What is Reality , A figment of your imagination which you believe in!!!

I am so ashamed that I have not been maintaining the blog that I created with love and so called devotion in my head. Every time this shame prevents me from posting anything but this time debate between late or never, here I am with one more post here.

This weekend I saw 15th Park Avenue movie and believe me it is something. It is too early for me to tell you if I liked it because I do not want to lose any one at this point to the movie or their work so keep reading. Frankly I am still trying to understand it. The performances in the movies are indeed good and any movie review will tell you that. Also these days I cry at any movie so it will be worthless to say that I cried in this movie too.

The real brilliance of the movie lies in the fact that many people will hate the movie for the same reason for which many people are going to love it - “The Big Abstract Ending”. Aparna Sen did not offer any of her interpretations of the ending. For a casual movie watcher there is no closure and the feeling after sitting though 2 hrs and still not knowing head or tail of the movie is an unsettling thought. I also personally like the gratifying feeling that I get after watching the movie and in the end when I know that each of the characters had an ending. So why would a great filmmaker like Aparna Sen leave the audience so unsatisfied. Why not just explain what you want to say. Well because in this story to give any ending or explanation will take away the mystic of story itself. The story is not just about the schizophrenia which is stated so many times in the movie but the concept of illusions and reality! Every person defines his own reality and is a person wrong in doing so? So what makes a schizophrenic a schizophrenic??

The scene where Kunal (the doctor) was explaining the concept of schizophrenia to Anjali is the cornerstone of the movie’s meaning. When Shabana Azmi says it is vase on the table, we are also shown a vase. But when Kunal sees the lamp we are also shown the lamp. So are we really in a position to decide what reality is and what is figment of someone’s imagination? In the movie we get to see world through eyes of two narrators i.e. Anjali and JoJo (oh I love this name). Both of them see Anjali as crazy and mentally ill and that might be affecting their view of reality. However in the end we are shown a part of Anjali’s reality. Similar to the conversation between Kunal and Anjali you are left wondering which reality to believe? Again the incidents are bound to turn you against poor Meethi. You are bound to assume that it was Meethi who was schizophrenic. It is all your perception of what is wrong or right, what is real and what is fiction? I think the main thing Aparna wanted to evoke from this movie was support for these so called crazy people by fussing with your own mind. If you cannot decide which is which then can you really accuse someone as being crazy?

I feel the ending when Meethi enters the house and meets her family would have been a good ending for people looking for a closure and people looking for open ended ending. Then is anything that happens after that scene an attempt by film maker to give some meaning to the ending? Yes, there is a reason why in the end both Joydeep and Anjali starts asking about the address which they so vehemently assumed to be non-existent. It is when something that happens in front of your eyes which you thought impossible that you start questioning yourself. They could not believe how Meethi just vanished in thin air? They both question their own sanity or to know if they both are crazy and imagining something which is unreal? They want to know if that address exist and they will find Meethi there and may be then their reality will make more sense for them? I have read one explanation on the internet where the writer came up with a bunch of interpretations of the ending like Anjali was the one who was crazy or Joydeep was crazy but I feel by giving an end to this story will destroy its mystic that makes it so interesting.

So coming back to the Question whether I like it? Well if not for anything then it still has a heart wrenching story with brilliant performances, it is worth seeing once. But the added mystic will hold you much longer and may be will make you question your own sanity.

The Italian

I watched the movie “The Italian”. My first reaction at reading the synopsis was “What’s the big deal. I have seen lot of such movies with this theme even in Hindi cinema and in Hollywood. A boy who wants to goes in the search for his birth mother!

As the movie progressed I had to change my mind. It is completely different.
It is an amazing story of motivation and strength and that too shown in a small boy of only six yrs old. It is not a sob story where the orphanage treats the children with much disdain. It won’t evoke the tears in your eyes (atleast did not happen for me J); infact this does have a happy ending. However I was on my toes all the time, anticipating all the time as to what will happen next? Will this boy ever find his mother?

This story starts in an orphanage in Russia (actually hard to say which part in Russia?). Some wealthy couple from Italy is coming to adopt a child. All the kids are excited as to who will they pick? They show kids screaming and one kid anton getting dressed in his nicest clothes. Only kid who looks disinterested in all this is Vanya. However couple decides to pick him. He is happy meeting with the couple who later give him lot of candies for him to eat, which he enthusiastically shares with his friends. But then he finds out that some lady claiming to be the mother of another kid who was adopted recently comes to find him and when he is unsuccessful in locating him then she kills herself. It is then Vanya decides that he would much rather be with his mother than with the Italian foreigners. Vanya has amazing presence of mind and his determination lends him on the path in search of his mother. He has to face his share of misfortune on the way like two other local kids mugging him, some lady and police after him.

It is amazing as to how much he grows and how he completes his journey.
How he learns and quickly adapts to his environment like when he learns to defend himself by using a broken glass bottle when he saw some one else do the same thing just the night before. And finally he meets up with his mother.

When he embarks on this journey he has no idea whether his mom is even alive or not? He does not know anything. Only thing he knows is his heart and his feelings. And he walks into unknown.
I doubt if in today’s world even an adult can be expected to take this kind of decision let alone a child of only 6 years; Or is it that we adults who have become so cynic and lost faith?

There may be lot of things in this story which will inspire other people but what inspired me the most was “Listen to your heart because it knows the best”

--NK

Am I Immoral or Just Human?

