O Morpheus, where art thou?

There are times when we all are full of self doubt. We try to understand the reasons for the things, things which don't make any sense but exist, and we can't do anything about them - or so we think.

Does it sound familiar? Well, this might be a story of everyone, isn't? This is not the story of everyone.. it's the story of the One! We're talking about the central character of the cult-classic movie-series The Matrix, Neo aka the One.

The entire series, from a different perspective, can be summed up as a struggle of a single person. From a computer geek full of questions to the ultimate savior of what is left of mankind.

Jealousy

Am I jealous of the guy sitting in front of me, watching one of my favourite movie on his iPhone. Well.. sure I am jealous of him - the Ferrari - Aston Martin opening chase sequence from Golden Eye.. the first Bond movie starring Pierce Brosnon.. one of my favourites..


What can I do but see him enjoy the movie! It is a novel idea to spend time rather killing it while travelling :) But, what happened to the good old books, which were supposed to be the best companions. Bored of the movie, this chap seems to be reading my mind. He takes out a hindi comic and starts reading from it - a hindi?? In my "comic-days" I used to read Champak, Chacha Chowdhari, Tinkle, sometimes Archies.. Now a days, it's restricted to daily dose of Garfield strip.. But nothing much apart from that.. May be watch Kick Buttowski with Saarah (my 3year old daughter).

Revolutions...

Few years ago, we had a very touching Aamir Khan movie “Rang De Basanti”. Very inspiring and youth oriented. Does it have a cult status or not, is not what we are interested in. But, it certainly had ideas which were “revolutionary”. At the time when it was released, many people were motivated by it and wanted to do something to bring about a change in society, especially the youth. Others merely dismissed it as a typical Aamir Khan “masala” movie. They were the skeptics who believed that the “systems” is old enough and strong enough to be toppled by youth who are inspired by a popular media?  The idea seemed too farfetched at that point of time.

Meanwhile, the same youth was busy discovering a new media – internet more precisely the “social-networking”. The phenomenon called Facebook and Twitter had happened. The skeptics and the “system” dismissed it just as another addiction that youth is indulging into. Of course, the blogosphere had already evolved by this time. Combined with these newer tools or should we say “WMD” :) changed the world that we are now living in.

Rang De Basanti: A Generation Awakens

A generation awakens?? An exaggeration?? A marketing gimmick?? An overstatement?? Perhaps… but remember the French revolution was ignited by a non-existent piece of cake and bread! Revolutions, in classical sense, aren’t the order of the day. And most certainly don’t happen by watching a typical 3-hour bollywood-masala flick.

But this case is different!

While coming out of the dark cinema hall with other people, some with moist eyes, some with a smile and some sporting a cynic look, I wondered… how apt this analogy would portray what I felt like. And many be a few like me would feel - transiting from darkens to bright light with a momentary blur and then seeing things clearly.

“Agar tum system ko badalne jaao, to system tumhe hi badal dega” (If you want and take initiative to change or improvise system, system itself will make sure you are changed!)

But, “No nation is perfect. You have to make it a better one.”