Hindu mythology says that there are only three major events in a person’s lifetime: Birth, marriage and death. It also says that since you are fully conscious during only one of these three events, you better celebrate that event with all possible grandeur, and make it memorable.

But in the life of an Indian ‘ex-teen but yet-to-be-called-uncle’ youth, there’s one other event that’s as eventful and memorable as the other three, and  during this one too the person is fully conscious. Wondering what I’m talking about?

Yes, its the first trip abroad/overseas for ‘higher’ studies. That is when you get overwhelmed by the ‘Oh I’m gonna be an NRI… I’m going to the developed world… the land of many more opportunities… where the money is good and the girls are even better… where there’s plenty to explore and enjoy… where the beer flows like water’ feeling .

Once the visa and the I20 are in hand, pandemonium sets in – resigning from the work-place, throwing farewell parties, getting sentimental about leaving all your co-workers, shopping a million times for a zillion things, learning to cook, packing all the stuff, buying some more stuff, then re-packing all the stuff, meanwhile getting in touch with all friends (new and old) and letting them know of your departure date (hoping they come send you off at the airport).

You start counting the days to the departure date with a mixture of excitement, enthusiasm, confusion and a fear of what the unknown new world has in store ahead. It’s pretty much like waiting for the wedding day, where you are the bride  -getting all elated and decorated during the last few days,  as well as the groom – developing cold feet due to fear of commitment. You splurge everywhere on everything – on the necessary, the unnecessary, the unnecessary-now-but-maybe-necessary-later, the necessary-now-unnecessary-later, and the dad-thinks-its-necessary-because-Raju-uncle’s-son-took-it-along stuff. Your savings get wiped out in a jiffy, and then you begin to sport the t-shirt with the logo ‘My dad is my ATM’ and live true to the logo.

Your mom makes you go helter-skelter all over the kitchen trying to teach you to cook basic stuff. Your friends make fun of the remnants of the dried lentils and pulses that they find on your hair when you go to meet them after the disastrous cooking sessions. Your uncles and aunts ask you to go visit some specific temples to get visas, and some others to get call letters from particular universities. Dad keeps giving you career advice every time he catches you taking a break after weighing the bags and finding out that they’re all packed just right.

And then there is the climax at the airport. There’s a colossal wastage of time and resources at the airport. Twenty plus people driving in 4 to 5 cars come to send off this one guy/gal whom they have seen all this while in life ( 20 odd years). They come all the way to the airport, spending on the fuel and the food and singing all the way in cars or hired cabs. But the irony is that they don’t pay that little extra amount on the entry ticket to get into the airport. They all huddle outside, at the entry point, and keep waving like there’s no tomorrow.

It can’t get more dramatic than this. People waving, grandmas crying, moms wiping the sweat off their brows, dads sipping on coffee and scratching their heads thinking as to whether their children have taken the right decision or not. Then comes the final stretch, from the entrance to the sliding doors, the stretch that you have to take alone, the stretch where you keep looking back each second at all that you will be missing henceforth. Alas,  and at last, you disappear amidst the chaos within the airport and the send-off is then deemed complete.

It’s quite an amazing, intriguing and tiring event, I must say.

Image : klsa12 from sxc.hu

Related Posts

• August 11, 2010 — It’s all about Priorities!
• June 17, 2010 — The Chartered Bus Syndrome
• March 16, 2010 — The Power of Words!

There is a unique quality in human beings, which gives them an edge over all the other creations of God -the ability to express their feelings.

Expressing feelings or emotions is a simple way to understand information for, and about, us. The art of expressing a ‘feeling’ is nothing but the creative de-coding of how exactly the ‘feeling’ wants to come out, so that you can avoid ‘feeling’ the worse for it.

Sadly, in today’s materialistic and fast-paced world, expressing one’s feelings or emotions is often considered weak, or foolish. But, it should also be known that the inability to express one’s feelings is a facet of emotional immaturity. The art of expressing emotions need to be taught, at least to those who have problem in understand their own feelings.

The best way to express one’s feelings is to talk about them… share them with someone; this keeps us from sulking into depression. But it often happens that, even through personal interactions, people are not able to express their feelings completely. They tend to hide or suppress what they are feeling either because they don’t want to reveal their feelings in front of anyone, or because they don’t know how to express them. Whatever the reason, the act of suppressing one’s feelings can cause mental illness (depression), which is the major cause of many health issues today. Almost 80% of the health issues today are related to stress and other forms of emotional baggage.