Am I Immoral or Just Human?
Are we really just puppets in the hand of the God or we make our own destiny? I have been pondering over this question
since I was old enough to know about the god but this question never left my mind!!!. Well this is not a question anymore
in my mind since I realised that I am not wise enough to even answer the question myself. Also no one I know, has been
able to give me a satisfactory answer. However well read they are. May be we are not even supposed to have an answer to
this?
I do not know about the others but I desperately want to believe that there is no destiny and we are what we make of
ourselves. It is only our actions that make or break our life. I am still divided into half on my beliefs. I try to blame
GOD for anything gone wrong and give myself laurels for anything great in my life. Am i being immoral in doing so?
One of my good friend always says that there is no destiny. More I try to accept this, it becomes more and more
embarassing for me to accept my failures. Because if god is not who controls my life and I control it as I want to
believe then all the failures are just result of my bad decisions. This can kill any one's confidence and not just mine.
However If I start believing in god and the destiny then nothing is in my hand. It builds confidence but then it kills
the whole fun of even trying and making mistakes and learning from it. Most of the people I know belong to this camp and
it is very comforting thought especially in the wake of something gone horribly wrong. Atleast you will not have
yourselves to blame? And you can sleep at night?
Is this very irresponsible of me or selfish of me that I do not want to accept the responsiblity of my actions? I do not what to believe and what not to believe but more I think of it more I become worried of my conciousness going
awry.
What ever I believe, I just know that there is only "Hope" that keeps me going. Hoping that next time I will not make the
same mistake in my decision or next time around god will be more generous to me in deciding my destiny. So I keep on
trying and hoping for the best.
Till i settle this debate in my mind ... prefer to call me believer!!!

Side Affects to Long Distance Relationship

Long Distance relationship is the next buzzword in town. Nowadays you will find one person or the other either talking about it or doing it? But is it really a new phenomenon or and old died mortal getting a new life these days.

I feel it has always been there… only since some few years the cases have changed from rare and far between to every now and then kinds. Haven’t you had some uncle or aunt in you family where uncle was in far land earning bread and butter for the family and poor aunty in some small town taking care of the kids or juggling her life in the big city all by herself? Well we can say that long-distance relationships are a Vedic phenomenon…

So what has changed, what gave this phenomenon its’ much due importance and glamour.

Well the equation has changed… There are no more poor aunties any more, who are living away to respect their better halves wishes. Well they are making this decision these days for their careers… (I am so sorry for my limited knowledge on this topic but I seriously could not think of any other reason in the current frame of reference.)

New or Old, I know one thing that it is definitely difficult to manage one. When I come to think of it… it does not even make sense. There are these two people who need to have an emotional bond, love, romance etc… between them and they are not even at arms length to each other. I hold a very conventional view to romance and love and thus believe that you need to be physically close to each other to be emotionally close also.

I have seen facets of the relationship when people are Just engaged, fully committed, or married. Oh yes, I am at least that modern in thinking that even a affair with say more than 100 miles between them will qualify for a long distance relationship. Thanks to the breakthrough in Tele-communications I feel this kind of relationships has become still viable these days.

People joke around that I cannot live without my cell phone but it is not the phone that keeps you hooked but the person on the other side. The daily routine will start with a wake up call, few missed calls in the day and few funny, or romantic text messages to other party and some reminder calls and then a good night call. In between btway I manage to do a lot of work too.

Just think about it, you are sitting in a happening party with your friends and enjoying yourselves and then suddenly your phone rings and you start looking for an excuse to excuse yourself out of that party; which five minutes back was so interesting and will again be after the call. I always wonder what keeps the fire on?

May be the trust, understanding, love or just plain perseverance. I feel it is mainly to do with the hope that one day we will be together. The future plans; those daydreams, unusual and most awaited weekend trips, and romance on the move keep it going. Every day is more or less an emotional upheaval. One day you will fight, other day some coo-chi-cooing, and yes we being girls can cry on one of the days. I wonder what guys do on those cry days? Do they silently cry or just some bickering while we cry. In millions of years that guys and girls have been going around the trees; I still fail to understand why guys are so uncomfortable handling the girl’s cry? How many years will they take to adapt to this phenomenon? Men have proved themselves slowest of all the animals to adaptation. I guess Darwin totally missed this point.

Well every thing is not so rosy-rosy as it seems. There are a lot of side affects I feel.

How will it be when you start living together cutting all those miles between you? After all you get used to those miles between; I wonder if the adjustments required for a relationship to work will be all the more difficult when you actually start living together.

You long for the closeness but the thought it scares you also in a way. Will we be ready to do all the sacrifices since we kinda get used to the freedom. How will the understanding suddenly dawn on both of us to become tolerant of the whims and fancies of the other person?

The breakthrough in telecommunications has not been able to rip the distance between two people. On a phone we are still voices, some people can attach a face and emotions to that voice but for some people it will be just a face. We might not know how he/she looks when she/he is smiling, being angry or like that. But suddenly there will be a face, body and emotions attached to all those talks and conversations.

The thought might be very scary but it is very exciting too I feel. You can now see that twinkle in the eyes when he is happy or dimple on her cheeks when she laughs. You can feel the dampness on your shoulder with her tears… or feel the anger oozing from his nose. I still do not know how it will be but I am surely looking forward to it…

--Nidhi