" I'M A GOOD GIRL, I AM".

DEAR MS. AUDREY

In a letter addressed to her, I am back to my retro avatar and vintage groove, thank her for her joyful gift to the world of culture in the sixties and honour her irrepressible charm that made another decade one of bottomless promise. How blessed am I to take my imagination back to the great era of classics and its true blue mascot, that is Audrey.

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Dear Ms. Audrey,

I write this letter with a quiet passion reserved for the joys of writing and the grace notes you lent to the sixties as I blossomed in the direction of youth and an urgency to succeed in this world. You stood like an elegantly structured lighthouse overlooking this decade where many ebbing and charting currents of social regeneration once again proved that no order could be merited without wholesome action, the mind and heart had to be in the right place and with words to back our collective resolves; you gave us illuminating moments of life like portrayals in cinematic touchstones to be cherished for as long as cinema and culture exists at the front ranks, which will be so more vocally than ever before. How do I say this, Ms. Hepburn? Your embodiments had much more complexities and probing natures and still the common denomination of hope going into the future.

Matthew Arnold had devised the touchstone method to estimate a work that could be held accountable for its permanence. You had quite a few that sparkled and justified the first flush that came with Roman Holiday in '53.
Can I say enough for your Holly Golightly, a vision of independence and an internal impudence in Breakfast At Tiffany's where to lean on easy outcomes was never the tipping point. The question of survival in a deviously materialistic world that commodified humanity had a healthy interpretation, perhaps the most practical, and it was as it is in the here and now. Mr. Truman Capote must have handed out laurels to you in appreciation because his novelistic imagination found the perfect soul to imbibe Holly and Paul's world. Do tell Mr. Peppard how splendid he was in the film with you. Literary figures of high estimation seemed to become one of extreme vitality in your flesh and blood as your masterful work in My Fair Lady showed. I could not have vouched for a better Eliza Doolittle. What balance of vulnerability, pride and a correct stance on individuality unspooled there with every yarn of the play's transportation on screen. That's what you are, a beacon of individuality. I should also tell you with your renditions of Moon River and I Could Have Danced All Night respectively on screen, I found two evergreen musical moments to remember after Somewhere Over the Rainbow from Oz. You showed the way for maintaining our decency as we stood against odds of various standings in the present scenario. You did more for equality, both of gender and class, than any treatise could allow. An equality that sprung from integrity.
Harrowing was the experience you showed as a woman being interrogated in annals of society for deep bonds shared with another female friend, twisted and distorted for public tongue wagging in The Children's Hour and I felt your pain, your cry for justice and the humiliation borne by all the melee. You were Karen in every look and populated every inch of her soul with the double edges of shame and an idea of redressal from each accusation.

I talk to Holly, Karen and Eliza here and never for a moment do these personages defy reality for me. I don't think there can be a better validation of your accomplishments. It is always these women, these individuals funneled through your understanding of their situations and never Audrey Hepburn, the star invading  personal spaces unique and sacred to them alone. If that is not expertise, empathy and the art of alchemy in shared experience, what is? These were highlights of the sixties era for me and in my opinion they will be so, preserved for the future, so to speak.

Ms. Audrey, I congratulate you as you usher in tidings of warmth with your family and write a new fulfilling chapter of your life. I am an acolyte of cinema but more than that an admirer of sufficient personality. May the grand light of the sixties and middle point of twentieth century vis a vis your contributions and our collective hope of the world, each individual counted in the ethos, be forever cherished as one for the ages.

Yours faithfully,
Prithvijeet,
Signed with love
from India.

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* in this communicative, creative manner, I actually pen down my thoughts about the true blue icon she is as for most of her lifetime and beyond, she only warranted merit of actions, success and goodwill of the human spirit through her non exhibitionist philanthropic output. I feel I am blessed to have imagined these twin letters and connected our spirits. I wish she is reading this and all of these, somewhere in the realm of brilliance she has retired into.

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