the producer suggested. Wonder why this craze on his part!”

The beer bottle in Sagar’s hand was now empty. But his eyes had taken on a shine. I was sure that it had nothing to do with the alcohol.

With some shock, I realised that there were tears in his eyes. I swallowed. “Sagar, boy, are you alright?”

I expected him to nod and do away with whatever he was emoting, but he shook his head with a “No, not alright.” I frowned, now I had a problem. I should have shut up along while ago, but it had been frustratingly irritating to have been involved in a project without a passion and anyway, now the damage was done.

“Sri Lanka is one of the most beautiful places on the earth, Giri. One of the most  beautiful and the most admired for its rich beauty. The whole encasement of the glorious lands by the seas, like it is a priced possesion to the earth. Endowed with the natural blessed bounties by the soil, sea and the sun. And the pride of its inhabitants. Lanka, with its history and beauty to match, the land by itself is an enigma to the world.”

After a long pause, he continued, ” I belong there. I was named after the expanses of the sea, that had fascinated my mother when she was yet a child. Still,my parents had been driven out of their home, on the order of not belonging there. I was born here, in India. I learnt about my homeland only from books and pictures, my parents never had the will power to talk about it for more than a few minutes without getting upset. It was my dream to go on there, like a child searching for the comfort of its mother.”

“And now, they are raping those virgin sands with all the blood shed from my kin. From the lonely, frightened hearts of the people of the land to which I belong to. From my people.” His voice was merely a whisper and it cracked as he finished.

“You call the media as the most powerful tool to invoke in people images of reality and illusion. What is then wrong in using it to portray the reality that is happening so near us? If that reality is something to be ashamed of and stay away from, haven’t we already lost the battle? Should we not be ashamed to call ourselves civilized and global players and turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the drum beats of death and the even-too-painful to mouth screams of wanting to live?”

It had come out in a wild rush from him. I had not been looking at him, my head bowed in extreme shame at humanity and its weird ways. Sensing this, he lowered his voice and reasoned gently, “Over all this, can we not arouse some care in people and make them at least whisper words of condemnation at what their neighbors are experiencing? I mean, should we turn mute too and exhibit the classic ‘my-neighbor-is-in-pain-and-I-am-celebrating syndrome?”

He lighted a cigarette and continued, “It will be the first time that I will set foot onto my land, and yes, I am savagely excited about it. If some of you people feel awkward about it and want to cancel out the shooting there, I would have to move on Giri. By no means am I going to stay back here, when my soul calls out to me, deepening my sense of guilt at leading a no worries life while….”

I had not been speaking for a long time. My mouth felt dry and I shook my head slowly. Strange images of India and suffering blended and I was slipping into the subconscious land of imagination, where my India replaced Lanka….

“Giri ?”

I flickered back to now. My eyes met his and there were strange,pure mutual tears in the two pairs of eyes holding each others gaze. “Not at all, Sagar. We will go on with this. With all the passion that we can put into to bring truth to fore. Infact, as the producer suggested, we might even try to shoot a major portion over there in Lanka…”

He shook his head in negation. “Not after these elaborate settings, man. We will finish with all the shots we planned here and then move on to Lanka for the remaining and wind up.”

I wanted to suddenly ask him to work with me further, after this project, but I felt that he would not be returning to India after the completion of the movie. It would mean a home and he was a man, who would rather be at home, than anywhere else, in Lanka.

I wanted to invite him home for dinner, but I did not. I got up, brushed,unnecessarily, my shirt and cleared my throat. ” Goodnight then, boy. See you early on tomorrow morning, don’t be late. ” Unnecessary addition again. He did not seem to have any ideas of leaving the sets for the night. I added again, “We will start on full swing tomorrow, boy, and finish it with vigour. And passion.” I added.

He nodded. At what, I did not know, for he seemed far away. I walked away then, leaving him gazing at those eternal stars and the evidences of history that they held.

It was going to be a long night, but I hoped dawn would break sooner, for me and for Lanka.

 

[On the lines of Vivek. Thanks Vivek.]