Time for lessons in Chemistry

We have been talking a lot about chemistry lately.

The thing is, no matter how much we scored in chemistry exams in school, we seem to have an innate and accurate knowledge of how it works. At least with beautiful people on our screens. 

So we see two public figures, a couple, looking at each other, arms around each other, laughing with each other and we can tell whether it is real or fake. Just like that. 

It is easier to ace chemistry tests in real life than in classrooms. The equations are based on formulas all right, but values are not numbers but the size of the rock sitting pretty on slender fingers or the size of the trail of a wedding gown. Thankfully, there is no math involved and all those dreamy sessions reading romantic poets in your Literature class comes in handy. Chemistry, in this life, is defined by words such as sizzling, crackling, lively or poor. You do not need to memorise the periodic table to figure out how the elements in compound are likely to behave. You google the back stories of your dramas personae instead. If you still have recurring nightmares about experiments in the lab blowing up in your face, in real life, the only things that blow up are scandals.

So, giddy-headed youngsters manning digital desks somewhere in Bandra or Gurugram talk about how Deepika-Ranveer-Priyanka-Nick-Anushka-Virat-Sonam-Anand are giving us fashion, relationship, couple, vacation, wedding goals. They self-anointed chemistry experts are telling us all we need to know about body language, dissecting gaze and social media posts and getting breathless every time a new carefully edited photograph pops up on their screens. “He called her the most beautiful woman OMG!” “They shared a kiss on the beach OMG” “He picked up her pallu OMG!”  “He said I love you and she smiled OMG!”

There is a certain amount of curious authority in the way the millennial speaks of chemistry. It is different from the way it first entered our popular vocabulary when Silsila was released. We thought it simmered. It was palpable. You cut through it with a knife. It was widely acknowledged that real chemistry was not something you could define. 

It could be the way the couple look into each others eyes. Or simply the midas touch of a fantastic filmmaker and his editor, who knew just when to zoom in on the quivering lips of a wrong wife or the let the camera linger a while longer on the hand that caresses the chin. 

A far cry from the time when nothing is left to the imagination. Or the viewer. We believe what we see all right. But we see what we are allowed to see. 

For every headline or copy that creams ‘chemistry’ or ‘goals’, it is nothing but a fine sleight of hand, pulled off deftly by the very objects of our adoration.

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