New Sense

A couple of days ago a friend of mine introduced me to a friend of his. The moment I saw her I had a feeling that we had met before… It was like ‘I have seen this face before’ but she immediately replied saying she had never met me before. A little embarrassed and very confused I continued the conversation which branched away elsewhere.

After a few minutes of conversation it turned out we had studied in the same college, but in different classes. That didnt exactly mean that we had met, there were about a thousand students in that college. With over 150 in my class itself I was pretty sure I hadnt met everyone of them during my short two years there. Then the conversation went on and we realized that we lived in the same area… Thats when she mentioned another friend of mine with whom i had been to college with. Putting one and one together it turned out we had for about a year taken the same bus to college everyday, nine years ago!

I was personally amazed by how I had realized that I had seen her before. I am not really good with faces, I tend to remember names better. The odd thing was that I couldn’t place her in a single incident/event that I remembered…

The reason I am mentioning this is that I recently was reading about memories and how the brain works with them. According to the book/study/show(cant remember which) every moment of our active lives we are bombarding the brain with information. For the brain to work normally it needs to sort out this information and choose what it believes will be required in the future. The brain in this process of weeding out ‘forgets’ majority of the data it has been provided. Also when a certain memory has not been recalled for a long time the brain slowly forgets the memory.

With that I spent the evening thinking about how awesome it is what the brain does and how well it does it.

Its amazing how when you are thinking of a particular concept or idea and the universe suddenly starts throwing things your way that echo your thoughts. I read somewhere that its a Psychological phenomenon, but its hard to believe that all that is psychology when it seems too ridiculous to be chance… Anyway I digress… This is a follow post to this post: At Stake…

A couple of days back I was talking about how sometimes ethics and helping someone might push you to an uncomfortable choice between them. I even gave an example of a story about a Barber who is driven to make a similar choice when the Dictator of his country walks into his shop for a shave. You can read that story here: Just Lather, That’s All

Today I got an wonderful example of the exact opposite situation. This one was thanks to a beautiful short story, The Missing Mail from the book Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayan.  The televised version of the story is embedded below (If you cant see it, you can view the video here: Malgudi Days: The Missing Mail)

The story is about a postman and one of the families of Malgudi. The postman is a wonderful man and is present at every important instance of the life of Kamakshi, the daughter of the family. When its time for her marriage, he also helps in finding the perfect groom for her.

A couple of days before the wedding the postman sees that the family has a letter informing them that the uncle of the bride is critically ill. The next day he receives a mail that the uncle has passed away. Fearing the marriage might get postponed, the postman takes the call of not informing the family until the ceremonies are well past.

This again was similar predicament but handled in a different way, but the things at stake were different… Ironically in both stories(the other one being of the barber) the final choice seems more acceptable for the reader. I believe its in interest of the writer to work in favor of the reader’s sentiment.

If the postman had done his job and delivered the letter it wouldn’t have been a good story. In choosing a different path the writer suddenly added depth to the character and whats more gave the audience what they wanted.

Thats the important distinction between stories and life. Stories are sometimes over simplified to meet the reader halfway. In that simplification the writer makes the call as to what details are important to the reader but you don’t get that choice in life, all details are there and you make the final call.

So where does that leave us… In all the pondering on this topic the one certainty that I encountered was that its impossible to judge what is the best choice. Its also important to realize that the maker of the decision probably had different priorities than you…

Hemanth left a wonderful comment in the last post, there he says:

How you feel is relevant only to you, but what you do (even as a result of how you feel) is relevant to everyone around you ….. the hard truth. So i guess it comes down to saying,either … i am going to play this one for me, or…. i am going to play this one for someone/everyone else.

Its amazing how true and well put that is…

“Khalish” is the first production under the Flying Rabbit Films banner. I am proud to say that some of my very close friends are a part of Flying Rabbit Films, and am honored to be able to share this with short film with you. Hope you enjoy it
(If you are not able to see the movie on this page, you can view it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdvg9i_khalish_shortfilms)

Description:

“Khalish”, directed by Vishesh, this 15 min film is a present day cult drama about apprehension and misunderstanding on one hand and growing Islamophobia and anxiety on the other. The story revolves around 4 guys and a misunderstanding which leads to a disaster, devastating everyone’s life.

Last evening I was attending the engagement of two of my friends. The event was beautifully organized and hustle & bustle of the relatives and friends gave such a warm touch to the evening that you couldn’t help but smile right through.

I have always been a firm believer that the way to live life is to seek out moments of celebration and to make them count. This moment, with two of my friends possibly sharing the most happiest/important moment of their lives so far; clearly counted as one. As I sat in the audience and looked at the abundance of happiness all around, I realized something. I am always very cheerful around weddings(or the like)…

I believe this goes back to something someone once told me when they were trying to explain the concept of selfless work, the person chose the example of a wedding. What he said was that when people are involved in organizing a wedding it doesn’t matter what job or menial task has been given, all that matters is that the task is done so that the event is a success.

One of my best experiences with the internal workings of weddings was when my sister got married. It was then that I truly understood what that meant. Ever since every major family event that I am a part of, I take a moment to stand back and appreciate the effort that it takes to make a huge event.

Its amazing how many little tasks need to be done to make an event of those proportions happen. And its always awesome to watch so many ppl make it happen.

So, finally congrats to my friends on their engagement and congrats to all involved in making it happen

There is a certain kind of incomparable magic to playing with colors… No wonder it is one of days I look forward to the most in the year.

Ps: To all my rocking friends who made it despite being sick & also those who weren’t sick – Love you guys