Why? Simply  because we decide to quell our emotions rather than express them, and the only reason certain emotions (for e.g. anger or grief) become a problem is because they’re not properly dealt with. Dealing with emotions is nothing but really allowing oneself to feel the emotions as and when they arise within us. When we feel angry, we should allow ourselves to feel that anger, and vent it out in some form or the other, without causing any harm to others, or oneself.

Some well known ways to do this are punching a pillow, martial arts, hitting the ground with your cricket bat or badminton racket. But, if you are not comfortable with any of these, then there is a better alternative – penning your feelings down, or the modern alternative – typing your emotions!

Let all those suppressed emotions come alive in an MS-word File, or write an e-mail about them but don’t send it to anyone, or, better still, write a blog. And, if you don’t want people to read it, then keep the posts private. When you search for words to express your emotions, you get in touch with your real feelings. Those who have a better understanding of their feelings, have better ways of coping up with both positive as well as negative emotions.

It is often said that the head and the heart should work together to take better decisions.  The reason is that the heart feels (emotional thinker), whereas the head thinks (logical thinker). And when the heart feels, nothing is bad or wrong. The sole objective of the heart is to Love everything that comes its way, even the negative emotions. So, it’s the logical thinker’s responsibility to help the emotional thinker to acknowledge and understand emotions, so that they can be dealt with properly.

Image courtesy: andreyutzu from sxc.hu

You may also like to read

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance… We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again.”

These are the impressive words of the speech titled, “Tryst with Destiny” given by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on August 15, 1947. The real struggle for independence of India had begun almost 90 years before in 1857, when a group of sepoys mutinied against the East India Company.

Nevertheless it needed another 90 years for India to become an Independent State.

But, today, one must take a moment to ask oneself – is India really free and independent?

Other countries are still invading India. They build factories which produce goods they can’t produce in their own country for the same money, even if it means ignoring the safety regulations. Child labour is still common, and not a lot of eyebrows are raised when a ten year old boy serves us a cup of tea.

Hundreds and thousands of people have been, and are being, affected by terrorism, still we say India is free and independent?

Corruption rules the country, still we say India is free and independent?

A sizeable population does not know where their next meal is going to come from, still we say India is free and independent?

At such times, we should look back at times when India was really free and independent, even if that was a long, long ago. The Wikipedia has this to say about that time:

The Indus Valley Civilization, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE, was the first major civilization in India. A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 BCE. This so called Bronze Age was followed by the Iron Age which witnessed the rise of major polities known as the Mahajanapadas. The following 4000 years have been known as the classical period of Indian history, during which India has sometimes been estimated to have had the largest economy of the ancient and medieval world, controlling between one third and one fourth of the world’s wealth up to the 18th century. But what happened then. India lost the freedom to the East Indian Company and the British. They invaded the country and the downfall of the Indian Empire has begun. It needed 200 hundred years of foreign occupation to destroy a thousands year old history of freedom.

India is definitely free and independent now, even more so on paper. But, a question that needs some thought is what does this freedom really mean. How long will it take before each of the citizen’s life is guaranteed? How long will it take to beat corruption? How long will it take to understand the real meaning of freedom ?

These lines have been written by a person who isn’t an Indian Citizen – not on the paper at least – but feels a deep connection with the country, and has thoughts of freedom and independence topmost in her mind.

Lastly, I would say Indians be proud, proud of your country, proud of your ancestors, and let your children be proud of you. Jai Hindi!

Image Courtesy: svilen001 from sxc.hu

Related Posts

• August 15, 2010 — The Soul of a Nation

A nation represents the collective soul of the Individuals who are it’s Citizens, and the State in which a nation is… is a reflection of the attitude that it’s people have towards themselves and each other.

Why am I writing this today?

Because…

It’s August, the 15th again – the Indian Independence Day. What am I going to do for this occasion?. I’ll probably go to my hospital  & do my duty,  while feeling a little bad that this 15th Aug  fell on a Sunday and I have been robbed of one of my 11 precious gazetted holidays.

