The perfect description of a year in a city like Bombay or Calcutta will perhaps include tiredness, pollution, irritability: your mood will basically be like Konkona Sen Sharma’s from Wake Up Sid, where Ranbir Kapoor splashes an entire bottle of water on her head and says, “garmi mein tumhara dimaag kharab ho gaya hai…” and that is how we exist. A person like me has a bunch of deodorants and perfumes in my handbags at any given point of time. The heat is a part of our lives as the government or I don’t know, our neighbours, or our food, it governs us. What then is the role of a winter romcom in the lives of this pressure-cooker like existence where we are being heated constantly, with fights, arguments, meaningless chatter, conflicts, even violence for that matter? So, I am going to put on my nerdy glasses, and try and talk exactly like my 5th-grade teacher: Children, let’s make a list! --of ‘a few of my favourite things’(holiday rom-coms!) and introspect a little, dive deep into the drop of sweats and how they function as my any-time-AC!


Love Actually

A film filled with characters of all kinds, going through angst of all kinds, nobody is spared, not the Prime Minister, not the 8-year-old kid, not the writer away from civilisation, not the father in a crowded office, not the once-a-legend popstar, not the wannabe-American young ‘dude,’ the lover’s friend, legit everyone is jammed in angst and oh, what angst! Each character has a sense of complexity in their existence which resonates with me, you, my father, your mother, my friends, your family: a lot of people basically on various levels at that: about losing a person, a position, a talent, a reputation, a sense of identity, and so much more! The climax, however, assures you, that hey, there will be snow, and that hey, you will find love, kindness, a hand to hold, you will be okay because Mr Bean in the movie says so! You’re going to be fine, even if you are the Prime Minister, kissing your secretary, behind the curtains of a children’s school play, Love, Actually, is going to heal you. The snow in the film washes away all of that angst, and that doesn’t mean that you will not be anxious anymore, but it assures you, that in case you do get anxious, you perhaps will have someone who will do the anxiety dance with you!


You’ve Got Mail

This is an all-time favourite despite a certain favourite professor’s constant attempts to prove otherwise! This film is not just winter, but also a year-round film! Nora Ephron does that, you know? She made films which call for the seasons to act as characters. Winter here specifically was about the ‘lone reed,’ or ‘Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya tomorrow!’ in the chirpy tiny aunt’s voice who was 12! This film’s winter spoke of endings in the most beautiful way. This scene where Kathleen Kelly has to shut down her mother’s quaint vintage bookstore, which had chequered tiles, twirling tales of which she had narrated to Joe F-O-X when they first met and the camera moves to a flashback scene where the entire store is empty and the twirling scene is being played. You’ve Got Mail provides you with a sense of motherly comfort that says “just keep twirling”, and no matter how bad the snow is, and like Shelley wrote: If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? And of course, Spring brings Brinkley which saw the beginning of the film and the ending too. Trust me, watch this film if you haven’t!


Home Alone 1 and 2

Okay, I know these are not exactly romantic in the conventional Valentine’s Day sense, but well, I am a literature student, and Romantic is a movement and I had to attempt a 3000-word essay to explain the various ideas of Romances: including that of having the old crone (remember the pigeon aunty?) and that of an adventure! Point being, this movie will tell you the horrors of living in a city all alone, kid-or-no-kid, it’s horrific. You are away from your family, in the holiday season: it perhaps talks about the psychology of city life loneliness in the most poignant and mature ways. It will traverse you through the anxieties of independent life, and even the pleasures of it. It allows you to grow, to learn how to shave, how to deal with thieves and goons, and anyone who is trying to break you, it lets you fight, and despite the sense of all-consuming loneliness, you go to a church, or a park, or a toy store: you will inevitably meet with kindness, who will be worth sharing a turtle-dove with, and you will make friends who will watch out for you. The film speaks to an audience beyond its target age group. Perhaps the argument about romcoms being absurd will work only in one scene for Home Alone where Trump is shown as a person who is really kind and helpful! (We’re all suckers for a little magic!)


Holiday

This film is just another level comforting, wear your pyjamas and ugly socks, drinking wine and looking like a total disaster, in a city where you don’t know which lane to drive on, or in a city where winter is not even a thing, and you receive love, joy, friendship, intimacy, good scripts, and if you’re lucky, even a romance. I feel what touched me about this particular film is this scene where Jude Law tells Cameron Diaz that “I weep!” That level of vulnerability being portrayed with such tenderness and intricacy - lines like these stay with you and warm you up, and it’s almost voyeuristic: you may not find this in real life, but you can at least pry into the sensibilities and sensitivities of another character, whose writers must have said it at least once: I weep! You’re in your pyjamas and your parents in some other country, or you broke up with your boyfriend, or you don’t have anybody who would gift you anything on a Christmas day: the film will take you out of that drudgery and give you that emotional outlet, an escape which you cannot take on a regular day, let alone in 2020.


When Harry Met Sally

This film, like I mentioned earlier, a typical Nora Ephron+Meg Ryan work of beauty, again plays with seasons, and years, and ages, and frames of spectacles, they’re goals! What specifically winter does here is, the Ball Drop, the New Year’s Kiss, a closure, a sense of ending, good ending, good beginning: the film will forgive you for all the mistakes and fights and miscommunications, and the festive season will solve everything else, even if you have had a lifetime of a meh.

Of course, I wouldn’t deny the fact that these films romanticize winters and festive seasons to no end, and create an unrealistic view of what winters and snow might actually mean, but look at it from here: I get off writing this piece at 2.41 am today, and release Dotadoodle Issue #4 on 25th December, and have nowhere else to go, because pandemic, the year was crazy and hot, mind you, South Asia is hot, and just laying in bed, watching a film like the ones mentioned above, perhaps work like virtually packed brown paper packages tied up with strings and function as your Christmas gifts.

These films give you frosty icicles instead of the sweat drops, and when you dig in deep, the sweats do dry up, and you smell of love, a positivity perhaps necessary, it slows the fire of your pressure cooker --so while the bursts will still happen, it’ll be slower, less painful, and, besides slow fire does induce a sense of tenderness while the high fire burns you out. Thus, keep believing, watch a rom-com or two this winter, you never know, you might just fall in love without having a person around, and What Are the Odds? Bombay might also witness a snowfall if only you continue to believe in that pixie dust of your smile! (Seriously, watch What Are The Odds, too! You will know what I am talking about!)