“Sensual”

by Purbasha Roy

After the song “Mai ri mai kase kahoon pir”

(From the film Dastak)

 

Many call it sensual. Something taking

the senses on a drive of aroused emotions.

The same happened to me. Each time I

have failed to make myself heard or seen

or touched with sincerity, secretly I have

wanted to throw my limbs in the semi-light

of an hour seeming to be injected by a sad

endlessness. Like the graph of metaphors

ever written for pillows. The pillow I’ve

used since childhood not simply to open

the dream-world theatre but also as a

keepsake of all tears. In that salty

dampness the infinite moments lie

unwheeled. The screen enlivened by

the song. The voice of Lata and why

this lostness. The space I have found

myself discovered by a strange melancholy.

A little off-track. The motion-picture

reminds me: before me many have

been in this matrix of desiring to

speak. To be understood the way a

tulip is when adorned on a vase. The

only issue is forever the reticence of

appropriate or even enough words.  

 

CONTRIBUTOR’S STATEMENT:

Mental health and Cinema have a close relation if we care to observe. Cinema is a powerful medium available to people belonging to every strata of society. Neither does cinema need any qualification of any viewer nor any other aptitude other than an attentive mind. Now while we watch cinema, in our subconsciousness we begin to feel the emotions running on the screen. We get a medium where we see ourselves or our desires projected through faces not ours. This gives mental health a large space to find itself explored by the viewers. When we come out of the cinema hall or after watching a film we switch our televisions either we are in a joyful mood or we plunge into the river of thoughtfulness. This is a simple reflex of cinema moving through our senses. This is a finite shape given to mental health. This in simple words can be said as the analysis of mental health in another trajectory. Many times I too have felt the same. Either a sad ending makes me fall at the precipice of sorrow and a tear rolls down to mourn for a connection I made with something abstract. Or a happy and light thing makes me feel joyful or loved or blessed while having nothing to celebrate for any personal reason of mine. These being said, while cinema is pure technology put to use to make emotions, it has an undeniable and layered relationship with mental health.