Nishabd - The Silence

What makes people silent? I remember a lunch time real life story – He was 27 and she was 20.The guy was in love which made others wonder – she is so young?????? And then silence – perhaps the guy felt embarrassed of falling in love with someone who is so young; and the friends felt unwise entering into someone’s private life.

Nishabd reflects such a story. He (big B) is 60 and she (Jiah Khan) is 18. She was a friend of her daughter who came to spend the holidays. They fell in love. Without saying much, they said so much. What struck him was, not the beauty and youthfulness of her body but the innocence of her heart, the childishness in her behaviour; the smile on her face, and the rebelliousness in her mind. Her bravery came not from having loved but from being intensely lonely. It was not one needing the other, but both needing each other. What dragged them together is their loneliness in the crowd – the loveless childhood on the one hand and the tied-up adulthood on the other where people forget the real reason of life. And, this loneliness is expressed through insecurity, stubbornness, lack of fear for death, and a search for love.

This is what the big B has to say – “Why an old man feels attracted towards a young girl? And the girl’s youthful body is not the only reason. The reason is that after a certain age every person fears his aging and death. And he wants to runaway from that fear towards youth. But this cannot happen. We all get so entangled and stuck in the worldly matters that we forget that the real reason of life is to be happy. And may be this is the reason why we feel a bit jealous of children and youngsters. Because, unlike them we lose the capability; spending time with Jia, I had become like a child. I thought I have gotten another chance to be young”.

She failed to have him because he was a “hypocrite” – As she says quoting the big B – “you must live your life with your own decisions. It’s not necessary the world accepts it. Was all that only talking? The truth is that you are a hypocrite”. This particular moment of being leveled as a hypocrite also brings tears to the eyes of her daughter. She cannot also stand by her father since his personality has now been compromised.

What made him a hypocrite? It was not that his love for her was fake, but he was shackled by the values of morality and structure of relationship which in our society defines our lives and restricts our autonomy. He may have been a deviant by falling in love, but he did not have the courage to break the second rule. However, neither it helped him saving the breaking of his family nor did it help him expressing his feeling for her. The result again is a suffocated loneliness which persuades him to end his life. As he says – “Jia’s thought are eating me up from within. To free myself from this pain, I regularly try to give up my life; but I can’t do it! Not because I am scared of death, I can’t do it because I want to live a little more with Jia’s memories. I want to some days more with Jia’s memories. That’s it”!