Monday, September 3, 2012

Is Meherjaan’s love any less intense than Romeo & Juliet ? by Niru


Hidden Gems’ last screening was Meherjaan, about a young desirous girl,  falling in love, against her will, with an enemy soldier. The film was a poetic, visual odyssey, somewhat akin to Jean Campion’s Bright Star.

Louis Hobson, our resident critic, compared it with Franco Zefferalli’s Romeo & Juliet and found Meheerjaan lacking in passion! His comment pricked the Eastern sensibilities and comments started pouring in from the audience.

Did it loose something in translation? Some put it down to Cultural differences. However, Love is the most universal of emotions and transcends across all creeds and colours. Nevertheless, it is expressed differently. Meherjaan’s and Juliet’s parting had the same intensity. But Eastern traditions advocate restraint-until recently, kiss was not even permitted on the screen. It reminded me of all the debate over Rhett Butler’s parting exclamation, “I don’t give damn!

Louis would have liked to see blood dripping as the lovers clenched hands drifted apart. I saw an invisible thread, first stretch as Meherjaan receded in the distance and then break as Wasim’s boat turned the corner and disappeared. Someone mentioned “sacrifice”, a concept quite foreign to western literature as far as personal love is concerned. Love is there, to be conquered, - for personal gratification. To sacrifice one’s love for someone else’s is unimaginable in this hemisphere.

The world has always pined after unrequited love: Laila-Majnu, Sohini-Mehval, Heer-Ranjha, Romeo-Juliet. Meherjaan was evidently still in love with Wasim as she never married. The only thing I found lacking was that neither of them ever attempted to find “the other” in the ensuing 40 years!

The only eternal monument to fulfilled love is the Taj Mahal.

Niru