A One-Fifty Date

(I know that Mujtaba's Shabnam, Sunil-Shankha's Margaret are forever imprisoned only in black letters. The writer-clan holds eternal dominion over those peerless beauties. Alas! Charulata can be found only in Satyajit's realm. I would die a hundred times just to live once—this eternal yearning of the thirsting heart dissolves only into air. The mind always reaches false conclusions. Where the Creator holds no sway, there the writer-filmmaker holds sole dominion. Still, I am well, I shall remain well—I like to think this way, it pleases me; so I think it. I've arranged this piece with stories from some movies I've loved, beyond Bengali and Hindi; whatever I could remember while writing. In this writing, love dwells as much in the heart as on celluloid strips.)
: This time don't tell me you've seen this one too.
: Is that a request, by the way? Okay, I haven't seen Yojimbo. Now stop. Stop crying. It's pathetic. ....... I hate pathetic people. I'll have to kill you.
: Ugh! Disgusting! You're just impossible! Fine, you've seen everything! Happy now?
: Why are you so angry? If I had said earlier that I didn't like The Last Samurai, you would have been pleased too, wouldn't you? I'm pleased the same way.
: Brother, of course you'd like it. Your capacity for liking things is infinite. Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, Ran, Harakiri, Ugetsu, Sanjuro, Throne of Blood—you've driven me mad talking about all these. You like all things samurai. I get it. Go on!
: So you've made me your brother just for liking movies? Fine, fine. Now it seems my capacity for liking is also infinite. Even Rashomon's plot would surely fail against the self-serving contradictions of your thinking!
: Seems like we're playing out a love story movie plot. Have you decided you'll just needle me today? Go ahead, go ahead. Needle me all you want.
: Then it wouldn't be a love story—have you forgotten that heroine's sense of humor? It doesn't suit you, ma'am. Spending this beautiful afternoon with you, I can at most think of its theme song. Nothing more. Our dating is Before Sunrise or Before Sunset type—at most you could drag in Annie Hall if you insist on claiming today's date is something filmic! By the way, this hall........
: I get it. Listen here, wordsmith, this is Amar Ekushey Hall. Here boys stay upstairs and girls downstairs.
: Natural. Typical Bengali! That's the only style they live their whole lives—the fools!
: What do you mean! Shut up, nonsense! Just shut up! I'm older than you by the way—2 years, 3 months, 17 days, and 3.5 hours. Meaning, big sister. Please speak with some respect!
: So what if you're older? Have you forgotten The Reader, Malèna! You're older, you want to be on top, is that it? Oops! I've just rated your romantic mind. Sorry for that!
: Ugh! Nothing good comes to mind anymore. How can a person be so awful! All boys are too bad! I'd have peace if I could send you to Cast Away's island. You could talk nonsense with a ball all day. Poor Wilson!
: Why? You become The Blue Lagoon's heroine yourself. Come on, let's go. I don't mind. Seriously!
: I don't need to. No such desire. I'm quite well as I am. I won't go—find someone else. The other day you were going Into the Wild, Into the Wild on Facebook. I had already suspected you were wild. Go on, go to the jungle. The wild are beautiful in the wild. You'll see, like Baudelaire, obscene poetry will flow from your pen too.
: O people of the world! Give me the beautiful maidens of Tahiti, and I'll gift you all obscene poetry. Ah! Thanks! Such a lady my dirty mind longs to be with! Right now I feel like watching Irréversible, Original Sin, Eyes Wide Shut, The Dreamers, Ken Park, Basic Instinct, Lolita, Mulholland Drive, Jamón Jamón, A Clockwork Orange, The Graduate, In the Realm of the Senses...........
: Stop! Just stop it! You pathetic pervert!!
: Did you think I just started? Started what? God bless your poor feelings! By the way, The Dreamers' heroine also watched many movies, like you. I imagine you as Eva. Any problem?
: Be quiet. All this! Write these foul things on Facebook, foolish public will give likes.
: Jealousy. A typical woman unlike my anticipation. Still, I like it! Haven't you seen All About Eve? If not, watch it. It was made thinking of you.
: Listen, listen, don't get too cocky. My photos get more likes than your statuses. Understand? Huh!
