I am trying to get back to long-form writing. Away from Instagram, Twitter (X), or my newest imaginary* friends’ writings, where they do most of the writing, after I provoke their thoughts. I am starting this series to document the enormous amount of art I have been consuming lately. Via different media. For memory’s sake.

• ऐवज by Amol Palekar: Feeling: Fascination

This is the Marathi version of Amol Palekar’s autobiography Viewfinder. I have enjoyed watching his films well into adulthood. I discovered his early theater and socio-political work through this book. I did not enjoy the tone of the book, but it made me think about living an unconventional life: the choices one makes and the cost one has to pay while living such a life.

Through Palekar’s lived experience, it poses a question whether staying true to one’s principles is the way to live, or following conventional wisdom offers the safer path. At a time when most popular desi celebrities enjoy their pedestal while offering mere lip service to social issues, Palekar’s matter-of-fact stance on various aspects, including the easy acceptance of his daughter’s queerness, has earned my respect. I now have a well-rounded view of the man my household has long admired.

• Jugnuma by Raam Reddy: Feeling: Wonder

A woman from a small mountain village tells her young child a fairytale. Is the fable real, or does the grainy world captured through the lens represent reality? This magical film is so layered that at one point, the boundaries between the mundane and the fantastical dissolve. It seamlessly stitches the magical to the ordinary. It left me contemplating human lives, our connection to other beings surrounding us, the mystical, and the power of storytelling.

• Sabar bonda by Rohan Kanawade: Feeling: Acceptance

I watched Sabar Bonda the day it became available on Netflix. Watching it for the second time was an equally moving experience. It made me wonder about how communities go through grief when someone dies. Individual grief becomes a shared experience in small towns. People bring you food; they walk you through the rituals of loss.

‘A‘ read out an excerpt from a book she is reading, which states that the acceptance of queerness in smaller, marginalized communities is uncomplicated and out of survival. There are no false facades of pride or prejudice (see what I did there). That feeling of acceptance has stayed with me. I wish to apply it to more things in my life.

• My friends by Fredrik Backman: Feeling: hope

If you grew up having friends, what do you remember the most about those times? Do any pivotal moments stay afloat? For me, surprisingly, it’s the mundane stuff. The cycle rides to the playground when we shifted home. The rides back home before nightfall. The irrational fear of some गल्लीs/gallis (alleys) and houses. The foreboding we felt while passing a house with a huge dog. We had never seen the dog, only heard its incessant barking, to arrive at this logical conclusion. I remember sharing ghost stories at the building’s back gate, then being scared beyond wits to go back home by crossing the lightless porch. I remember the euphoria of shared potlucks and books. The make-believe picnic on the building terrace. Putting up a bedsheet canopy for shade below the water tank and sharing food, playing cards, making up games to pass long summer days, until someone was called back home.

Backman is quintessential Bollywood in his presentation and understanding of the world. In a good way. His stories are driven by hope. Despite the bleak character backstories he paints. He meanders. He gives every character in his story a chance. As we inch more toward dystopia, a part of me wants to hold on to this simple worldview. I am aware the world is much more complex. I am glad I was able to start the first month of the new year with this hope. However naive it might be.

*claude being the latest addition to my imaginary friend circle.