<img style="float: left;" src="http://origin.mid-day.com/images/2022/aug/Rahul-op_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Da Cunha" width="200" height="69" />Natasha, my 19-year-old neighbour came over&hellip;
&ldquo;You&rsquo;re back, Nats, how was Hoshiarpur?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Sucks dude!&rdquo;
Nats&rsquo; eyes narrowed as she went dark, her usually blazing eyes were little lunar eclipses, in the corneas, minor icicles of rage were forming.&nbsp;
&ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong, Nats?&rdquo; I asked concerned.
&nbsp;&ldquo;I go back home every Rakhsha bandhan... My sister Namrata and I, we tie each other a rakhi, a tradition &nbsp;since we were little&hellip;&rdquo;
The icicles of rage melted into drops of liquid sorrow. Nats repelled any attempt for comfort, as the momentary sadness morphed into monosyllabic snappiness.
&ldquo;Bruh&hellip; my bruh-in-law bastard mistreats my sister, slaps her around, gaslights her, and every morning she forgives him.&rdquo; (pause)
&ldquo;So Thursday night at dinner, just Namrata, me and him, she&rsquo;s cooked her heart out, he yells at her about something mundane, the bhindi, dude&hellip; I tell him to leave her alone. (Pause) Namrata tells me to leave. Just like that.
So I take the train from Hoshairpur, and here I am. (Pause, growl) El Creepster.&rdquo;
&ldquo;What&rsquo;s Creepster?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Combo of creep and molester &hellip;(invisible tear drop) she picked that swine over me, her sister!&rdquo;
&ldquo;No she didn&rsquo;t kiddo, you can&rsquo;t believe that.&rdquo;
&ldquo;She thinks everyday he&rsquo;ll improve. But, he gets worse, especially after he got laid off during COVID. My parents live two flats down, they don&rsquo;t say shit.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;Right, so your mom is very different from Shefali Shah?&rdquo; I offered trying to lighten the mood. &nbsp;
&ldquo;Huh?&rdquo; (eye roll)
&ldquo;The movie&hellip; Darlings. Shefali Shah&rsquo;s character is very different from your mom.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Oh yeah Darlings, you&rsquo;re meant to be lifting my mood... not be a downer. Man, that movie pissed me off!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Really? I found it quite delightful, in its own way, in the way that Bollywood can push a point only so far and no further.&rdquo;
&ldquo;See it&rsquo;s so &lsquo;obvio&rsquo; that you are an oldie... that escapist mentality&hellip; leave your brains at home, while watching a film.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Hey hey, back up&hellip; I&rsquo;m not an oldie. I&rsquo;m old school. I come from a generation that believes mainstream movies can&rsquo;t do the heavy lifting that parallel&nbsp; cinema could!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Yah, but hardly anyone saw those films&hellip; three people at a matinee at Akashwani doesn&rsquo;t make an audience, cannot change a perception.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m just saying, Nats, that today&rsquo;s movie makers have a very thin tightrope to walk on, OTT (Oh Those Trolls) on the one hand demanding boycotts&hellip; on the other, regressive eyeballs looking for light &nbsp;fluffy stuff&hellip;ok I admit, streaming platforms mean better stories, but you have to sugar coat serious themes to make them &lsquo;entertainment worthy&rsquo;!&rdquo;
(Eye roll)
&ldquo;Dude, Rahul, my point is, if you want to go down the dark path of domestic abuse in your film... better see it through&hellip; can&rsquo;t gloss over it, can&rsquo;t chicken out and side-step!&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;Times are different, got to make it palatable for PVR and Amazon Prime.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Beg to differ, &nbsp;don&rsquo;t give promise me &lsquo;an abuse film&rsquo; till the interval, and then descend into &nbsp;&lsquo;an amuse one&rsquo; thereafter!&rdquo; (Steam coming out of ears)
&ldquo;Rahul bruh, I wanna ask the dear director, &nbsp;promising first half, frustrated man takes his work anger out on his wife&hellip;she accepts that that is her lot&hellip; you&rsquo;ve cast Alia Bhatt and Shefali Shah, perfect poster girls for &nbsp;&lsquo;issue-based movies&rsquo;, you have us &nbsp;by the collar, Alia as the abused angel, Shefali as her supportive mother, Vijay Verma beating the crap out of her, she loses a baby. You&rsquo;re at the interval and I&rsquo;m thinking, now finish it, go for the jugular, your audience will digest it, they&rsquo;ll accept it from Alia, chance to change an attitude (pause). And what do you do in the second half&hellip; you bail out and give us a kidnap caper!&rdquo; (breathy pause) &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t combine an intense issue with inane comedy.&rdquo;
I agreed only in part.
&ldquo;Look Nats&hellip; gotta start somewhere&hellip; Darlings is the tip of the ice-berg.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Man, now take that movie Thappad &hellip; seriously adult film&hellip; that babe, Tapsee Pannu gets slapped, ONCE&hellip; just once and she walks. It ain&rsquo;t just a slap&hellip; it&rsquo;s a lifetime of being slapped down, bruh&hellip; everyone&rsquo;s against her decision, but she seeks divorce.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Okay bruh&hellip; gotta bounce&hellip; off to watch Tom Hanks.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Oh Forrest Gump!&rdquo;
&ldquo;No man, the Elvis movie!&rdquo; she concluded.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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Nats’ eyes narrowed as she went dark, her usually blazing eyes were little lunar eclipses, in the corneas, minor icicles of rage were forming

Natasha aka Nats aka Darlings

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Natasha aka Nats aka Darlings

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