The Great Expectations Of Past Lives

Or, how we back-date the language of love. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

The Great Expectations Of Past Lives

This is #ViewingRoom , a column by OTTplay's critic Rahul Desai , on the intersections of pop culture and life.

THE OTHER DAY, my partner (“S”) and I started watching Alfonso Cuarón’s Great Expectations together. It was her first time. The film, a lyrically modern adaptation of the famous Charles Dickens novel, was a childhood favourite of mine. It had influenced me so deeply as a teenager that I finally went looking for its locations — the midtown Manhattan hotel where Finn draws Estella, the drinking water fountain in the park where their lips ‘reunite,’ the subway stops — on a recent New York trip. I do these pilgrimages for most movies I cherish. I once ventured miles outside Vienna and its transport system to find the cemetery from Before Sunrise ; the search for the titular bridge of Bridge of Spies took me hours outside Berlin with a crumpled map and no WiFi connection.

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But this one felt special. It was like meeting the most nascent version of myself, a tiny Indian boy so taken by Gwyneth Paltrow’s enigmatic rendition of Estella and Patrick Doyle’s haunting soundtrack, that he spent the next two decades pursuing unattainable romances. I had no idea who Dickens, Ethan Hawke or even Robert De Niro were, in 1998. But heartbreak looked so alluring; one had to fall in love multiple times — with the same person, many people, or many people within the same person — to achieve this aesthetic.

So when S found it on a streaming platform (available on rent; blasphemy), I couldn’t contain my joy — and anxiety. She had only ever experienced the film through me. I wanted her to react the way I did. I needed her to be bowled over. I watched her watch it with great expectations. I think the pressure got to her. She did like it, of course, but we barely spoke about the meandering beauty of Cuarón’s vision. Maybe I had hyped it up too much (like I did Love, Actually : a romcom classic she actively dislikes now). Or maybe it was my subjective fondness for a time I had chanced upon a distinctly adult story on Star Movies. It didn’t exactly alter the trajectory of her life. It felt like I had shown S an embarrassing old photograph of mine, only for her to go “aww cute”.

In contrast, I was pleased to see S weep when I showed her Arrival a few years ago — another personal favourite. The final montage moved her like it had moved me. But she rolls her eyes every time we pass by a specific hospital, because I may have recounted more than once that it used to be the only gym I went to for three months (in our early 20s we all do silly things). She reminds me that I’ve mentioned it before when I point to the Juhu sidewalk I used to eat chaat at, during my first year in Mumbai. She sometimes behaves like she’s hearing it for the first time when I excitedly show her the quarter bar I used to frequent in college. I often remember mid-sentence that I’m yet again paraphrasing my feelings about the flashy premiere of Baaz: A Bird In Danger at a single-screen theatre that no longer exists. Even our first few vacations together have been to countries I’ve already visited. I whine about ‘repeating’ destinations, but I secretly enjoy taking her to all the bridges and parks I had explored in my solo-travelling era.

I take great pleasure in introducing (or reintroducing) S to literal and figurative landmarks from my past. I used to think it’s pure uncle-coded nostalgia — I am growing old, let’s face it, and this is the foremost symptom of leaving time behind. (“See that stupid tree? That wasn’t there when I threw up after Federer lost in 2008.”) I’ve also lived six-and-a-half years longer than S, so I half-jokingly declare that I have more to show her (which sounds wrong the moment it comes out of my mouth). But I’ve begun to realise that my condition has more in common with why we compile playlists and share our tastes the second we enter a romantic relationship. It’s more than the fact that we’re offering this new human the shorthand of our soul. It’s not a love language so much as a quest to backdate the language of love. When we find someone we envision a future with, we instinctively can’t imagine a past without them.

For me, it’s a confession that I can’t believe I didn’t know S for 32 years of my life. Sharing and oversharing details is a way of not only familiarising her with iterations of me she hasn’t experienced, but also elongating the linearity of our companionship and the volume of our togetherness. The ‘logic’ being, if I show her enough from before we met, maybe it might feel like we’ve been with each other for longer than we have. Maybe she’ll magically start appearing in older pictures and memories of my life — cinematically speaking, imagine a reverse-ghosting scene where she slowly fades into old frames. Maybe the stakes of forging a forever will be higher.

Naturally, it works both ways. It’s no coincidence that I’ve visited Kolkata — her hometown and beating heart — three times in the last four years. I like the city and its food and its quirks, despite the two serious stomach infections (which I wear as a badge of honour). But my tourism in her city is just an excuse to court her yesterdays: I’m simultaneously dating S and navigating a meet-cute with everyone she used to be. She takes me to her cafes, bylanes, phuchka- walas , tea stalls and book shops; I retro-stage myself into her history and infuse our conversations with decades of ease.

