Love is such a powerful emotion that sometimes the reel characters come alive for us, and we feel all that they do, with such a feeling that sometimes we fall in love with them

This incident dates back to 1981, nearly 30 years ago, when I studied in ninth class of Le Academy School in the small town of Forbesganj. On February 27, my birthday, Rajendra Kumar’s “Love story” was released. The same year, “Ek dooje ke liye” was released on June 5. It was a time when movies wouldn’t try to do unique marketing gimmicks to advertise their movie. It was the time of single theatres and so, the number of prints released were also few. Movies would take quite some time to reach the smaller towns and remote areas of Bihar – sometimes years. Katihar, a relatively bigger town of northern Bihar is also the region’s business centre, would get movies released sooner. Katihar is my maternal grandmother’s town and we would go there for Chathh with the entire family because nani would observe the festival in all its glory. For the children of the family, it would be nothing less than a celebration. My five mamas and one mausi would also land up there with their entire families. Sponsored by one of my mamas, all of us went for a movie to the local Basant Talkies to watch “Ek dooje ke liye” in November. Made by K Balachander, and music by Lakshmikant-Pyarelal, the story is about a Tamil Brahmin boy and a north Indian girl (in the Tamil version, the boy is Malyali and the girl is a Brahmin). The love story affected my young mind so much that I’d think of myself as Vasu for the next several months and every girl for me would be Sapna. Even the ghat for Chathh pooja would blast “Hum baney tum baney” from the movie on loud speakers. I can’t even begin to tell you how desperately I’d try to seek out my Sapna at every ghat during that Chatth pooja. Back in Forbesganj, I couldn’t concentrate on my studies for several months and felt I am in love. I had my Sapna is the eye of my mind; she just had to appear in front of me. Not just “Ek dooke ke liye”, the characters from “Bobby” (although I saw it pretty late, in 1987) which was released in 1973, Rahul Rawail’s “Betaab” (1983)with character Sunny and Roma, Aamir Khan’s :”Qayamat se qayamat tak” (1988) characters Raj and Rashmi, 1992-relased “Deewana” Raja and Kajal, and the Aditya Chopra block buster of 1995, “Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge” Raj and Simran have been unforgettable characters that have left a mark in the minds and hearts of people like me. And somewhere inside, they still live.
Talking about Hollywood movies, how can I forget Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone with the wind” – full of arrogance, sensuality, jealously, generosity, and love, this immortal character has always been close to my heart. Set against the American Civil War, the movie displays beautifully a mature love story: “Don’t run after what is not yours, and that which is yours will never go anywhere”. This is what the story depicts. Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is one of my favourite creations and when in 1968, Franco Zeffirelli made a movie on it, I realized that the character had always lived inside me, and had come alive now. Similarly, the 1957 movie “An affair to remember” is a lovely story of meeting, parting and meeting yet again. Against a background of the Second World War, “Casablance” (1942) showed a love triangle beautifully through Ingrid Bergman. Similarly, Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet’s “Titanic” of 1997 had some moving love scenes between the two. The 1997 “Notting Hill” starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, 1996’s “Jerry McGuire (which meant “you complete me”) showed love from a different perspective, saying that if a woman loves a man with all she has, she accepts not only what is good in him but also that which is not so good.
But two movies that are very close to my heart are Guru Dutt’s “Pyasa” and Raj Kapoor’s “Teesri kasam”. The latter because it is from my part of the world and I know the scriptwriter Faneeshwarnath Renu’s family personally. And I consider the story “Maare gaye gulfaam”, on which the movie is based one of the best in the world. There can be no better example of the purity, largeness and generosity of love than that is shown between the characters Hiraman and Hirabai.
What I want to say is that sometimes the characters in such movies are so lifelike that they begin to live in us and make a place for themselves in our hearts. Sometimes we talk to them and sometimes we try to relate to them.