What I won’t do is, I won’t go ahead and buy the national flag – which kids go about selling on every traffic signal around this time in India – and wave it around, or tweet facts about the greatness of India, the nation, or add a Patriotic status to my long line of FB status messages, or listen to patriotic songs, or sit back and discuss how everything starting from public administration to living conditions to law and order is on the down hill, or curse the government and politicians for the rotten condition of Nation. I won’t do any of that.

Why not, you may ask?

I don’t think that it helps if we wear patriotism on our sleeves on one day, while shirking away from our responsibilities & duties as a citizen day in & day out. Where is the patriotism when we forget basic civic manners like forming queues, not spitting or peeing in public, respecting women & elderly people, obeying traffic laws, keeping our environment clean, using energy judiciously?

What good can come out of waving a plastic tricolor, which has been made and is being sold by children (who are supposed to be the future of this nation) in factories when they should have been in schools, happily fed by their families.

Should I feel proud to know that I live in a country…

Where families still throw away a newborn girl child, or worse kill a still unborn child because they want sons, or where wives are burnt for dowry and are subjected to domestic violence?

Where people are killed for marrying against the wishes of their family and these killings are termed  as “Honour” killings.

Where people discriminate against fellow human beings on caste, religion, region,and  discriminate enough to kill.

Where citizens are Indians on 15th Aug/ 26th Jan/ 2nd Oct and for the rest of the year they beat each other up for being North Indians, South Indians, Maharashtrians, Kashmiris, Maoists, Communists, and the list is unending.

Where citizens spend  more time finding innovative ways of bypassing laws, evading taxes and using that money so saved for offering bribes.

Where cricketers, actors and pseudo celebrities roll in luxury while soldiers, teachers, scientists and farmers are not thanked enough.

Where news is about getting TRP’s, rather than reporting facts.

Where elected representatives of the country fight tooth & nail with each other in the Parliament, spend more time staging walk outs and getting the house adjourned than in discussing the problems of nation, spend crores in making statues and parks while millions die of malnourishment and hunger, where nothing lies above petty politics and pleasing the vote bank.

When we, The People, elect such leaders to rule us, what right do we have to crib?

The purpose of this post is not to criticize a nation that is the biggest democracy in the world, and is  over flowing with talent unlimited. I fully realize that some of the things that I have mentioned above are rampant in every society, but then ours is a nation which stands on the premise of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The whole world is a single family). The purpose of this post is merely to show ourselves the mirror to remind ourselves that –

The change will not happen by sitting in our homes, worrying about our comforts, refusing to accept reality as it is and waiting for someone else to come and clean our backyard. To make the change happen we will have to shirk off our laziness, clean our minds and then pick up the brooms and clean our backyard ourselves.

Let us be responsible people everyday of our lives, and celebrate patriotism everyday,  rather than make a hue and cry of it for a few days in a year.

Remember, The walls, if any, lie within our own mind.

Image courtesy: vivekchugh from sxc.hu

Related Posts

• August 15, 2010 — Is India Really Independent?

There was this story I read a number of years ago, wherein two gentlemen wait for a third to join them at eight o’clock in the evening for a meeting that would become the crux of the story. A few minutes before eight, one looks out the window, sees no carriage stopping at their door and says, “I don’t think he’ll turn up.” Of course he had valid reasons for doubting the man’s word.

The other says, “He will. He is an Englishman. He will be here on the dot, at eight.”

Sure enough, midway into the clock’s chime, there is a knock at the door and the landlady announces his arrival.

Ever since, it has impressed upon me that all Englishmen (and -women) are sticklers for punctuality. That part of the story has also made me appreciate punctuality when I see it. However, closer home, I have noticed it comes few and far between. It is not that anyone wants to be late on purpose; it is just that being punctual is one of the lowest priorities of our everyday life. Very, very rarely do I see a person who is *consistently* punctual. Some are occasionally punctual, some are sometimes punctual, and some are never punctual.

A couple of years ago, I happened to attend a session on Leadership and Management skills – one of the usual trainings all employees are put through, time and again. As long as it guarantees no regular work for a day or two, coffee in the conference room and snacks twice a day, no one grumbles. Some of us had got a warning the previous day from the HR that the trainer is like one of them Englishmen, and worse – he would peel your skin off if you’re not in the room at 9AM. True to the word, after a grace period of ten minutes, he asked one of the trainees to note the names of the people who came in late. Giggling and chuckling, and every bit determined to have fun, she wrote down the names. To each one of the late-comers, the trainer asked for a very valid and convincing reason. One said he was caught in the traffic. Another was late because he had guests at home and had to drop them somewhere. The others also had similar tales to tell. He shook his head at every excuse. Finally, he asked, “Would these reasons still hold if, instead of this training, you had to catch a flight at nine?”

