This Sunday evening, I was sitting on a bench, reading a book. Shouldn't it be the other way? Reading a book, sitting on a bench? No. In my case, primarily I was sitting on the bench. While I was reading, there was another thread of thought running, which could relate and converse with the book. The chapter was about boredom and the thought was about my interests. And, I thought I had some clear understanding of both at the end of it. But now I don't remember what exactly it is!
Earlier in the afternoon, I watched the movie
'Pleasantville' . I liked the movie very much.
Here is the story of the movie.
David and Jennifer somehow go back in time, into the town Pleasantville of a 1950's TV serial called Pleasantville. While they need to wait to come back to present, their presence changes the town and the lives. There are people accepting the new, there are people who hate the new things in their town. How the whole town comes to Life, is the rest of the movie.
Comedy?
Yes, it's a comedy. But a lot more. The serial was telecast in Black and White era. So, Pleasantville has no colours. But, people who feel the life in them start appearing in colours. This outrages the old-timers and the town committee passes orders against the 'coloured' people. A husband is spellbound and horrified when his wife answers his question 'what were you doing' with a simple 'thinking'.
More?
As it happens with any revolution, here this change is made visible and partly possible through arts and literature. Town committee orders the closure of the library. 'Public' burn the books and destroy the building that has the paintings.
Watching this movie, I realised how we get used to things and how we long to maintain the status quo. We like change, but not too much of it! But when you see the real life inside, you live in the present not worrying about the next moment.
This movie can give insights in indivual, spiritul, political or social planes.
There can be hundreds of better movies out there. But the impact this movie had on me was just immense.
This movie had a girl, whose smile was wonderful. It had the innocence, wonder, love and ... and... Life. I was smiling with her all the way. How beautiful, a smile is! When she cried, I did it too. How beautiful, a smile is! As I became aware of the happiness that this smile created in me, I was also reminded of my hatred and jealousy. I have been trying to get rid of these, but success is only superficial. Suddenly, this smile showed me a way out of these. At least I thought so.
I am not going to tell everything I thought. Words kill the feeling. When I put down them here in words, I feel guilty of killing something. (as I wrote in
"One more in my mortuary")
The book I read and the movie I watched made me write a mail, working in the order mentioned above, though their chronological order was the opposite.
I wrote a few paragraphs, explaining what it is for, what I want, in response to my urge to replace some untold pain with a smile. And I saw a corpse there, starting to disintegrate right in front of the eyes of its creator. I deleted them and replaced with 'I deleted a few paragraphs, which were present in the place of this single line'.
Just before clicking on 'send', I buried that line too. Now, the mail looked much better. I am trying hard to smile!
P.S: I posted this yesterday. Today I enhanced it and suffixed the title with '-2'! Also, I undid one compromise I had done earlier. :-)
