My mother was in the hospital. I got a call one night hearing about her sudden deterioration of health. What followed was frantic flight bookings, hurried phone calls, and the painful wait for updates.
Two cities over a thousand kilometres apart, united by strange bonds of love, care, and grounding. Yes, caregiving is a complex and thankless job. It’s tender and nerve-wracking, calming and frustrating in equal measure.
The storm had settled after a while. I had a few quiet moments to myself, decided to watch a movie, and finally caught Goldfish on Amazon Prime. It hit home. Hard.
The film by Pushan Kripalani depicts the colliding worlds of caregiving, dementia, frayed mother-daughter relationships, and fading memories.
Of Difficult Dementing and Disappearing Memories
Anamika Fields (Kalki Koechlin) returns to her ancestral home where her mother, Sadhana Tripathi (Deepti Naval), tries to eke out a living from the clutches of dementia. The two have a history that raises its ugly head through curt words, vengeful glances, and painful silences. Yet, these moments are followed by warm caregiving, peaceful coexistence, and joyful activities together.
Outside their world, in a wintry English neighbourhood, is a community of animated elderly well-wishers. This includes a grumpy but affectionate Bobby (Gordon Warnecke), a dependable Nitin (Ravin J. Ganatra), a positive Tilottama (Shanaya Rafaat), and a fatherly local supermarket owner, Ashwin Raina (Rajit Kapoor).
Presented by Anurag Kashyap, Goldfish is a film about memories and the angst of holding onto them. Here, the scenes in the present are interspersed with Ana’s (Anamika) conversations with her (non-existent, possibly expired) father. Here, moments of unflinching cruelty are followed by ones of moving motherhood. Ana and Sadhana exchange blistering words and yet share a serene cup of tea together. Ana shuts herself up in her blank room, while Sadhana fills her space up with Indian classical music. Sadhana forgets things, but remembers the ‘Tea at four’.
Somewhere in the film, Ana confesses about what she needs (and we all do): ‘a memory to help me get through things’. And yet, Sadhana doesn’t own the privilege of escaping the reality of her condition in the comforting embrace of memories. The crushing burden of dementia denies her the pleasure.
A Mother-Daughter Story
The Film Fare award winning movie depicts the duality and love-hate relationship of a mother and daughter. Their bond is like the plastered wall of a house. During rain, the plaster falls off. In winter, it stays put. Even after two rounds of paint, the scars still show. Plenty of good memories together are obscured by brief moments of animosity. Watching Goldfish is like fighting between the feelings of wanting to remember and trying to forget.
In an interview, Kalki Koechlin acknowledges this duality when she read the script, “I think one of the big things I felt was how — because I knew it was about dementia, I knew it was a heavy subject — how you can have these moments of utter, baffling joy or laughter in the middle of something really serious. Or the other way around — you can have a perfectly nice day in the middle of which you just start crying. I think the way they brought out the duality of emotions, as well as the duality of identity into the script, was really beautiful.”
The Complexities of Caregiving
It also presents a narrative on the thankless job of caregiving. On one hand, you feel ripples of love while taking care of someone you love; on the other, you hate the lack of control you have when that loved one doesn’t understand what’s good for them. Sometimes, you can’t get to decide what’s good for someone else and you have to accept it. It can be difficult to watch but if that makes them happy, so be it.
Having lived with a loved one slowly descending into dementia, I understand the ebb and flow of emotions all too well. It’s hard to balance the impulse to keep your loved ones close to you and letting them go to hold on to the last bit of concrete memories they have: their ancestral home, their plants, their music, their jobs, their way of life, their pleasures, their identity.
There had been times when I had felt the impulse to ask my mother to live with me, so that I could be there for her at all times. But she insisted on staying in her ancestral home, with her mother, her plants, and all the sunlight in the house. More importantly, she didn’t want her mother (and my grandmother) to feel abandoned. My grandmother has started forgetting things. Her past looms like an eternal banyan tree, yet her present fades away like camphor. Witnessing their troubled relationship has also been traumatic for me. The seething lava-like anger and betrayal that solidifies into a hard rock of detachment and grudges. The intergenerational trauma cycle continues unless someone decides to put a stop to it.
I’ve explored various possibilities, such as care homes and living together, and have finally given up. Over time, I realised that love is also about letting go and accepting the choices of the people you love. However, what this meant was frantic flying to and from one city to another, anxious waits at airports and in transit waiting to see how the other person is, living in a constant state of flux and alertness, jumping at every phone call wondering what news you’ll hear from them, and regretting your choice almost every single time. A constant shift between seeking justice and trying to forgive.
It’s interesting to note that the topic of dementia is close to the heart of the cast and makers. Having been a dementia care giver, Deepti Naval observes, “The relatability with the role in Goldfish came from my own lived experiences with my mother who had Alzheimer’s for many years before she passed away. I saw her go down that route and it was painful to see someone that brilliant, articulate and so in command of her life.” In fact, the writer of Goldfish, Arghya Lahiri, too has had a close encounter with dementia, his father having suffered from it.
As the Memories Fade Away…
While watching Goldfish, I saw Miku, as Sadhana lovingly called Ana, in the same state of dilemma. She tries to convince her mother to go to a care home. Sadhana tries to avoid the subject and vehemently opposes the idea. Miku stares helplessly as she sees her mother disintegrate slowly. Everything fades away eventually. Words. Memories. Life. A moving scene in the film depicts mother and daughter dissect a baklava into word and feeling. Ana pokes her mother to share how she feels about what she sees. Sadhana tries to share her emotions. Feelings remain, words evaporate.
Memories flood the frames of Goldfish. You see them in the form of the blue door of Ana’s home, a windy ride to a care home she explores, a green park where she runs to evade her mother’s stinging words. Her mother, Sadhana, wades through the memories of concerts she has been to, visits them through the songs that keep on playing throughout the film.
But what happens when all that is left of our lives are just stories and memories? In a scene, Sadhana recounts the tale of Laxmi (Bharti Patel), who journeyed overseas in a leap of faith without knowing a word of English and found herself trapped in a situation. It took her another bout of courage to escape from it. Her determination shines through in the scenes where she gives Ana some much-needed motivation to fight back in the situations which seem like a blind tunnel. Ana uses that courage to coax her mother to return home one day at dawn when she mistakenly wanders out dressed in a sari thinking it’s the day for her BBC concert.
The name Goldfish is not just because of the three-second memory myth that goes around about the piscine creature. It’s also related to a memory both Ana and Sadhana share. Both have their own versions of it and harbour their own feelings about the incident. There is a confrontation as well as a reconciliation. In the end, both of them sit and enjoy a quiet cup of tea together. Their tea at four. Sadhana doesn’t remember anymore who Ana is. But as she says, ‘this is enough’.
There are times when we wish we could have a goldfish-like memory. It would be easy to live with all the scars and wounds and forgive our mothers for all that they have inflicted on us. Yet, we can’t avoid the moments of tenderness. Like when Ana helps Sadhana wear a saree. In the end, this is enough.
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