No one had an answer, naturally. None of them would have missed the flight for any reason whatsoever. They would have made arrangements to overcome traffic jams, guests and other miscellaneous and unexpected hurdles. They would have woken up an hour earlier than they did. It is true that the training did not have the importance that a flight would have had.

If we really think about it, he was right. Maybe you already knew it, but that was the first time I saw it that way. Our being on time depends on how important we consider the event to be. If your child was ill on the day of the training, you would waste no time in calling up the office to say, “I will attend the training next time. I need to take my son to the hospital.” On the other hand, if an unwelcome guest turned up at your door and asked you to accompany him on a full-day tour of the city, you’d remember that “there is this very important training at office I cannot miss.”

Our obsession with updating every second of our life to social networking sites lasts only as long as we have health left to do it. When we’re drained out with an illness that consumes us, our only wish would be to get back on our feet as soon as we can. We would not be really eager to let the world know if we brushed our teeth or had food on time. Life, it is said, is all about priorities!

The next time you find yourself before a handful of choices, ask yourself, “Which of these is the flight I have to catch?”

Image Courtesy : hisks@sxc.hu

Related Posts

• August 23, 2010 — The Overseas Send-off!
• June 17, 2010 — The Chartered Bus Syndrome
• March 16, 2010 — The Power of Words!

Somebody has said that we choose our friends, while relatives come in pre-made packages. How right that somebody was!

It is true that we try to select for ourselves that which we think is best for us, but, often and again, we make errors in our judgements. As Shakespeare has said, it’s better to have an enemy who tells you – on your face – your weaknesses, rather than a friend who hides them from you. With this idea in mind, I have always sought to find a friend who would be a friend in need, and thus become a friend in deed.

In my search for the ideal friend, I have made friends of all kinds. One of them was a childhood friend. We were kindergarten mates – grew up together, finished our school and college together. The entire neighbourhood new about the strong bond we shared. If my parents got a dress for me, one would be bought for her too. When my favourite dish was cooked by her mother, a parcel would await me at my home. Our sweet and innocent friendship seemed to have no limits. And because we spent so much time together, our interests, likes and dislikes had become similar too. We were, in other words, like Juno’s swans – inseparable.

Time went by, and after college she left to pursue her MBA, while I chose to stay back.

One Diwali – a home coming time – she returned, but as a new person. She shared with me her true feelings about our long, and seemingly never ending friendship. Her statements and remarks came as a total shock.

She told me how much she hated me, always had. She had hated me since the very first moment I had joined her school. Our friendship, she told me, was thrust upon her by her parents. She had just got used to me with time.

I asked myself, “Was 23 years of friendship nothing but a big joke?”

All the moments shared together had suddenly become bitter.

It’s easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. The memories had lost their sweetness and innocence. I am still trying to erase those memories. But is that even possible? Which part can I erase? To forget her would mean forgetting 23 years of my life.

Today, I am married and staying abroad with my husband. When I started to learn driving, I met my instructor, who was from Pakistan. I was a bit sceptical about her – her religion, her nationality, and her attitude towards an Indian. With the passing of time and my classes, however, our friendship blossomed. I also realized how little I knew about a country that was situated right next to mine.

In my Pakistani instructor, I found a friend in an alien country. We shared a common language, a common dress and a common cuisine. With so much in common, it came as a surprise to me that the two nations bore so much animosity towards each other. Today, I can proudly say I have friend who knows and cares for me, and her being from Pakistan does not matter at all.

On every friendship day, we come together to celebrate friends and friendship, but true friendship does not need a date. We need to thank the powers that be – every day – for shining the light of friendship in our lives. And the best we can do for our friends is to be their friend.

Image courtesy: lizerixt from sxc.hu

You may also like to read

The Winner for Caption This-XXIX is Deepa for her Caption: “The colours of our future”.  Congratulations! Your T-shirt will be on its way soon.

