St Mary’s N.Lakhimpur, My first film and much more!

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Change….that was the most hated word of my childhood. I craved stability…a place where I could take root…grow wings but inevitably have a place to come back to…but the word ‘transfer’ threatened it all! Abba's being in the judiciary was a curse me and my three brothers had to constantly negotiate most of our lives. And what was more horrific to me was to be uprooted from an upmarket, polished all girls school to a co-ed one, with the dreaded word ‘boys’! St Mary’s North Lakhimpur, where all the rules were written to be broken. Where you had periodic strikes by students and boycotts… India indeed was independent but the students considered themselves self styled rebels, Guevera must have a Lakhimpur connection!

When all I wanted to be was invisible, being the new girl in school put me under intense scrutiny. My unusually long hair was commented on, home-made remedies for blackheads offered, hindi film music cassettes and slam books exchanged, Nancy Drew's  lent, almost as if I had always been a part of std Viii B! What was much more interesting was all the ‘gyan’ I was offered, Assamese slang worth its salt, how to hide your boyfriend’s gifts if you had one, but the one I particularly mastered was being a postman for my friend’s crushes! It felt good to be accepted and loved though my prudish ways were often looked down on.

Till then, the holy doors of the cinema halls were forbidden to me, but courtesy my gang, be it the then scandalous ‘Titanic’, or the Rahul-Anjali love saga ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hain’, we saw it all and our parents never had an inkling to this day! Tution classes are seriously the best excuses in the world!

The first film however that I saw in a theatre and that remains a favourite to this day is Santosh Sivan’s ‘Halo’ in the good old days when he was not star struck enough to attempt a disastrous 'Ashoka'! We were taken to this one from school, and the mood was upbeat though the more knowledgeable ones like my friend Sabera were disgusted that at Std viiith, we were supposed to watch a kid’s movie!

We were all taken to the illustrious Surjya Hall with its betel-nut stained exteriors and cosy dark interiors. The huge screen made my eyes sparkle and to this day, the magic of a good film at a theater never fails to lift me up.

It was a simple tale- Sasha, a little girl in search of her lost pup, one she believed she needed the most but one she eventually gave up for another little boy, for well..he needed him more.A subtle moment of compassion and giving that took your heart away. Santosh Sivan, the ace cinematographer that he is regaled us with some beautiful shots of a wet, sea-drenched Bombay, long before ‘Dhobi Ghat’ happened. The riots of Bombay, the friendlessness of a small, motherless girl, the amusingly naïve love of Lata and Goldie and most of all Sasha’s answer when asked what is that she seeks the most, she searchingly replies, ‘happiness’…evevry moment is as fresh as that day many years back. It is funny how things come back to you...And how wrapped up you actually are to moments that make up your life...I am glad I can manage a smile then…quietly to myself…
P.S I had never believed in destiny until the day I met you…I cried all the way from Dibrugarh to North Lakhimpur, believing it was the end of the world for me..in fact, it was a new beginning..It meant getting to know you, the cute guy in my class with large specs, a pet of my maths teacher who still haunts me in my nightmares! Who knew we would become such good friends and discover worlds together..and many years later…make another new journey…’Halo’ was then our first movie together and it makes it all the more special…Cheers to many more years of movie viewing and much more!