When I meet her friends, I listen to the chatter and reflect on their unrehearsed comfort of having me around. I listen to the songs of Leonard Cohen and get acquainted with the girl who fell in love with his words all those years ago. When we trekked to his home on the Greek island of Hydra, the proximity to her emotions made it feel like we had been together since we were born. It was such a profound moment in her life that, for a few hours, I could feel the entirety of her life. The depth of our attachment expanded backward, and just like that, I couldn’t remember a day when I didn’t know her.

There’s a scene in Celine Song’s Past Lives that speaks to this time-stretching ritual. A Korean-American woman, Nora, lays in bed with her New Yorker husband — they’re not the story, but they’re a story — and he ponders about how she dreams in a language he doesn’t understand. “It’s like there’s this whole place inside of you where I can’t go,” he says, while admitting that it’s why he’s learning Korean. I wrote about something similar after watching the film, too. Maybe this place of yore is accessible if we craft the illusion elaborately enough.

I often notice that S had ‘liked’ my Facebook or Instagram photos from well before we spoke. She impulsively shoots a knowing glance about a comment, incident or status message when I recall my early social media activity (and she then pretends to be surprised, lest she be exposed as a long-time stalker). I scroll through a decade worth of her profiles the way a veteran journalist thoroughly researches the renaissance period to compensate for not being alive back then. The intent is to stretch the elasticity of our bond in the opposite direction so that it acquires the momentum to catapult us into the distant future.

I’ve been doing that with my best friend, A, who died two years ago . Scouring through old albums, speaking to his family and friends, trying to extend our time beyond those two decades. The only difference is that the past, in A’s case, is the only way forward. And I have only the first 16 years of his life to manufacture that elasticity. Any momentum that catapults us into a future hits a brick wall; I keep bouncing back, wounded and confused. This habit of jogging behind — and Benjamin-Button-ing the span of my friendship — sometimes bleeds into my relationship with S. I do it so readily that I tend to lose sight of where we are. Her initials are ‘IS’ but I tend to be the one who’s not in the now. Too many thoughts and conversations begin with “was”; too many anecdotes become antidotes to the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

I also worry that if I keep immortalising us like this, there will be nothing left to fear. And if there’s no fear, there will be nothing left to lose. If I keep choosing memories to supply S with, there might be none left to make. It’s what the protagonists of Great Expectations and Past Lives struggled with. A lifetime of history with someone can come with baggage, perception, pattern, anticipation, familiarity. Any change is cursed with the burden of nostalgia, the constant feeling that things are different than they used to be. We already ‘travel’ within Mumbai like we’re retracing the floors of our harmony — reminiscing about the drama and scents of previous visits to Irani cafes and beaches and stations.

Perhaps it’s fine that S and I found each other only six years ago — not further back. Because we’ve been making up for lost time, not making lost time. Our fights don’t last for days because there’s not enough conflict and resentment to sustain prolonged separations. Our laughter is inquisitive because we’re still discovering each other; because there’s a lot within us left to discover. We are still capable of surprising and disappointing each other. Every time I say something careless, I’m charmed by the unpredictability of her reactions. Every time I read a review she writes, I’m amused by how much I don’t know about her: her rhythms of reasoning, phrasing and frustration. It’s like sensing her past — days and years of us being strangers on collision course — without seeing people and places from then. We’re creatures of habit because the habits are still under construction.

On a cold afternoon in February, S and I stood outside the steps of Nora’s East Village apartment from Past Lives . And the garage — where she bids farewell to her past and breaks down in the arms of her future. We walked the short distance between the garage and the door, shadowing the final moments of the film. It looked strange in daylight: fairly ordinary and unrecognisable, shorn of all the realities of fiction. S wondered if this was the right place. I assured her it was. She rolled her eyes. She knew I had mapped the location, identified and investigated it a couple of days ago while exploring the city on my own. I twice mentioned the fried chicken shop I had lurked around, famished but indecisive as usual. I was somehow showing her around, even within the confines of a shared trip.

A few hours later, we found ourselves at the bar where the three characters get a late-night drink. S had mapped it. It was a nondescript neighbourhood joint that was empty when we reached, but soon bustling with regular patrons who welcomed each other with an informality reserved for dimly-lit living rooms. I dug the vibe. We chose a vantage point that imitated the opening shot of the film. She showed me the three stools where Nora was seated between her Korean ex-boyfriend and American husband. I showed her the table that was occupied by the off-screen voices who wonder what the three protagonists mean to each other. She showed me the relaxed intimacy of the restroom; I showed her how the scenes were staged to exclude the windows. I showed her the screenshots of the film; she showed me photos she clicked. We shared a beer. Neither of us had been here before. But we also had. Together.

Arrival and Past Lives are available to stream on OTTplay Premium.

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