Thread by @KBSquared4

In my USA home, Dilip's films were on all weekend, ostensibly b/c he was my mother's favourite. A comment of hers made me wonder: "The girls were all 'Dilip, Dilip' when a film came out." I thought, "Wait, 'the girls' - not you?" @ProfSunnySingh @PSYfem
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/…

I came to love them, though I could never admit that of them all, it was 'Madhumati', the reincarnational love story, that I loved the most. That only made the odd appearance (once? twice?), while 'Naya Daur' was a regular guest.
2/

I was grateful for them because they were an oasis in an emotionally abusive family. My parents lost themselves in those films, almost as if they were in a fugue - and decades later, given what I now understand of Partition, I strongly suspect they were self-soothing. 3/

Those films helped me to learn the language our parents wouldn't speak with us (though being nosey and eavesdropping had given me a good foundation) & gave me a small window into South Asian culture...and allowed me to imagine, for short time, that we were a real family. 4/

My father's idolisation of Dilip and Mohammad Rafi stands out, particularly his comparisons of them to Hindu actors and singers. Decades on, I now know this was post-Partition politics, and it makes me wonder how Dilip and other Muslim actors/actresses in Bollywood bridged this.

But the comment that really sticks with me, 40 years on, is my mother's flat, dissociated "The girls were all 'Dilip, Dilip' when a film came out." It mirrored her completed dissociation from us (except when she was in a rage) & this sense of void around her. 6/

I remember, after my brother was born, her just sitting there with him on her lap, staring mindlessly at the telly for hours, not engaging with him except to feed him, nothing. There are pictures of her holding me as a baby, barely able to look at me. Even before us, there's
7/

And this. In both, you can see her refusal to engage, and feel the rage underneath the dissociation.

I look at these, and the pictures of her within our family, and wonder. I no longer think there was anything so wrong w/ me a mother couldn't love me, I now think so much happened to her, she couldn't love us. Her marriage was arranged - after a previous arrangement 8/

was broken by my (total b*tch) of a grandmother, who said, 'If you marry this one, maybe his cousin won't beat your older sister any more.' Yeah, that worked out so well.
Partition, of course.
And growing up with my grandmother must have been its own hell. 9/

But that comment made me wonder if there was more to it. "The girls" - not you? "were going Dilip, Dilip" - ok, so are you now claiming he's your favourite b/c you're supposed to? Were you ever interested in him or other men (If no, marriage would be a special kind of hell)? 10/

So many questions that I can't now ask, because of her dementia. But I am glad that those many hours of Dilip films allowed her to escape back to her youth, when she was unencumbered, perhaps even, like my Aunty Suraiya, beaten down by years of abuse, able to laugh. 11/

Perhaps this is what we share: those films were respite for us both from lives we didn't want to live; depression we didn't dare admit. Now, as she slips away, I hope Dilip continues to bring her solace.

Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. May you rest in peace, Sir Dilip.