scenes from friendships . 'scenes from a marriage'

splurging on the night life in the city with ak, nish and teja at the 'vie lounge'. a lit dancefloor and wooden flooring that hangs over juhu beach. two standing nooks jut out from between the glass walls towards the sea. the ocean was wild and wind blew around our ears. it did not rain, except for a few bursts of showers- we were lucky in that way; so much better than being cooped up in the more plush but claustrophobic interior. a great night out. later - in the middle of the night sitting on the more plebian ramp nearby and singing sentimental hindi film songs loud in the gushing wind.

i sorely miss this relationship with the sea that even though i work ten minutes away from it.

earlier in the day, ak and me finally managed to pick up the gumption to enter the egyptian fortress like ‘marriot’. the location of the coffee shop is in the triple heighted lobby overlooking the landscaped lawns and fake pavilions that are placed self consciously in the courtyard. there was no way to see the sea. the detailing was tacky though the setting was grand- like they ran out of money (or imagination) in putting the place together. the food was good though.

it’s a strange time nowadays with friends. conversations are circuitous and meandering, touching upon the same themes no matter what crowd i am in. after all there are people leaving everywhere. we speak in circles and in clichés - the words actually might have meaning but end up having little resonance. familiarity means that sometimes we can sit in comfortable silences, but the impending departure means that everything that needs to be said – must be said – now! as if a ‘later’ does not exist.

paul young had this album in the 80s from which that huge hit ‘every time you say goodbye’ was taken. it was called ‘the great lost art of conversation’. i wonder what that art is.

the banal everyday conversations of the couple in ingmar bergmans ‘scenes from a marriage’ get gradually more violent as the once happy marriage breaks up but are still not able to escape from the tedium and formulas of soap opera dialogue. things are said between the couple that seem to come out of the endless cycles of truisms that every relationship is described in. this cul de sac of words and the feelings that they describe ends up being the death of the marriage, but giving the love in between them a new lease of life. as if in the non-describable space of illicit meetings, ‘love’ escapes the trappings of bourgeois ideas of marital bliss.