I got introduced to Billy Bob Thornton’s acting prowess through Landman.
Next, I binged through Goliath, then Fargo, and now am back to season
two of Landman. From what I’ve read, he lived a hard, working man’s life
before his screen breakthrough. And it shows. His onscreen presence, is
not something any acting school can teach. He is essentially always
himself, a ronin, a rogue inside the system, playing by his own rules,
alone, and never hesitant about speaking his mind. Plus, in real life,
he is dyslexic and struggled in his education - things I can strongly
relate to.
It is in episode two of
Landman season two (word of warning - if you have watched the 2nd season, don't bother. Its rank bad), where his character tells his son about his own
frustrated, physically abusive father and says: “Just know this: however
you raise your son is how he’s gonna raise his son.”
That line resonated.
Not
that I was physically abused growing up, but a binary system of
narcissistic parentage drilled it into us early on that we were a
liability, a shame, that they were always light-years superior to us.
Later, an equally bullying and narcissistic brother-in-law entered the
picture, and the whole thing turned into a three-body problem - a
relationship so toxic that even as a teenager I consciously decided I
should never have children of my own. Even at the cost of remaining
single. I just didn’t want to perpetuate the cycle.
My
grandfather was a judge with fourteen children. While others of his
stature sent their kids to boarding schools, he sent his to local
vernacular schools, barefoot at times, at least the elder aunts. All the
while, he had his suits stitched by English tailors in Calcutta and berated his brood for "getting to eat warm rice." Possibly to compensate, my father and almost all his siblings excelled
academically, though my father also cultivated the reputation
of an intellectual and a goon. That was until one day, fed up with his bravado, I told him
that every hawaldar’s son is a bully in his mohalla; it’s not exactly
difficult for a judge’s son to be one.
He went quiet and shut himself in
his room.
Another aspect of our upbringing that took me years to understand was the penury - our living standards were no better, and often worse, than those of families earning half his salary or less. He was a
university professor, we lived in a huge house, but in ridiculous
austerity. Any small request from my sister or me was invariably met
with a firm no, and eventually we stopped asking, just to preserve the
last scraps of self-respect. In his mental ledger, since we didn’t walk
barefoot to school wearing pyjamas, it was already a massive improvement
over his own childhood. Anything beyond that was Oliver Twist asking
for more.
Much later, as an adult,
long after my short marriage ended, I still had out-of-touch friends and
acquaintances cautiously ask me about a rumour they’d heard: “Is it
true you got married?”
I never realised how brazenly “singleton” had been stamped on my forehead for all but myself to see. And yet, like for many others, the absence of "Naz" in my life wasn't deliberate, it was just an inheritance.
Naz- the Farsi word for the confidence of being loved.
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