: Of course they would. First, you're a woman. If you didn't get likes, your womanhood would be wasted! Ugh! Boys can manage! Besides, I don't do modeling like you. You're selling what you have. I'm selling what I have. Everyone sells! That's it! Simple! By the way, I saw the other day someone commented on your photo that your look was like Hepburn's when climbing stairs in Roman Holiday. I must appreciate his intentional humor sense. Another one made you the heroine of Casablanca outright! Holy cow! I wrote that I'd buy him the DVD with my own money, and you deleted my comment. What was that about? After your marriage, I had imagined you in the heroine's role from Brief Encounter. Ah, ah! In great sorrow, I abandoned that hope too! Another wrote that your eye expression was like La Strada's heroine. That guy's face looks somewhat like Benigni. I wrote Good luck waiter! Luckily, the guy hasn't seen Life Is Beautiful. And you didn't understand either; that's probably why the comment's still there. Another said he wants to get wet in the rain with you like in The Notebook! And you even liked that! Great! Ah, how beauties live perfectly fine without brains!
: What are you trying to say? You have brains, you sell that. I don't have any, right? Good riddance, go away!
: You understood! Oh my God! I see God forgot and gave this girl both a bit of brain and a lot of beauty. How curious!
: Ugh! You're extremely disgusting! Typical man! You're the ugly one from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Hehehe.......
: Oh! Is that so, madam? I thought I was the crazy one from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. No matter! Man will be man. Always! Men should be disgusting! If men weren't disgusting, they'd seem effeminate.
: Evening has come. The call to prayer will sound soon. Stop now. Will you break your fast? Do it, do it. I haven't kept the fast today either. And by the way, thanks for recommending Amélie! You know, in the evenings I feel like Amélie. Don't you remember the scene?
: I agree madam, but only in one scene-segment. In all other cases, you have Truffaut's wild child spirit as in The 400 Blows.
Right then the call to prayer sounded. We had iftar at Nayeem's cafeteria. Wonderful iftar. Their iftar per plate costs 40 taka. Our bill for two came to just 80 taka. Of course, she paid.
: Listen here, mister! Your condition isn't very good. Haven't you seen The Shawshank Redemption? Or The Green Mile, The Silence of the Lambs? You need to be beaten up. You need to be imprisoned immediately. Have you started thinking of yourself as the hero of Schindler's List or The Godfather? Huh? Okay, fine. Make me an offer I can't refuse. Now, catch me if you can, hehehe.....
: By the way, is it a challenge, or an offer? No worries, I don't mind. No matter, I'm applying Twelve Angry Men's negotiation techniques. For you, I'll be Gregory Peck from To Kill a Mockingbird this evening. Let me alter Forrest Gump's dialogue a bit, how's that? Life is like a box of troubles. You never know what you're gonna meet. Ah! Poor me! Say, you are yourself, right? Here I am myself, not someone else. You don't have schizophrenia, do you? Or have A Beautiful Mind, Fight Club, Shutter Island... possessed your mind?!
: Excuse me sir. I can't read you! Bizarre talk! I'm no match for Se7en, Chinatown, Vertigo, Rear Window, Dial M for Murder, Strangers on a Train, The Usual Suspects, Reservoir Dogs, The Departed, Psycho—even if you gathered the masterminds from all these films, they'd surely fail too! Why aren't you laughing? Don't laugh. I spoke uselessly. I flattered you, understand? Flattery! Every woman is trouble. Didn't you understand before? Why come on a date with a woman? I thought you were intelligent!
: Good heavens! I'm scared! You've applied oil in the wrong place. I don't need oil—I manage fine on my own. What did you understand? Should I not come with women, then come with men? You've knocked on the wrong door! And since when have you become such a film connoisseur? I thought beautiful women don't watch movies or read books for fear of losing their beauty. You've made me an honorable speaker entirely! I'm a simple person. I still watch Bicycle Thieves type movies. The entire film ends with just the story of catching a bicycle thief. Watching this movie, our Satyajit was so enchanted he decided he'd make movies too. Think about it—that's quite something! Because of that movie, we got Pather Panchali. I don't have Satyajit's brain. What can I do! So I watch such movies, eat puffed rice, sing songs! What else is there in life! In Life Is Beautiful, doesn't the father's natural gesture of making his son believe that even death is just a game, moments before the soldiers kill him, render meaningless all unnecessary arrangements for organizing life while abandoning life itself? You tell me! I live in the world of every moment. I don't live with so much planning. And The Color of Paradise, Children of Heaven, Taste of Cherry, Turtles Can Fly, Bashu the Little Stranger, The Bucket List, Little Miss Sunshine, Cinema Paradiso, Wild Strawberries, Breathless, Spirited Away, The Seventh Seal, It's a Wonderful Life, Tokyo Story, The Intouchables, The Cranes Are Flying—watching all these, I tend to my simple, dull brain. Before dying, dodging here and there, salvaging whatever life one can—that's it!

