There's this Hindi movie Sadma that I remember watching as a child - maybe 5 or 6 years old. I know the story vaguely, but what I recollect most vividly is the last scene. I remember crying copiously as I watched through tears. I do not know why I had such a high emotional reaction to this grown-up movie at that tender age… but I have had this deeply emotional core ever since I can remember…

The story in broad strokes is that a young woman meets with a car accident and is taken to hospital. She loses her adult memory and mentally regresses to a small child. She is kidnapped from there but finally rescued by this small-town guy who takes her to his own village because she doesn't know who she is or where she used to live. He takes care of her and starts falling in love with her. Some time passes by and he takes her to a person who can cure her. Meanwhile her parents have been searching, putting ads in papers, and they get a whiff of her whereabouts. They manage to get to the place where she is being treated and at that point she has recovered her memory too. They happily set off with their daughter to go home. The small-town guy frantically follows them to the train station, falling in ditches and injuring himself in the torrential rain (dramatic Hindi movies!). This is the last scene. As the train is just preparing to leave, this guy tries to attract the girl's attention from among the crowd. He is badly bruised, battered, covered in mud. He makes strange expressions that she used to find amusing when she was this child-like person. But now as her former rich haughty city-bred self, is put off by the dirty man and his random facial gestures. I must have felt like crying because I was so sorry for him... seeing how he cared for her when she had no one, and now, she was looking at him as if he was a pathetic weirdo. The train then starts leaving and he runs behind it limping. He continues to make funny faces at her still hoping she'd recognize them, keeps calling out her name which isn't even her name, which makes her think he must surely be mad. The saddest part is when she whispers to her mom next to her that he must be a madman and throws something at him to eat. The train goes by just as the guy hits hard against a pillar...

Such deep emotion met by complete indifference was just too much for my little heart to bear, I guess. And funnily it is so even for my big one now. In so many ways I haven't changed at all...

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Watch this really lovely song from the movie featuring the main characters (where she's playing the childish self). I believe it's partly the music that gives this movie its exceptional emotional charge.