Lately, I often feel that I am quite happy. Perhaps even lucky. I got to experience lockdown—a glimpse into how Brahma lives a single day in eighty years. Sometimes I tried to recall Sartre, telling myself that if solitude creeps in while we’re alone, it means we’re in bad company. But even that didn’t happen. The turbulent navel, full of restless energy—digestible! But I won’t talk about the lockdown, and I won’t, because we have to live with it—today and in the days to come. Whenever I think about “today” and “the days to come,” I try to imagine if the past had anything like this. Didn’t read much common history, so? The loneliness we choose voluntarily makes us aloof, but when it’s forced upon us, all our insecurities claw and scratch their way to the surface. We become unbearable to ourselves.
Still, we have Jibanananda, we have Rabindranath. We’ve learnt to make and watch films. I won’t say we’ve perfected it, but we have no doubts left about the necessity of art. Even during the lockdown, during the strictest lockdown, when the Sundarbans were blown away by the storm, when workers were labeled “migrant” (a term that existed before but wasn’t trending), when Nusrat was on TikTok, people in her very area were crying for food, begging to survive, while a few old men, sitting in air-conditioned rooms, masks concealing their faces, tried to play the role of cultural guardians. Meanwhile, in some corner, Vidya Balan smirked in her Silk persona, whispering, “Picture sirf teen cheezon ke wajah se chalti hai” (a movie runs on three things). Even then, all we sought was freedom from blame. Entertainment is where our freedom lies, and it’s all inspired by her.
But I won’t talk about the lockdown. If I do, the words become like rotten gas leaking from my fingers, solidifying in the blood, emerging as sound. My voice cracks. And when the voice cracks, it disrupts the performance. An artist should know how to maintain themselves…