If you missed out this time, or you think you could have done better, don’t despair, you still have your chance. Take a good look at the picture for this fortnight, and give it a caption that you think apt. If your caption is the best, you win, and your name will be announced (with a link to your site, if you have one) on the front page of The MAG. Additionally, you also stand to win a “The MAG” T-shirt. So, what are you waiting for, put on your thinking cap and Caption This!

The picture to caption this fortnight is:

Image by Deepti

Caption the above picture, and if your caption is the best, you could get your name on the front page of The MAG (with a link to your site, if you have one) and you also win a  “The MAG”  T shirt. The rules for the contest are as follows:

Related Posts

• June 4, 2010 — Caption This – XXIX!
• January 7, 2010 — Caption This – XXVIII!
• December 2, 2009 — Caption This – XXVII!
• November 17, 2009 — Caption This – XXVI!
• October 16, 2009 — Caption This – XXV!
• September 16, 2009 — Caption This -XXIV
• September 1, 2009 — Caption This -XXIII
• August 14, 2009 — Caption This – XXII

The tragedy was not that he did not believe in astrology. The tragedy was that, he had made it a point to announce to the entire world, and then some, of his disbelief in what the stars foretold.

Now they were all out and about, smirking, to watch him devour his words – for he was at the door of a renowned astrologer, holding a pair of birth charts, birth timings and other miscellaneous details, not admitting – even to himself – his hope that the interview would bring peace to his very troubled mind.

After five long years of self-imposed exile, Nath had returned to India with his tail between his legs, to nurse his wounds. Sympathetic relatives came to visit, and offered condolences for what they foresaw, clearer than the stars did, was an impending divorce. He narrated the catastrophe eagerly to the first few, before discerning that what he read as concern in their eyes was actually a gleam of ‘I-knew-it-will-happen’. Condolence was another mode of gossip.

Nevertheless, what brought him to the place he thought he would never visit was a word that one of them dropped, a word that loitered around his mind for several days. He overheard his Aunt whisper to his Ma that any marriage without the consent of an astrologer was doomed.

*

“What was I possibly thinking???” he muttered to himself as he left the astrologer’s house, following an hour long tête-à-tête. He had gone in search of peace; he found nothing but more trouble, and a splitting headache. If anything, it reinforced his disbelief in the stars. Nonetheless, the shred of uneasiness that planted itself in his mind refused to settle down.

Either the astrologer knew nothing, or else he knew something he didn’t. He examined the copy of the birth chart that Nath had confiscated from his wife, and asked strange questions, and made impossible announcements. About Shivani’s life before she met him.

He was determined to give nothing away to the astrologer. He would speak only to the point and if the guy tried clever tricks and pretended to know more than he actually did, he would be ready to call his bluff. These phoneys were always good at reading between the lines and he would be careful not to let anything slip. As expected, he was asked a few questions about his wife and their life together. Nath managed to answer in ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and other minimal words.

The astrologer’s questions were curious and unexpected. He asked if Shivani was a widow when he met her. If she had a daughter from her first marriage. If she had stayed in a different city, like Paris. Not that he knew of, Nath had replied. The astrologer pondered for long over the sheets with furrowed brows, drawing circles on them with his finger and caressing his greying beard.

She had wanted to relocate.

“Why Paris?” he had said. “Can you not pursue your career here, in London?”

“This is an offer no one would decline,” said she. “I will get to work with some of the best in the field.”

He refused to be convinced. “You cannot go hopping around the world for your career.” He regretted it the moment he uttered it.

“I could, you know,” she said quietly.

Things were about to get out of hand. He would have to do something before more damaging words were exchanged. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her.

“Ambition is a strange thing,” she said thoughtfully. “It works both ways. If it makes you abandon your life and chase your dreams, you become great. If you sacrifice your desires for others, you’re still considered great. Either way, you can’t lose.”

She turned down the opportunity. He was pleased. He realised much later that one more seed of discord was sown that day. She retreated into a shell. He felt abandoned; and stopped contacting his friends, calling up his family or attending parties. He began to detest the very thought of socialising. That was before she realised she was pregnant. When he suggested they move to India and raise their child there, she flatly refused. After all, she was born and brought up in the U.K., and could consider only that place as home, whereas he was a mere visitor.

The astrologer raising the name of the very city that she wanted to move to, was something worth thinking about.

