The Last Song

I remember the first time I saw raw footage of Bade Papa's interview. It was the first time I saw him after his death. His dead face which I never saw, had come alive, in full flesh and blood, within the two dimensions of that video. I dreaded that editing process. Not even a month of not seeing him dead, I had to see him alive, over and over again, for a month. The first day of editing, I felt nothing. Then I felt the need to cry. Then I told myself that I should just cry as much as I want to and get over it. I told myself to get over Bade Papa's death and get over the need to cry every time I saw his living face.

I would go to the edit room, start the machine and open his sequence and watch his whole interview. Everyday. I remembered how he laughed, how he looked up like a lost child when he forgot, I remembered the bulging veins of his hands, his hearing aid, white hair and off white shirt. Always that off white shirt. With time, I stopped crying and started laughing at him and his toothless smile. How cutely he sang the song and got all the lyrics wrong. How adorably he laughed while singing to me, how unaware he was of the camera and crew that surrounded him. How deep in this thoughts, he made all of us wait and still didn't remember that song!

That was the beginning of the period, by the end of which, he had completely forgotten me.

That day he lay on that bed and stared blank at me. His body had given up. I had picked up his pained legs, shivered at his excruciating screams and sat next to him rubbing his hand. He looked at me blank like he didn't know me. I screamed in his ears that it was me 'shippa', that I had come from 'bambai'. He just played with his hearing aid which buzzed from time to time. Maybe he never heard me, else he would have remembered me. I even sang our song 'chan kittha guzari ai'. His lips had parted to smile. Maybe he did hear me after all. Then why didn't he give me our last moment together?

Sometimes I revisit my film only for him. Perhaps it has that moment.