The Dark Knight watcher

Movies like, ‘The Dark Knight’ make some grown-ups behave like a kid. S had been waiting for its release fervently. He read some reviews and how well it opened in the U.S and fed his own anxiety. Dinners in the last week consisted of updates about the movie and its reviews, how Christian Bale is a very good actor and how Heath has played the role of the joker with elan(imagine the special symbol and pronounce correctly. I am not able to do it. :-) ). I said,”yes, Christian Bale is finally getting his due. I liked him in ‘Equilibrium’ and ‘Machinist’ specially, but I haven’t watched ‘Batman Begins’. He looked at me as if I just confessed murder.

Making up his mind that I have a shitty choice for movies, he continued raving about Heath Ledger. I said,” I don’t watch gay movies no matter how good they are. Tell me something else.” (I just couldn’t recall his face.) “Oh yes, ‘A knight’s tale’ and the rock music and how I had commented on his looks. (I watched it with him. Hence, another proof of his good choice and my Shittyness in the subject).

Over the dining table, we mourned his death as if my husband has lost a bum chum buddy, the proverbial ‘langotiya yaar.’

S booked the movie in advance and we watched it finally. He hates loafing around in malls and window shopping but for a change, he asked me to get dressed early and said, ‘let us collect the ticket and while away some time.’

We were among the first few people to enter the theater. I guess he needed that time to do some breathing exercise to control anxiety lest he faint the moment the movie starts.

He absorbed each and every scene and came back.

On the way back, he started testing my IQ test on the super heroes and asked if I didn’t read their comics, as if he had suddenly remembered what was it that he wanted to know about me while courting, but not being able to put a finger on, had somehow decided to get married. I confessed I did not read Superman, Batman or Daredevil but read a lot of Phantoms hoping we are still married.

He continued explaining why Batman is not like other super heroes forgetting I have just watched the movie sitting right next to him and that we have our personal collection of the Superman series. He mumbled something like, “It was too good na, how the joker said, ‘I will not kill you because you are too much fun and you will not kill me because you are too self righteous’” and added, “I feel like buying the comic and reading it again.”

So, if you see a man at the tender age of 31 with a Batman comic, he could very well be my husband.