A Most Endearing Sight

a tidbit from an unexpected place and time

Aug 08, 2023

Today, at the airport, I saw a most endearing sight. Just as I was about to get onto the moving walkway, I saw an old Indian couple in front of me. They were really old - hair fully greyed out, thick woollen sweaters, sneakers by Sketchers. As they were about to get into the moving walkway, they paused. The man held the lady’s hand and helped her onto it. For those entire hundred metres or so, he continued to hold her hand as she stood behind him gingerly looking around. He held it firmly as if the moving floor was in danger of slipping beneath his wife's feet. As if the laws of friction would magically disappear in the face of her aged fragility.

After the walkway ended, they were still one unit. Two bodies connected by outstretched arms and a grip stronger than welded metals but yet tender as a hug. I was in a hurry to get to my boarding gate, but I didn't feel like overtaking them. I couldn't help but stare at them, filled with an aching desire to stop them and ask them about their lives. I suppose in their story I would find the secret to a love that lasts. To a love whose grammar is somehow unassuming and yet encompassing. Or maybe I wouldn't learn anything.

Maybe they'd recite to me a story filled with the mundanity of the kind you wouldn't find in movies. Details about living you'd never see poems written about. I'd have expected a love story and gotten a life story. Entirely banal. He'll start all his anecdotes with "When we were young" and she'll blush as if she were still hearing these stories for the first time. All the while I'd look for something special. And, in the process, I'll miss the story of their lives, which is of course the story of their love.

I never got to stop and talk to them. I needed to be someplace. As we all always do. As I write this, I wish for a love like that. A love that remains. Even amidst the blessed travelling to exotica, the fine dining, wining, and gazing at stars shining, I want to look forward to buying vegetables from the local mandi. I think that ultimately when you unspool the film roll of life, it’s all just days. And as a writer once said - how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Reads (long or not)

I loved this (autofiction?) from the Paris review - Friendship by Devon Geyeline that captures the often blurred line that exists between a deep friendship and a romance that is so difficult to put into words. It’s a really exquisite piece of writing.
Personal essays are easily one of my favourite genres of writing because when they are good they are visceral in their impact. This essay by Jamil Jan Kochai - The Price of a Father’s Labor is quite breathtaking. I mean that in an almost literal sense.
Richard Brody’s dissection of Nolan’s Oppenheimer is the best thing I read about the movie. Brody holds no punches and I found his criticism to be sharp and keenly observed. I also largely agreed with him.
Claire Keegan’s short fiction - Small Things Like These is a masterclass in economic writing. Keegan tells a simple story populated with simple characters in simple prose. But, there is nothing simple about the world she creates.

To Watch

If you haven’t watched Saim Sadiq’s gorgeous film, Joyland you are missing out on one of the best movies to come out of the South Asian film industry in quite a while. I found Sadiq’s visual style to be distinct and fresh, not to mention some of the frames made me stop and gasp at how beautifully they had been staged. Joyland treats its characters tenderly and without judgement and asks us to do the same.
I’m not the biggest fan of Nolan’s take on Robert Oppenheimer but might I recommend another American film about an American hero? Consider Damien Chazelle’s First Man which treats the story of Neil Armstrong not as a collection of cliff notes but as a meditation on loss and grief. Dare I say it even looks and sounds better than Oppenheimer (Justin Hurwitz’s soundtrack is an all-timer in my books)
I was completely blown away by the sheer pace and tension constructed by the Safdie brothers in Good Time. Come for Robert Pattinson’s terrific performance (he has quietly become one of the best actors in Hollywood. How?) and stay for scene after scene of - ‘how in the hell did they shoot that’ moments.
This video of Guillaume Néry and Julie Gautier freediving at different spots in the world made me feel very small and insignificant. My heart stopped beating for a bit towards the end.

To Listen

Anurag Minus Verma hosts Manoj Mitta on the latest episode of his podcast where the latter talks about the history of law in India in the context of Caste Pride. Manoj’s research is deep and rigorous and he uncovers so much about how the fissures of caste in the India of today were created.
My close friends know that I have been on a Radiohead bender for the last many months (better late than never). Here’s some of their music put to fantastic use by fans and other musicians - (1): a mesmerizing remix of Radiohead and Kendrick Lamar that I bet you won’t be able to listen to just once, (2): A bonkers cover of Radiohead’s Weird Fishes, (3): A symphonic cover of No Surprises by Radiohead, (4): A string based cover of Radioheads most famous song - Creep
Here’s a really lovely and unique love poem.
Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem

by Matthew Olzmann
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```
So here’s what I’ve got, the reasons why our marriage
might work: Because you wear pink but write poems
about bullets and gravestones. Because you yell
at your keys when you lose them, and laugh,
loudly, at your own jokes. Because you can hold a pistol,
gut a pig. Because you memorize songs, even commercials
from thirty years back and sing them when vacuuming.
You have soft hands. Because when we moved, the contents
of what you packed were written inside the boxes.
Because you think swans are overrated and kind of stupid.
Because you drove me to the train station. You drove me
to Minneapolis. You drove me to Providence.
Because you underline everything you read, and circle
the things you think are important, and put stars next
to the things you think I should think are important,
and write notes in the margins about all the people
you’re mad at and my name almost never appears there.
Because you made that pork recipe you found
in the Frida Kahlo Cookbook. Because when you read
that essay about Rilke, you underlined the whole thing
except the part where Rilke says love means to deny the self
and to be consumed in flames. Because when the lights
are off, the curtains drawn, and an additional sheet is nailed
over the windows, you still believe someone outside
can see you. And one day five summers ago,
when you couldn’t put gas in your car, when your fridge
was so empty—not even leftovers or condiments—
there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew,
which you paid for with your last damn dime
because you once overheard me say that I liked it.
```
I thought maybe I can share some of the photos I took recently here. Those of you who follow me on Instagram might have already come across them. But maybe those who don’t might end up following my work there.
I visited the Louvre Museum in Paris recently. Because the Louvre was so crowded I thought it might be fun to frame images like these - of people seeing art, instead of me (or my camera) seeing it.
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