2019
Alok fidgeted with the collar of his kurta. He deeply regretted wearing a brand new one right now. It didn’t help that his heart seemed to be beating out of his chest. His friends were all so proud. He, on the other hand, felt like he couldn’t breathe.
1990
A newly ten-year-old Alok waited patiently for his uncle to arrive.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning, his birthday, and he looked forward to Kakai’s visit. Kakai always made his birthdays memorable.
Unbeknownst to Alok, Kakai had remembered only that morning that it was Alok’s birthday. As he scrambled to think of what to get his beloved nephew, the film listings in the newspaper caught his eye. Inspiration struck.
That day, Alok was allowed by his parents to watch a movie in a theatre for the very first time, when Kakai took him to watch Mani Ratnam’s Anjali.
And that day Alok fell in love – with cinema and its magical ability to stir up emotions in a hall full of people with just words and moving pictures.
At home, he wrote an essay – as well as a ten-year-old could – about his experience of watching Anjali.
And so it began. Alok would ask his parents for no reward other than a good movie at the theatres, and after every film, he would write down his thoughts. He didn’t know then, that one day there would be something called the Internet, or that he would have a blog on it, or that the readership for his writing would grow from his close friends to complete strangers who loved cinema like him.
2009
“Are you seriously going to ditch your IT career to write about films?” Alok’s best friend Piyush asked incredulously.
Recession had claimed Alok’s job some months before and his blog had kept him sane through the slew of “We’re not hiring right now.” messages. When FilmCare magazine offered him the chance to write for them – for a salary, no less – he was surprised but happy to accept it as a stopgap until he had a ‘real’ job again.
Only now, he didn’t want that ‘real’ job anymore.
“I want to make people love cinema the way I do, Piyush!” he replied.
2019
Alok smiled to himself. Piyush’s baffled expression from all those years ago still tickled him.
His life had turned out to be something straight out of a movie too. If someone wrote a short story about it, readers would call it far-fetched.
He was jolted out of his reverie when he heard his name announced by the lady making the Hindi announcements.
The English announcer’s voice followed:
“The National Film Award for Best Writing on Cinema is presented this year to Mr Alok Sen for his book The Merchants of Dreams. He is being awarded the Golden Lotus.”
Alok took a deep breath. And stood up.
