a tale of two 'manoos'

A tale of two ‘Manoos’..  

The city of dreams hasn’t slept of late, waking up to a different nightmare every day. Mumbai had to put up with a series of mood swings last week- festivals, celebrations, blockbusters and the sad demise of two distinctly quixotic personalities. Both were romantics in their own conflicting ways. One taught us to court women, the other dragged them to court. One choreographed theatrical love songs around trees; while the other, histrionically drove away couples from parks and gardens. One made you laugh and cry and carried you to scenic dream lands; the other had ideals and convictions so intimidating, that he censored your dreams.

True, they possessed incomparable personalities and philosophies; yet the film-maker and the cartoonist had one thing in common – their love for art. Every time you felt love was dead, Yashji would script a tale that made you fall in love all over again. In a parallel story, a tiger apathetically claimed his territory and impulsively wrestled anyone who bothered the ‘Maratha manoos’. From a satirical journalist to an alluring maverick, he was both applauded and loathed.

The two employed unrivaled strategies of ‘disaster management’ for the ordinary Mumbaikar. Yash Chopra would sometimes give you over-cooked films, with loosely inter-twined, nonsensical plots. Nevertheless, through this convoluted twist of human emotions and tragedies, he made you forget life’s failures and mishaps. People ambled out of the theatres with an invigorated sense of starting life afresh.  He gave Bombay and the rest of India a chance to escape into a world of fantasies – a world of hope. Bal Thackeray was the ‘hope’ in reality. For many he was a living superhero. People derived strength, pride and security from the man. Logical or nonsensical, he remained committed to his convictions. Compared to Yash’s use of fantastical defense mechanisms, Bala employed offensive strategies to bail the manoos out of their day to day tribulations.

No attendance, no roll calls, yet tens of thousands crawled onto the streets to bid farewell to the Godfather of Maharashtra.  Were they forced to come? Were they just there to witness a once in a lifetime spectacle? Did they come to curse or bless? The roadside rogue would say it was the only entertainment available, with malls and theatres shut down and the city deserted. Now, would every bored citizen would skip their Sunday rest and brave the scorching sun since dawn? Men – police, politicians, patriots – carrying huge stomachs and wearing thick moustaches sobbed like abandoned puppies. It would be stupendous to say the nation cried, let alone to declare that the whole city mourned. But certainly, a little part of Maharashtra did weep.

If Chopra set our imagination on fire and gave wings to our dreams; then Thackeray cut them off and brought us down to earth, pricking the bubbles of reverie that Yash encapsulated us with. Yash empathetically followed his heart; Bala impulsively functioned from his spine. I assume heaven and earth simply needed to maintain the balance, as one followed the other to their blissful abode.

Yash and Bala were followed and revered blindly. Owning a mind so unique, a wit so original, a charisma so genuine and a legacy so rich; their charm that worked on millions will be hard to imitate. In life and death, they had an enviable knack to melt the coldest of hearts. Within their own artistic worlds, they drew seas of faithful fans to theatres and streets. Mumbai is gradually learning to cope with these unseasonal floods. It no longer pours, it is literally rains men!