Three of Us is an ode to permanence, but it also acknowledges the sheer impermanence of human life which goes on in a cyclic fashion, much like a Ferris wheel moves punctuated by brief pauses
Navigating their way through the breezy coastal town of Vengurla, Shailaja Desai (Shefali Shah) and her husband Dipankar Desai (Swanand Kirkire), glide through the pristine streets of Konkan coast, much like the cool breeze around them that ruffles the crisp leaves on trees. Guided by nothing but Shailaja’s gut instinct that brought her to the town all the way from Mumbai, the couple tries to reconnect with her old friends, a reunion that is pending for 28 years.
For Dipankar, Shailaja’s husband, it is his affection for his dementia-ridden spouse that makes him go wherever she takes him — first to an old friend’s house, then her school and finally to a bank where she reunites with her childhood lover.
The Othering of the Differently-abled
Co-written and directed by Avinash Arun, Three of Us is not an immigrant heartbreak story like Celine Song’s Past Lives — even though many parallels, both obvious and implicit, can be drawn between the two. In Three of Us, the heartache isn’t inflicted by the American dream or a staircase that promises a better life but Shailaja’s dementia, a condition, which, in many ways, becomes a symbol of wounds inflicted on her by time and existence itself.
The film offers a realistic portrayal of dementia and how the ableist world is quick to alienate and dismiss the differently-abled. Conversations suddenly become awkward when her condition is brought up. The othering of differently-abled is more pronounced when a high-functioning individual like Shailaja co-exists with ableist folks who get uncomfortable at the slight mention of someone’s condition. It is treated like a dirty little secret in social circles that everyone has made peace with — it is never really brought up even if everyone is thinking about it.
Shailaja and Pradeep’s love runs deep. She swears she can recognize his poetry even if she hasn’t read it before, owing to its childlike innocence.
After a premature retirement owing to her neurological condition, Shailaja reunites with her childhood love Pradeep Kamat (essayed by the brilliant Jaideep Ahlawat) in Vengurla. The meeting, which is made possible partly due to the support by Shailaja’s husband, oozes with bittersweet memories and awkwardness which is odd for both their spouses but, as Pradeep’s wife says, “nice kind of odd”.
What follows next is a four-day-long excursion across the dainty town where Shailaja and Pradeep revisit their old haunts — a classroom where desks still have engravings of their names, a spirited English teacher who remembers the two as troublemakers, and Shailaja’s old home which reminds her of a traumatic childhood incident, the pain of which she hasn’t fully processed yet.
“I am here to look for the Shailaja you are seeing for the first time”, Shailaja tells Dipankar. “She is right here yet she eludes me. If you find her before me, keep her safe”. Pradeep, meanwhile, pens a poem titled ‘Udgam' (Sanskrit for source), hinting that it was Shailaja’s innate desire to reconnect with her past that brought her back to her place of origin.
The Ferris Wheel of Life
Shailaja and Pradeep’s love runs deep. She swears she can recognize his poetry even if she hasn’t read it before, owing to its childlike innocence. Pradeep, meanwhile, knows exactly when Shailaja is having a traumatic flashback from her past and offers her a safe space to recover while her husband Dipankar is blissfully unaware of her triggers.
In a penultimate scene from the film, a teary-eyed Shailaja admits to Pradeep, “I won’t be able to remember you for too long”. Perhaps, at that moment, Shailaja had resigned to her fate. Perhaps, she had accepted that she returned to Konkan to reconnect with her past only to forget it again, just like the Ferris wheel where Pradeep and Shailaja find themselves has paused momentarily, allowing the two lovers to reminisce and reflect on the past, but will eventually move till the ride comes to an end.
Shailaja and Pradeep’s love stands strong in its permanence even as everything around them — their spouses, kids and cities — evolve. One can imagine years later, a gray-haired Shailaja finding her way back to Konkan, assisted by an older, grumpier Dipankar and taking one last Ferris wheel ride with Pradeep, remembering her long-lost lover and cherishing his poetry, dementia be damned!
Or she might just spend the rest of her life in Mumbai away from Pradeep, recovering from her condition and all while trying her best to remain functional. But having relieved her past and confronted the fearful well where her sister drowned, Shailaja might just embrace dementia and an impending death with open arms — for there are no what-could-have-beens and regrets now — just plain, simple acceptance of reality.
In Three of Us, each dialogue, each exchange between the characters, flows like poetry. No line insignificant, no detail accidental. Due to its sheer poignance and subtlety, Three of Us is oddly reminiscent of Mira Nair’s The Namesake (2006), a film starring Irrfan Khan and Tabu which is as much a love letter to longing and loss as the Avinash Arun-directorial. It is heartbreaking yet hopeful; painful yet soothing. It celebrates the permanence and ever-lasting nature of love while acknowledging the sheer impermanence of human life, which goes on in a cyclic fashion, much like a Ferris wheel punctuated by brief pauses.
Perhaps, it is these pauses that make the ride worthwhile.
