I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go
Masaan, Life of Pi, Hellos and Goodbyes
SPOILER ALERT FOR THE FILMS MASAAN AND LIFE OF PI
Not getting a chance to say goodbye is, perhaps, one of the most cruelest fate to receive. A simple acknowledgment of the passing and letting go. Of the end. I can’t help myself but think of the famous Andy Bernard quote from The Office
I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.
I find this to be a great absurdity of life. How, despite all our efforts to view things linearly, we can’t really box our experiences into a straight line. Oh! How we wish we could separate the beginnings from the endings. If only we could point our fingers to these moments. This is where it all began. This is how it ended. A sense of closure goes a long way in a pretty much uncertain life.
When I first watched Masaan, I remember feeling very confused. It was initially difficult to keep up with the two separate storylines. One was a playful, blooming tale of an innocent love. And the other, a tale of carrying the ghosts of your past.
Richa Chadda’s tale follows the aftermath of her character’s rock bottom and takes us through the painstaking, and yet patient journey that Devi makes upwards. It’s the journey of a new beginning, forever haunted by the mistakes of the past. This plays out in contrast to Vicky and Shweta’s tale of a budding romance. One shows us how hard new beginnings can be. That, what has ended, never really ends. And the other is all about the hope and ambition of new chapters in life. The dissonance sat heavily on me.
We find ourselves on a familiar crossroad by the end of the film. As Deepak is emerging from one of the most difficult goodbyes of his life, another hello awaits for Devi. That’s where the film ends. The meeting of these two worlds was something that I could have never imagined.
Maybe life doesn’t redeem itself but gives us a chance to say hello again. To start over. This is what Masaan meant for me. This frame. It gave me faith that that despite the most tragic things that could happen, life always gives you second chances. To begin again. To let go.
And what do I say about this film. So much grief. So so much. This entire sequence was tremendous amount of grief to take in.
As Pi recalls the moment when he was finally rescued, he remembers breaking down and crying hard. It wasn’t the fact that he survived the sea, or that he made it out alive, which broke him. It left me with so much pain for Pi. Who did he survive for? At that moment, what meaning did life make? What do you live for when all is lost? How do you begin again?
Here is a man, who lost everything. His hometown, his family, the person he loved, the person he was. And he did not even get a single chance to say goodbye to any of them. The suddenness of his loss. I could feel that shattering emotion when even the last chance of coming close to a moment resembling goodbye was not for him to keep.
That’s what Richard Parker, the tiger, represented. All things come to an end. The good and the bad. They all become a part of us, as we become a part of them. To bid farewell, is then, to part ways with a part of us. A part that stayed with us, and made us who we are. Even something as bad as a maneater helped Pi to survive and be the person he became.
So then, a moment to say goodbye becomes the saving grace in a life full of loss and grief.
Both Masaan and Life of Pi showed us that beginnings are endings in making and endings are beginnings waiting to happen. Devi, Deepak, and Pi, were faced with tremendous losses. Endings that weren’t in their control. But they found their way to newer beginnings.
Beginnings and Endings are never the two opposites of a line but rather two points on a continuum. Hellos and Goodbyes are moments that capture these points. I feel sometimes these moments become really important. When I look back at the lives of these three characters, I feel the lack of closure they experienced. Their grief. The most beautiful hellos of their life could not see the face of their goodbyes. Even another series of fresh beginnings could never fill that gap.
When I look back at my own journey, I often think about some important points that defined the most precious moments and relations in my life. So many hellos come to mind. The pandemic took away the chance of saying goodbye to all these sacred hellos that had come to be an integral part of me.
I wish I could say goodbye to my roommate who became my constant companion for most of my college life. I wish I could say goodbye to my friends who made college memorable for me. The countless adventures we made. I wish I could say goodbye to Bangalore. The city that saw me evolve. The city that witnessed my growth as a person. The city that gave me all. What sucks the most is that even during the second time, when older goodbyes led to newer hellos in Bangalore, I was robbed of the chance to say bye again.
I know that these people and these moments will forever stay with me. But I only wish I had the moment where I could look them in the eye and thank them for all they did. To tell them what they meant to me. So take every chance you can, and thank the ones around you. Thank them as parts of you.
When Life Gives You Melon
Choose Water over Choly 🍉
Aakash xx