Random Thoughts

Looking back with stars

by Ranjita Biswas | @twfindia 19 Jan 2023, 05:16 pm

As one gets on the years, one tends to look back with nostalgia on days past and then often regret with a sigh, ‘those were the days’. But looking back can also mean no regrets but joy, happiness, even savouring the innocence of believing that things would remain so too in future. Thus the news of the death of Gina Lollobrigida at 95 took me back to my teenage years when everything seemed to have a spring in the air. 

Once regarded ‘the most beautiful woman on earth’,  Gina, as we liked to call her , will be always embedded in memory with her  dancing  with Rock Hudson, another heartthrob, in Come September and also her co-stars Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin. With  the news of her demise my mind flew back to Shillong where I grew up, the rather shabby cinema hall Kelvin which nonetheless opened a world of magic brought in by Hollywood.

Image: An iconic scene from Come September starring Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida

Soon other memories crowded in.

While queuing up for tickets for the first day first show of Junglee and being disappointed, we two school friends took help of a policeman to get the tickets. Once inside, we were dumbstruck by Saira Banu’s fresh beauty and Shammi Kapoor’s Yahoo…call. Did we ever imagine that one day we would be exchanging mails via a channel called Yahoo.com?

The news of the death of Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’only daughter, brought sadness but also memories when her rockstar father rocked our lives. His blue eyes, the lock of hair falling over his forehead, his tight ‘drainpipe’ pants that my brother and his friends  imitated, gave us goose-bumps.

Recently when I watched Elvis, a  robust biopic made by Baz Luhrmann (Austin Butler in the lead role got the best actor  award at the Golden globes recently) – where Lisa Marie’s birth was also depicted as also his love for his daughter as he parted ways with wife Priscilla Presley, I went back to my teenage years, happy to throw my hands in the air in a rather empty theatre as he sang  Jailhouse Rock. If  anyone was surprised at the senior lady behaving so enthusiastically, so what?

How can I make a younger person understand that the demise of once favourite stars can be both sad and happy at the same time? That through them, and their memories, you also live again in a carefree, optimistic world with all its possibilities?

That, as the later years bring in difficult phases, and a loss of innocence in many ways, those moments, as if caught in a time capsule, make you feel rejuvenated. Didn’t Wordsworth write:  Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven? The young of today would perhaps understand the mood one day when they grow old too.

As I say RIP to the departed stars in today’s language, I also thank them for giving our generation joy, for entertaining us and bringing a rhythm to our still blossoming youth. Like an album of vintage photographs that bring both joy and nostalgia, even a bit of sadness, I enjoy travelling back with them. Salute!