I enjoyed imagining that director Raaghav Dar, maybe unconsciously, maybe while casting or perhaps even while writing, had seen Prateik as I do, and then put him in My Friend Pinto and asked me, “Is this how you see him?”

Like the painting the don has made for Reshma, the film is not great art, but it warmed my heart. “I don’t think I have understood entertainment,” as Ronnie says in the film. Personally, all isms aside, I am beginning to believe that we enjoy our films because they each carry one secret thing that is meant to delight each one of us. Something which is of significance, of which we make meaning or in the case of this particular film and me- something we once loved.It must have been that.

Well-deserved appreciation of a genuinely good performance in Dhobi Ghat I understand, but then, when I found myself being indulgent as Prateik bungled his way through Aarakshan, I knew I would always think of him as Smita Patil’s son. As that part of her she left behind. On that terrible day in December 1986 when on the only TV set available to us- in the lobby of the college hospital, I saw that the most beautiful woman had died. She was 31 years old.

The child who was originally named Smitprateik.
A symbol, the spirit of Smita.

I remembered that while watching the film. Right at the beginning the priest says, “Michael ki Mummy ab is duniya mein nahi rahi.”And a lump in my throat when at the end of that funny scene with Makarand Deshpande, the don tells the boy, “Your mother must be a wise woman, I would like to meet her. “Albert is speechless, and the don asks, “Mummy nahin hai?” and goes on to say how he knows the pain of losing a mother.

Listening to the repeated, “Mera Mamma kehta tha,” and knowing that the actor playing Michael has never heard what his Mamma said. Him looking up at a statue of Mother Mary. Hearing the song, “… Taare se toota hai,” and knowing that this boy was left behind by my star..

The fleeting shot of a mother picking up her child and walking away from Michael just as his trust in humanity is being questioned by the events that are occurring, it is as if the innocent, little boy part of Michael went away with Mother.

And then, as an adult Michael, the meeting with the mother.
The director creates Reshma who is as overtly sexy as Pinto’s mother was pious. “Pant utaaro,” the naughty Reshma purrs. The good Mrs Pinto, we know, wanted him to be a Priest.

The temptress side to the goddess. The exact opposite. I felt the ‘oppositeness’ to that woman I was a fan of. Reshma being repeatedly called a ‘failed’ actress brought to mind that unforgettable success of an actress.

Reshma did third-grade ‘bad’ films. To Smita Patil I owe my seeking out good films. It was because I was a fan of hers that I searched for and was exposed to those good films.

And so I was touched when a reference was made to angry Uncle Albert and when that rigor mortified corpse made a laugh-aloud journey about town. From Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kundan Shah. From that time in Indian cinema which made such an impact in my life. In what other way would a small-town film-illiterate girl be exposed to good cinema except that she watched those ‘different’ films because her favorite actress acted in them? And what an actress she was!

Prateik is a good actor. It is evident throughout the film. That heartbreaking scene when he discovers the unread letters..in that incongruous pink bathrobe. Yes, he definitely has potential.  And I have a feeling he is going to be a better actor after My Friend Pinto. Every artist has a scar inside that sometimes he may not even know about. It is the sublimation of that scar into art that makes an artist great. Writers are lucky, they have the medium to write that autobiographical work, ‘get it out’ and then the whole world is theirs to explore and write about.

The writer of My Friend Pinto does something special- he gifts another artist an ‘autobiographical’ work. At the end of the film, the script puts Michael on to the stage. Here, there is a shot of his friend Sameer looking at the stage, at  this vulnerable boy who is, as the don puts it, ‘a rising star.’

That expression on Sameer’s face.
The way Sameer finally sees Michael.
The way Raaghav Dar saw Prateik?

This is when I imagined that the director felt as I did.
And don’t we have a wonderful time at the movies when we imagine something like that?

Nadi (Dr. Manasee Palshikar) was an MBBS doctor for 10 years when she went back to studying. A course in Women’s Studies at Pune University was followed by learning the art of Screenplay at FTII. Nadi lives in Pune with her husband and daughter.