Yesterday the New Yorker web site (CAN’T GET OVER THIS hilarious usage!!!) published an aesthetic, gorgeous video essay called “In the Mood for Love” ’s Era-Defining Aesthetic.

I read and then immediately re-read it in the early hours of my Indian Saturday morning (9am lol). Nursing a sour hangover through one corner of my double-bed, I padded up and down my phone’s humid screen. As the sun beamed in from the East facing giant glass window in my room, I turned on the AC to dull the pain of the heat and imbue a sense of comfort, however fleeting.

Reading the essay felt a lot like when I had first watched In the Mood in 2015. Then, the movie had cast a fugue, a spell, a something unnameable over my depreciated, port wine-induced senses. In that Shakespearean stupor, I had stepped out for a walk at 3am in my leafy Pune neighbourhood. After 20 minutes a generous policewoman in her van had escorted me back home. She was worried I was a girl trying to run away from home. Little did she know.