KUCH DOOR SAATH CHALNA BAAKI HAI







Pic.: Shankar Ramchandran

Two days ago, I watched the latest Hindi movie, ‘Kapoor & Sons’ with my wife. We both loved the movie… The story was simple and relate-able. Yes, as most of the viewers had done, we, too, laughed and cried as we watched the movie…

The scene that moved me the most was the car accident. As many of my readers are yet to watch the movie, I wouldn’t tell, here, what happens in this car accident. To me, that scene was one of the brilliantly captured scenes of Hindi or any movies. There was no warning before the accident or any melodrama after it… Only this song in the background:

“Saathi re thoda thehar jaa
Abhi raastein kuch badal se jayenge
O saathi re thoda thehar jaa
Yeh paanv bhi ab sambhal se jayenge”

I went numb while I was listening to this song … “Why do we make such a big deal about the other persons’ behavior – be it our spouses, sons, daughters, sons-in-law or daughters-in-law, uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews, even friends and neighbors, colleagues and students whoever it be – yes, why such a big deal, such a big hue and cry when they ‘slip’, ‘stray’, or behave the way we don’t want them to… Yes, why such a huge showdown, such a blunt treatment? Why don’t we recognize the change that is taking place quietly? Why don’t we sense the beat of that changing heart? And, yes, why don’t we give the other person another chance?
What do we want?
What that car accident brings?

In the movie ‘3-Idiots’, the scene in which the engineering student, Joy Lobo, hangs himself in his hostel room and the background song… yes, this scene gives me a similar experience… That song is so beautiful, so meaningful. And, that tragic scene has so much healing strength!
“Give me some sunshine
Give me some rain
Give me another chance
I wanna grow up once again”
Why don’t we give the other person another chance – when he repeatedly pleads that he wants to grow up once again?
It was in 1982, nearly thirty-five years ago, when I had watched the Hindi movie, ‘Shakti’. Both, Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan, had been my two favorite actors and Salim-Javed had been my favorite story-writers... 

 DCP Ashwini Kumar (Dilip Kumar) is an upright police officer and Vijay,  his son (Amitabh Bachchan), is shown detesting this uprightness… so much so, the story is about how father and son want to come close to each other but how their pride does not allow them to… Finally, the father, in that breath-taking chase scene inside the airport, shoots down his son… What is so endearing is when the heart-broken father holds his dying son close to his bosoms and keeps repeating, “Nahin… Vijay Nahin” Yes, the father pleads before his son, not to leave him… that he always loved him…
What takes my breath away are the son’s last words:
“Dad, why didn’t you tell me that before?”
Yes, why don’t we tell our loved ones – that we love them. Yes, why don’t we tell them that – ‘before’?
“Saathi re thoda thehar jaa
Kuch door saath chalna baaki hai
Phir unhi raston pe
Tere mere kadmo ka milna baaki hai”

GERALD D’CUNHA
Video: YouTube

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