“I could be wrong,” said the astrologer, – a strange admission from a man in his profession! – “and most of what I am about to say is by adding two and two together, and from my vast experience in seeing similar charts. This could be difficult for you, but I would like to know if I am right. So I request you to go back to her past and look around a bit. If I am not mistaken, she had been married before, and her husband died… in some sort of an accident that shattered his brain.”

Nath dismissed the declarations with a shake of his head. She could not have hidden anything as huge from him. The astrologer would not say more till he got the answers. As he rose to leave, he thought the astrologer was looking strangely at him.

*

Her quiet and enigmatic eyes had enthralled all of them alike. And yet, it was Nath for whom her eyes brightened every time, or so it appeared to him. When she accepted his proposal, he considered it a conquest. He never asked anything about her past; she always hid her life behind her smile. It did not matter to him, at first. She loved him, and that was all that mattered.

“A model? Are you nuts?” his friend had exclaimed. “They are very well to ogle at and drool over, but to get married? Use your head – for once.” With that, he ceased to be a friend.

The enigma that seemed romantic and charming soon became increasingly difficult to adjust with; it was criss-crossing all over his life. It was to become the very thread that ripped their life apart. He had determined to unravel the mystery that was she, but there were areas of her life, past and present, that were always shut out from him.

*

When he left the astrologer, he did not go straight home. He wanted to be alone, to clear his thoughts. Not that he believed a word of what he heard; but nor could he ignore it.

His walk took him past the construction site of a fly-over. In his last visit, he had seen the work abandoned after the pillars were done. Now there was a bustle of activity, the air was noisy with shouts and the roar of machines. He stood watching the men at work. The pillars were old, the machines were rusty and the workers were tired. Yet they all trudged on, together, and in a few weeks’ time, the bridge would be ready for traffic.

The astrologer was right. He should go back to her. He should talk to her. His feelings had blinded him. He never tried to listen, his blindness drove him away from her, and she had closed herself down. Love does not end. It can only transform. She still loved him enough to message him the previous day that their baby was a girl. He had deserted her when she needed him the most. He should go back and try to bridge their life together again. And, he was relieved when he realised it, it did not even matter if she had been a widow. Perhaps she would have been more open to him if he had tried to understand.

There are times when a split-second seems longer than an hour. In the last split-second of his life, he took in more than he ever had before. He heard the workers’ scream. He saw their alarmed glances and gestures. He realised that he had strayed too close to the construction site. He looked up and observed with indifference a concrete block weighing tonnes break apart from the bridge and fall, just inches away from smashing him to the ground. He heard again the astrologer’s words. It made sense. Finally. His wife would live in Paris with his daughter. She would be a widow. Her husband would die of head concussion. It was not her past he was narrating. There never was a first husband. It was he, all along.

* * *

Image  Courtesy: CJLUC from sxc.hu

Related Posts

• June 30, 2010 — The Blink of an Eye
• April 29, 2010 — Traffic

Have you ever had a dream which bothered you for a long time? Or have you ever had a dream which you have remembered forever? Or, while you were asleep, have you ever had a dream due to which you did a certain thing in your real life?

This is the very theme of Christopher Nolan’s movie, Inception. The movie is the story of Dom Cobb played by DiCaprio who is a thief, but he doesn’t steal material things – he steals secrets from people’s mind by entering their dreams. He is hired by a business tycoon Saito, played by Ken Watanabe, for the ultimate job. Saito doesn’t want to steal a secret instead he wants to Cobb to plant an idea into the mind of his archrival Robert Fischer’s mind played by Cillian Murphy.

Cobb cannot go back to his own country because the police are looking for him as they think he killed his wife Mal played by Marion Cotilard. Everytime Cobb is in someone’s dream Mal turns up in the dream projected by his own subconscious mind and tries to ruin his plans. So when Saito promises Cobb a safe passage back home to his kids he can’t resist even if it involves the great risk of going into multiple levels of dreams.

Aided by his trusted friend Arthur, played by Gordon-Levitt, Cobb assembles a team of the best “dream architects” – Ariadne (played by Ellen Page), who can create and maintain the balance of the dream world, and a forger who can shift his identity inside a dream (played by Hardy).

Nolan’s narrative is simple. In spite of the theme being so complex it doesn’t confuse the audience. The first half is spent in explaining in detail what Cobb’s job is, and in the second half the job is carried out.  All the actors play their part well. To rate this movie would be blasphemous. If Avatar left you in awe, wait till you watch Inception.

