On Questions of Capability and a beautiful movie

The film society is my most favourite society as of now. Hopefully the journal society will meet my expectations. [Full disclosure: I have vested interest in the latter society].

The film society screened 'Life is Beautiful' (1997). Since I am writing this not five minutes after watching the movie, there is a strong after glow of that beautiful movie. Two visuals that stay with me, without giving anything away, are the sight of the train engine, a steam engine, entering the concentration camp and that of the protagonist goose-step marching near the end of the movie. While the first half of the movie is an absolute joy to watch, the second half gives one goosebumps. This time I managed to leave the auditorium with only moist eyes and it is a vast improvement over the past. Yes, men's lachrymal glands get activated too when one watches such movies. 

In fact, this movie, 'Life is Beautiful' (1997) and 'Grave of the Fireflies'(1988) are the two movies that turned me against any movie that depicts even an iota of sadness. The thought goes, that the life is anyway filled with sorrow and tears and to watch the same in the make believe world of movies seems superfluous. The terrible thing is that the two aforementioned movies are incredibly beautiful movies. And I can not bear to watch them. And I end up watching them. Sad, sad, sad.

After watching the movie it seems petty to even complain of the many insignificant slights and irritations of the day. After all, life is beautiful.

The social, experiential experiment is on and our hypothesis has been validated. We shall share the silly experiment and the silly results at a later time.

The beauty of the 89th FC batch is that one gets to, no, runs into, interesting people all the time. There are siblings of friends and batch mates from under graduation and graduation times, OTs whose relatives hail from the same small, obscure village as one's ancestors do and so on. In fact, given my diverse geographical base over the past 15 years and the education and work experience in various nodal institutes and organizations, I may yet have the most number of common acquaintances and friends and connections with most of the OTs. This thought gives me a feeling of centrality, a puffed up feeling of self-importance and feel goodness that takes an unceremonious beating once in a while.

Like it did today. There I was, standing alone and preening myself over being quite the network man in an era of networking etc when out of the blue (unhonee, in Hindi :)) a beautiful lady OT who I did not know existed in this batch, comes straight at me and pops this question: "Are you capable?" Chump that I am, I was stumped for an answer as nobody ever questioned my capability in so direct a fashion nor did an occasion arise for anyone, especially ladies, to question my capability, be it in any field. I mean any field. While I was thinking of appropriate replies, inoffensive, officer-like, blah blah blah, the moment passed and the concerned OT clarified that she meant if I were capable of managing things. I felt equal parts offended and relieved. Relieved that the capability in question was related (only) to some managerial activity and nothing else. Offended that a face in the crowd who did not even have the courtesy to enquire of my name or somehow acquaint with myself would call in to question my capabilities. Over the rest of the day, the question rankled me till I got lost in the silver screen.

Now that I have had time to calm down and the irritation has subsided, I wonder if I am developing a thin skin, if I am over sensitive to perceived slights, to imagine slights to begin with. Or if it were a simple case of miscommunication- a case of an OT who did not care to choose one's words carefully. As I had mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I am no one to judge anyone. So, I will rest this matter here.

There was a debate organized today with a topic on democracy. There was this strange scene of demagoguery and even more bizarre was the response to it from the audience. The topic was democracy and its relevance to India, the mode of communication was debate. Therefore, one wonders why dramatics and demagoguery got mixed up in this. To each his own then. The debate saw few brilliant insights being made regarding the topic and few excelled in the rhetoric, the essence of a debate. Kudos then to the deserving candidates, both to those who won and those who did not but whose performance was no less.

On a Movie and a visit to Dehradun

"Day 19: Like Darwin’s finches, we are slowly adapting to our environment."

I borrowed the line from the movie 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly & Beautiful' (2011). Thanks to the Film Society for screening this good movie. It was an entertaining watch. Due to the recency effect, I shall borrow liberally from the movie. Like this dialogue, for example.

"Evelyn: The only real failure is the failure to try. And the measure of success is how we cope with disappointment. As we always must. We came here, and we tried. All of us, in our different ways. Can we be blamed for feeling we're too old to change? Too scared of disappointment to start it all again? We get up every morning, we do our best. Nothing else matters.

Evelyn: But it's also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing; has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But, perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So, we must celebrate the changes. Because, as someone once said "Everything will be all right in the end. And if it's not all right, then trust me, it's not yet the end."

It can be said of the batch of 89th FC that we are slowly adapting to our environment. This point was driven home strangely enough when we ventured out of this environment. Half of the batch visited two institutes in Dehradun for the differently abled. The change in environment was quite obvious. 'The heat, the motion, the perpetual teeming crowds' of Dehradun were, if not of Mumbai level, at least a sea change from the life at Mussoorie. Weather at Musoorie is balmy while in the plains it was hot, humid and enervating. The sweet, fresh, rejuvenating air of the mountains was missed the most. When one starts living in the hills, the plains seem too plain. Now it all makes sense, the reason to locate these institutes and institutions at such altitude. However, there is no such thing as a free lunch after all. The price that we pay for the sweet mountain air is all the walk up and down the hills. 

The visit to the institutes was to sensitise the civil servants to the lives of the differently abled and also to acquaint them with the scope of work and the work that is being done to fully integrate the differently abled in to the main stream society. The issue to ponder about was not what software or hardware to use to aid the visually impaired or what approach to take to care for the intellectually disabled, rather, it is about how we perceive, in the first place. There is an us-them distinction that crops up the moment we talk of the differently abled and in deed when we talk of anyone or anything 'different' from our preconceived notions of the normal. If one can see the visually impaired as only visually impaired and then take actions that alleviate the day to day problems faced by them, as a matter of administrative right rather than as a duty, one feels that the lot of the differently abled will not be an intractable problem as it is being perceived. The incident that made a deep impression on me was how an intellectually disabled child was keen on showing off his talent at drawing to the visiting group of OTs. Dignity, in my opinion, is the foundation of human existence. The dignity and the self-esteem that the children displayed touched my heart. It was an important lesson they reinforced in me this day.

The bus ride to and from Dehradun was spent in blissful, if unstable, sleep by most OTs. One suspects the body is accustomed to sleep during those particular class hours of the day. For shame, KS! For shame.

The dinner was a pleasant surprise in that it was themed- Bangla being the theme. It is but obvious then that fish must be present and it was a delicious dinner that we had. A rohu is not a hilsa, yes, but it came close to the original maccher jhol. Memories of KGP came flooding back. The food at KGP was not the best I have had but it was the company that made all the difference.

Let me end this post with the birds again. In stead of the much maligned PT, we have had yoga this morning. Apparently it was the first time that yoga has been introduced as a part of the early morning PT regime. After awkward twisting and impossible folding of arms and limbs, one got to lay on one's back on a foam mat and watch the sky-blue sky and the underbellies of the swifts and the lapwings lit by the rising sun. I felt the world was a better place for the sun having lit the underbellies of the birds in brilliant gold. Such simple joys of life.

It is late in the day. A trek to Lal Tibba awaits tomorrow. Another day, another day trek. I am surprized we are even finding time to do the things that we are doing. As a character in the movie says, "First rule of India: there's always room."