
The term love
failure has a tragicomic resonance unmatched by any other phrase
bequeathed by cinema to language. Growing up in Madras in the Nineties and
watching whatever Doordarshan provided, I came to associate it with T. Rajender
contorting his hirsute face into a tortured expression, with Charlie Chaplin’s
tramp until he caught a break in City Lights, with Tom’s desperate
overtures to Toodles Galore, with Popeye and Bluto vying for Olive Oyl, and
eventually with one