Confessions of a tortured soul

It hurts to feel
It hurts to touch
It hurts to soothe
To express this much

At the brim it is calm
Soothing and straight
Turbulance wrecking beneath
Sinkin with weight

Hard to breathe
Tough not to
Feeling the dead
Tough to rue

Seething and screaming
Helpless with angst
Holding on the strains
Pushing to fret

Deafening clamour
A surging uproar
Nirvana for Buddha
For me hell to the core

Idiots know BEST....

I watched Raju Hirani’s 3 Idiots, first day first show, at Star theatre. It was an awesome ride for 3 hours. There was entertainment, there was substance, and there were sparks that set the heart and mind on fire. But once you are in bed having reached home after the show there are a few feelings that remain which make you ponder about the film more than all the fun and entertainment of the magic of the big screen.

Anybody could be Raju Rastogi or Farhan Ansari. Their story could be anybody’s story. But what about Ranchhordas Shamaldas Chanchad? Or should I say Phunsukh Wangdu? He is unique and to some extent quite implausible. It’s not so easy to make one person impersonate another through school as well as college and go uncaught. It’s tough. Very tough.

But setting aside the absurdities that any film can showcase let us talk about some of the realities that films present. The extreme guts, nonchalance and indifference that Rancho or Phunsukh has exhibited in the film can only come when you have no liabilities in life. It stems in the fact that ‘I have nothing to lose’. And unlike Raju or Farhan you rarely get to see a Rancho in real life. I agree that he had the responsibility to complete his own education for the sake of his master’s son. But would he really lose something in life if he failed to go through with it. Whatever he was achieving was for the sake of someone else. And whatever he wanted to achieve could have been achieved even without going to college because he himself felt that the prevailing education system was not teaching him anything new. So for him a School Leaving Certificate or a Degree in Mechanical Engineering was of no value. Hence, it was quite easy for him to rebel; quite easy to repeatedly show the audacity of trying to teach the Director of his college how he felt the education system should be. So although you and I can laud him and clap for him whenever he pulled out a stunt with his Director or with the naturally obnoxious Chatur Ramalingam (guys like him do exist; I vouch from personal experience), you and I cannot rebel against ViruS. The reason: We need the degree otherwise hell will break lose in our middle-class homes where our parents slog day and night to make it possible for us to go to college and we hardly need to care about our sustenance.

Yes, we can try to commit suicide like Raju or Lobo when caught between crosshairs in our academic life or try to convince our usually unrelenting parents to follow our calling in life like Farhan but rarely can we keep trying to change the system when we are threatened by ViruS’ counterparts of being rusticated. Sad, I know, but so very true.

That’s why whenever people like Chetan Bhagat, Raju Hirani or Aamir Khan try to show what we go through and show it close enough to reality we laud their books, films and portrayals. Their creations become our means of rebellion. We lead a silent crusade behind the safe armour of their creations to voice our own opinions. But does that mean we are cowards? NO. We simply prioritise our responsibilities towards our families and therefore silently crusade against the prevailing competitive spirit by supporting Bhagat’s, Hirani’s and Khan’s attempts at portraying reality even though helplessly most of us take part in the rat race.