Watch Journey of Hope! There’s no happiness anywhere, you fool! Which bastard lives happily? Actually, nobody’s happy. It’s all just a pretense of happiness! Everything I learned I learned from movies. I tell God, Oh God! If you had given me just a little more brain, would a horse have laid one more egg? Regret, such regret! I feel like crying my throat out! Waaaaahhhhh……..By the way, did Theo Angelopoulos steal his Landscape in the Mist from our Pather Panchali? What do you think?
: You stole Hepburn’s coat, didn’t you? I get sick watching men’s pretensions. Your showing off has no end; you can pull it off too, boss. Brilliant talent! Very well. Let me give you some more movies to take care of your brain. Rain Man, Good Will Hunting, Scent of a Woman, Dead Poets Society, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Prestige, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Lives of Others, Taxi Driver, A Few Good Men, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Singin’ in the Rain, My Fair Lady, The Kid, Gone with the Wind, The Sixth Sense, No Country for Old Men, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Grapes of Wrath, Gandhi, The King’s Speech, Invictus, The Rules of the Game, Persona, Sansho the Bailiff, The Secret in Their Eyes, Memories of Murder, L’Avventura……. Phew! I’m out of breath, boss! Oh my! Why are you quiet? Don’t tell me you’ve seen all of those! I’m waiting to hear just that. Go on, tell me, I won’t mind. World’s biggest show-off! …….. Dating people with below average IQ is such a hassle! You can’t be on equal terms, you just have to endure pointless pain. I will never marry this type of person in my life; dating is fine though. These people belong to the world, not to one’s own family. There are two conditions for happiness: you can’t marry a genius, and you can’t be a genius yourself. What’s the point of giving yourself so much pain? It’s better to sit and watch Tom and Jerry than marry this type of person. What did Jibanananda get while he was alive? Nothing! Horse’s egg! It’s all our gain! What about him? You need to live while you’re alive. Like Bhaskar says, I don’t want immortality, I just want to live. …… Actually, do you remember, you posted a status on Facebook once? Something like “I feel like crying after watching movies. Suggest some movies.” I watched some movies from that. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, Grave of the Fireflies, The Pianist, My Sister’s Keeper, Nobody Knows—you had already told me to watch these. After We Die, Give Us Rice are also real masterpieces! I cried buckets watching these. Fed up with your whining, I then watched Meghe Dhaka Tara. Oh my! What a movie! If I could meet Ritwik Ghatak, I would touch his feet in salaam. I still feel melancholy thinking about that elder sister. A person just kept giving to the family! You’re not a good person. You cry yourself, and you arrange for others to cry too. You know, to cheer myself up, I watched only comedy movies for several days after that. The Dictator, Airplane!, Hitch, The Hangover, Liar Liar, Yes Man, Bruce Almighty, Home Alone, Borat. Even that didn’t work. The infinite capacity for tears! It never ends! Didn’t you suggest reading Jagari? I still haven’t read it. Not out of laziness, out of fear. On top of that, you said this book is impossible to read at a stretch; apparently even the world’s most cruel person couldn’t read this book continuously. I got more emotional watching some more movies. The Kite Runner, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, A Moment to Remember……..
: Stop stop, don’t say anymore apu, I feel like crying. If you mention more names I’ll really start sobbing!…… Hey hey, what are you doing? It’s not right for only one person to pay on a date. I think it ruins mutual respect. Besides, you’re not my wife or girlfriend. So, let me pay the tea bill. It’s only 10 taka! Even with a small job, one has the capacity to pay this much. ….. Do you remember Braveheart or Seven Pounds? Didn’t you cry watching them?
: I’m sorry, and I beg you too. I don’t need all that anymore. It hurts to keep feeling sad.
: Women are like that. They don’t want to feel sad themselves, they just want to make others sad. They start wars in the world, and they also bring peace. It’s all your grace, madam. Do you watch war movies or war-type movies? Like say, Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan, Troy, Downfall, Lawrence of Arabia, Blood Diamond, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Inglourious Basterds, Full Metal Jacket, Enemy at the Gates, The Patriot, The English Patient? Why are you keeping your face like that? Don’t tell me, with your tender hearts, you can’t bear war. But you start wars just fine!
