The Pulsant Life

I had seen Don Sutherland in The Italian Job, and can vividly remember his character, despite his short presence, and, amidst Mark Wahlberg, and more importantly, Charlize Theron. But, in The Leisure Seeker, with Helen Mirren, he was in a different league, and wouldn’t have budged with any number of Charlizes. Well, I don’t remember seeing Helen in any movies hitherto, though she deserved the Golden Globe nomination for this one.

(Picture courtesy: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3741632/mediaviewer/rm3009305856.)

The bonding of siblings Lillian and Jane, specially just before the credits roll, is adorable, too.

And I learnt love can happen in the West, indeed. Bollywood churns out Baghban moments every third movie, that we hardly see or experience in real life. Despite stories of uncommitted love amongst or between folks, TLS gives an insight into the reality there; in contrast to the fake news that is shown in Bollywood’s Baghbans.

I also learnt love actually grows when you age. Or both of you age. Or the three of you, sometimes. Only, the third is hard to understand as having been away for over three decades as someone else’s, who had adored the imagination as an innocent interest of love of a young teen. And that interest now appears to be of the purest form. There hasn’t been an interest like that ever since. That was over three decades ago. Childhood heartthrob keeps life pulsant, after all. The love as you age is something similar.

Love now-a-days happens for no reason. And relationships develop for reasons not love. It often appears to be absent at all between two souls, but just an arrangement. An understanding. A contract. No pain. No one is hurt, either. A passer-by situation. Strangers in some ways, indeed. Or in many ways, rather. Infatuation in some situations. Most often, it is love for how you are, but not for what you are. You get impressed easily, and get annoyed more so.

Specially with the vices of the world, more so societal, or fads, to boot, you wouldn’t know what you are upto. At the end, you wouldn’t even know what you went through, and so no guilt. And carry on with the next, something new. As young people, we were fed stories of the West something similar. Materialistic. And, then TLS changed the idea. But Baghban moments aren’t coming either.

It is more The Pleasure Seeker now. There is no unconditional love anymore. Rather, there is no love at all, anymore. It is just a pastime. Impressed by the accent, rather than the language itself. Or the meaning of it.

Just felt nice for old times. Three decades since.