The Perks of Being a Wallflower and my manic pixie (younger) self

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is such a good barkada film. I want to be friends with everyone Charlie made friends with, i.e. "trip" with Mary Elizabeth, talk about boys on random dates with Patrick, go to gigs with Sam.

The movie reminded me of Almost Famous, perhaps because they were both coming-of-age films and music played a crucial role in the re-shaping of the main characters' lives. I saw Almost Famous when I was younger though, i.e. I had just begun college, so I empathized greatly with the coming-of-age-feel of the movie: I was looking for my own heroines and manic Pixie girl Pennylane became, for quite sometime, the epitome of free spirit I had wanted to be. She was a proud groupie. She loved bravely. Plus, I was also trying to "discover" 60s-70s rock music and hippie culture then and Almost Famous was shown when the hippie era was relatively unexplored and not too cool yet (it was the pre-hipster period).

Manic Pixie Girl no more
Watching TPoBaW 12 years after Almost Famous provided an unanticipated evaluation of what happened to the projects Music/Hippie-ness & Manic Pixie-girl-slash-groupie I began when I was 18 and just starting college:
1) The music were ones I already like and have heard of (that's also thanks to the more contemporary playlist) 
2) I'd rather be manic Pixie-girl Sam (played magnificently by Emma Watson)'s ate and friend than her.

It's like seeing Paul Rudd play the teacher: an affirmation that I'm a lot older now, haha. I still love Pennylane's character, would hug her were we to meet in the fictional world and tell her how I did learn to love stupidly and bravely at the same time and take on life somewhat like she had, but I have other heroines now. And I think if I tell her this, she would say she understands where I'm coming from and tell me she knows what I mean. Then we would exchange knowing looks and trade stories about those trips we took, sometimes intentionally, other times because we had no choice, that forced us to stare at ourselves long and hard while asking "What the fuck is wrong with you?" and then learning to forgive and accept who & how we are, and then getting on the bus/ the route/ the journey again, stumbling/learning/struggling/practicing this notion of self-love, and then have a silly laugh and say, "Those manic pixie girl days were fun times, right?"

I know that had my Pennylane-adoring me met Sam earlier, she would probably feel like she found a new bestfriend. To her I'd say Sam is right, things are gonna be better or at least, it could be better if you allow it to. Then I'd tell her to be excited. Knowing the younger me, she'd probably get so anxious and a little scared. I'd tell her it's going to be real, affecting, and world-&-self-changing but oh-so-worth the ride, she should stand up, embrace the uncertainty, and wave her hands in the cold air like Sam does in that tunnel scene.

Hema and Kaushik

"Most of the fishing villages were shut down,the lobster boats out of the water for winter, the wooden traps stacked and empty. At times I wished that I'd had my camera with me, but there is no documentation of those days. The food was generally terrible, but when I think of it I still savor the taste of diner coffee that was at once bitter and insipid, the waffles drowned in syrup, the gummy chowder and greasy eggs, as if no other food had nourished me then. (...) I had nothing to say to the fishermen and the other people who drank there and had lived in those villages all their lives, their tobacco-stained beards concealing their faces, their hands raw and chapped, their accents unfathomable. (...) I had never traveled alone before and I discovered that I liked it. No one in the world knew where I was, no one had the ability to reach me. It was like being dead, my escape allowing me to taste that tremendous power my mother possessed forever."

--- 

Jhumpa Lahiri's use of landscape to communicate the sense of isolation Kaushik felt was genius, and that last line referring to his mother's death was pretty heartbreaking. The twist at the end dates this short story to a particular time, and I love how Lahiri was brave enough to go there. The story may have been dated, but it's nonetheless beautiful. 


I hope Lahiri comes out with another book soon. 


"Hema and Kaushik" appears in the collection Unaccustomed Earth.