Movies have been home. When I was at the hard bottom, in an engineering college hostel, alone and in self brought loneliness, I watched ‘Friends’ till my eyes were ready to bleed. I cried at the scene where Rachel is pinned down by her friends to put medicine in her eyes. I needed friends who knew better what was good for me than I did. And on my laptop screen, I found them. Since then I have been with them, in my lucid dreams, and in reality increasingly.
I have watched ‘Her’ and obsessively made friends with Scarlett Johanson’s voice, I have known how it feels to fall in love with a character so fictitious that it can be made yours, brought home when need be, and fought with when felt like. I got better but my friendship with these characters refuses to loosen. I still watch episode S05E22 of ‘Friends’ to commemorate getting better, ‘Jab we met’ to not let spirit dampen in face of a fall, ‘Before Sunset’ has helped me keep faith in strangers despite human nature and ‘Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’ reminds me that even with the right people, relationships are allowed to be painful sometimes.