: Why wouldn’t I watch them? I do watch them, just not as much! I was expecting some liberal perspective from you. I thought you at least don’t think stereotypically. Men fight wars for fun, and women get blamed, right? You have the machismo to wage war but not the machismo to take responsibility for it? Shame! Men! All the same! No matter how much education, knowledge, intelligence you have, you always want to keep women beneath you.
: Aha! You did say once that you want to be on top. Don’t worry! I’ll remember that.
: Ugh! Here we go again! Give me your mother’s number! You’ve matured twice your age. She needs to be informed immediately. Start watching children’s animation movies from today, it’ll help. WALL-E, The Lion King, Princess Mononoke, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Despicable Me, Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Ice Age, Aladdin, Up. Watch these. Start today with Ratatouille. Watch it, you’ll enjoy it. I genuinely want you to become human again. Your condition is very bad. (Suddenly he got hiccups while talking.)
: Hey apu, stop stop! You don’t need to talk so much while eating. Here, drink some water. …….. I see you’ve read my mind! Eating your ambrosia, I kept remembering that rat’s dialogue from Ratatouille too. Anyone can cook, that does not mean that anyone should. What’s this terrible recipe, who knows!
: Why? Wasn’t the cooking good? It’s canteen food! Somehow eating and surviving, that’s all! I made a mistake, boss, I should have taken you somewhere else to eat. What to do! If I can’t make mistakes with people close to me, who else can I go to, tell me? Okay fine, you pay the bill for this rotten food. After all, I can’t make you eat rotten food. Hehehe…….
: You need to be grabbed and beaten. You cunning one! You even made me a close person just to save money! You’re a complete idiot! I would have paid for tonight’s dinner anyway. Learn to spend a little, understand? Okay, how much is the meal here?
: Sooooo much! 30 taka per meal. Hehehe…….
: Oh I see! That’s what I thought! That’s why you were requesting me so earnestly to stay and have dinner! Sorry, it was my mistake. The food isn’t bad at all. Absolutely wonderful. I’m thrilled that they didn’t even give free cockroach babies with the oil-mixed dal water!
: Why are you doing this? You have to listen to so much for paying a 60 taka bill! What a wonderful time we had. Didn’t we? Can everything ever be obtained together? God himself doesn’t want us to get everything together. God is a bit jealous too! Didn’t you read Phantom as a child?
: You’re right. I was thinking of marrying you. But now I’m thinking, I won’t. You’re too wise, like Shabnam-Margaret. You can only love such women, you can’t marry them. Mujtaba-Sunil-Shankha didn’t either. There’s no point marrying a wise woman. She’ll just give you trouble!
: Oh no! What did you say, sir? What will happen to me now? I’ve fallen into water! Hehehe……. Didn’t you say expenses should be equal in dating? Today I won though. I spent 10 taka more than you. Hehehehahahahuhu………
: Well, what to do! You were forcefully on top. When women are on top, how can men win? And listen, you didn’t pay 10 taka more, you paid 5 taka more. Calculate and see.
: How how? …… Ohhh okay, I understand. I’m an Arts student, how much math can I know? Am I an engineer like you? You’re such a brilliant engineeeer!!
: Why are you cursing? What did I do? I just have one certificate, nothing else! Hahaha….. Okay, I’ll leave today. Take care.
: Wait a moment. I have a pleasant surprise for you, sir. I’ll give you a movie on pendrive that I’m sure you haven’t seen. If you had seen it, you would have definitely mentioned its name. Of course, many people don’t have this movie in their collection.
: Ballad of a Soldier?
: My God! Noooo!!! You are just impossible!! I do fear you, Neil!
: Hahaha ……. Thank you for your time. Good night!
: Heyyy…… wait a moment, please?
: What now?
: Nothing. Take care.
: Hahaha……. You too.
: Hey there!…….. Are you listening?
: If you call me back so many times I’ll actually stay. Will you keep me with you? Hahaha ……. Tell me, what do you want to say.
: Neil, can I give you a big tight hug? Please Neil, please ……..
At her scream, the black dog lying by Naem’s gate just opened its half-closed left eye a little and wagged its tail. But in what happiness?! I kept thinking, can happiness too sometimes be ironical? God won’t answer this, I know. This isn’t a question either; merely a soliloquy.
Footnote. Naem. National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM): National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM) is an apex institution under the Ministry of Education entrusted with the responsibility of training heads of educational institutions and education functionaries. In addition, it provides foundation training to the new entrants of Bangladesh Civil Service (General & Technical) Education Cadre Officers. It offers courses on education management, planning and administration, conducts educational research and provides policy support to the Ministry of Education. (Collected from Naem’s official website)