The movie is like a huge puzzle which the audience starts to solve from the moment the screen lights up. The movie challenges your intelligence. As DiCaprio and gang jump from one level of dream to another, the audience participates and enjoys the puzzle. Scenes like the one where Arthur fights security guards in anti gravity in his dream is so well shot that you might just start feeling as if you are a part of that dream.

In the end the movie makes you think what if such a concept can become a reality. It would be a scary world. But then isn’t this already a reality. From the day we are born there are people who are trying to plant ideas into our head. The marketers are trying to plant the idea of purchasing their products into our heads or the politicians trying to plant the idea that they are the leaders; no wonder the world has already become a scary place. And what about me? Even I am trying to plant an idea into your head to go watch the movie.

Related Posts

• May 21, 2010 — Kites – A Review!
• March 14, 2010 — Road, Movie!
• March 11, 2010 — Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge!
• February 2, 2010 — Rann – Or, Was it Run?
• December 21, 2009 — Avatar – Cinema Re-incarnated!
• December 12, 2009 — Rocket Singh – Takes off!
• September 2, 2009 — Quickgun Murugun: Shoots & Misses the LOLs!
• August 16, 2009 — Kaminey -Watch at Your Own Risk!!!
• August 1, 2009 — Love Aaj Kal – Truly Lovely!

Life, in general, may have been difficult for our forefathers, but they were lucky in at least one way. They had very few, if any, dates to remember.  These days every day of the year has been marked as something or other, and that is in addition to the birthdays, anniversaries, and the special days that we have to remember. All hell breaks loose if we forget the birthday, or an anniversary of someone very close to us.

I, for some weird reason, have always found it very difficult to remember dates. The only birthday that I manage to remember is my own, and that is only because of the narcissist in me. My forgetting dates is in sharp contrast to my brother, who is very good with dates, and, as if to rub this fact in, he not only never forgets to call any of our relatives on their birthdays, he even calls up some of my friends to wish them on their Birthday.

So, one day I decided that the past was history, and from that day onwards I was going to remember all birthdays and anniversaries. A very close friend’s birthday was falling on 7th June, I remembered, and I thought it would make for a good start if I managed to remember that.  I told myself that come what may, I was not going to forget 7th June.

When the day arrived, however, I completely forgot about it. It was weird in a way because every day before that day, I had remembered 7th June, but on 7th June, I forgot.  And as soon as it was 8th June, I remembered again.

Weighed down by guilt and embarrassment, I thought of an elaborate excuse for why I had not wished him. I would tell him that I was out of town for three days.  I would only call him when I “got back” on the 10th. It was a lame excuse, but it was better than nothing, I thought.

I called him on the 10th, and said “Hello” timidly, expecting him to burst into a tirade about how I had forgotten his birthday, again.

Instead, what I heard was a very cheerful “Hi”, with absolutely no trace of blame or anger, or any feeling of that kind. We talked for a bit, and I was expecting him to raise the matter of his birthday any moment. But, he did not bring it up.

Playing the “feigning ignorance” game, I thought. I decided to play along.

In a few minutes, however, the pressure became too much for me to handle, and I said, “I am sorry, I didn’t call you on 7th, but you know I was out of town.”

“Why would you call me on the 7th,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised.

Now, I was completely convinced that he was really mad at me, and was taking the “feigning ignorance” game to the “I really don’t care if you call me” level. I had never played the game on that level.  I accepted defeat.

“It was your Birthday, and I missed it like I always do,” I said in a voice that sounded sorrier than I actually felt.

It was truly a day for surprises.

My sorry voice was met with a big roar of laughter, and, to top it all, the laughter sounded genuine.

I began to think that maybe, just maybe, my friend had a bigger heart than I gave him credit for, and he hadn’t really minded my missing his Birthday.

“What is it?” I managed to say sheepishly.

“You really can’t remember dates, can you?” he said, “My birthday is on 7th August, and not 7th June.”  You, I am sure, can very well imagine how foolish I felt when I heard that, so I am not going to describe how the conversation went from this point on. Suffice it to say that it did not last very long.

When 7th August came I successfully managed to forget his birthday again, but how that happened is an entirely different story.

(This write-up has been written on the occasion of The MAG completing three years of it’s online existence. Thank you for being a part of  The MAG.)

You may also like to read