I spent my weekend in the second most common place I am found now a days …. My office cubicle … the first place being the part of my home with my laptop, THE plastic chair and the dining table..
I being in office this weekend … though dreadfully pathetic … made it totally different from the previous one …. Which was totally invested in watching movies … ranging from as mild as P.S. I love you …. To as homely as Hum Saath Saath hain … to as scary as Final destination and Exorcism of Emily rose…. To as brain twisters as fight club and shutter island …… to as old as heer ranjha and mother India…
OK I didn’t complete these all in one weekend …. I was just trying to make the plot for the write-up ….
The point is … this weekend, me not watching movies and T.V. series like prison break, friends, etc. And me enjoying the company of myself in the deserted office, gave me the opportunity to analyze these great work of art which I have interestingly memorized in recent past … and the results were so vivid and out of the ordinary that it led to the hours long discussion with my friends ….
There are many many scenarios which are injected in our lives just because of the reel life we enjoy via T.V. series and movies. Scenarios which we don’t think on much and accept it as a part of our lives, but which are actually induced deep within us and are penetrated to such a level of depth that we think that these scenarios are actually real.This weekend … in office…. I jotted down some such scenarios which are of Reel life but I experience them as part of the actual Real life.
Scenario 1 and the best which I like to discuss:
My dad (popularly known as “bapu”) one day got an attack of nostalgic…. and I was the victim of the same….. he told me the things he use to enjoy doing when he was of my age … this topic, before it was under discussion, always seem to be the most boring of all …. But was actually interesting…. I heard the way they use to go college … the girls around (now aunties :D) … the things bapu and his gang use to do just to pass their bunked-class time … their hang out spots …. And many such things….
In the course of this discussion, something struck my mind like a head on accident with a truck…. I was listening to bapu and trying to imagine the places and the time he was talking about…. And all of a sudden I realized that all I was imagining was in black and white…. NO COLOUR AT ALL…. This thought forced me to leave my bapu talking to himself in a trance state and think on this very nature of mine…. why I am imagining everything related to my bapu’s time in black and white…. I mean sure there would have been as many colours as I see right now…. if he is saying “our professor use to wear a brown trouser with checks and seeing that we use to laugh so hard that our faces use to turn red” … why can’t I imagine that trouser as brown and bapu’s face as red … why it is all black, grey and white … the white is not even white I know … its pale …. Why it’s so ….
The answer was quite easy if you give this question a thought … It’s because the all the visual proofs of my bapu’s time I have are in Black and white … the photographs and more important … THE MOVIES….. BollyWood is so complexly woven into my mind that it has forced to believe that the old times were actually colourless….
To add to this theory … when I was discussing this with my colleague … YES we discuss this in the office in presence of all the people…. now you may know why I am seen as a psychopath in office … the colleague, matching my frequency, told…. His father once discussed about his schooling….. His school was behind the temple near their house…. now my colleague has visited that place…. That house and has seen the temple…. in his own life with the original colours…. But interpreting the scene into a virtual picture … the mind refuses to accept colours. Tough my logical mind knows it not true and the days back then were as colourful as it is today…. But the Reel impacted brain refuses the same … this is the impact of BollyWood on us.
Scenario 2 which I love to call “face for MYTHOLOGY”:
The other day …. My sis in jaipur …. The rarest combination of talent and confusion called me up … the topic of discussion was … “the dream I had last night” … yes …. This was the topic over the elongated STD phone call ….
She said … I had a dream where I saw Lord Shree ram …. To this I idiotically said “ ok so you saw Arun Govil” … after a few second pause she said … actually yes …. She was trying to recall the dream and the part where Lord Shree ram appeared… She couldn’t imagine anybody but Arun Govil dressed the way he used to dress in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan …. We two were so fascinated by this fact … we have given a face to our God and Goddesses … and this assignment is purely driven by the mythological T.V. series we have been watching since we know about this earth. Now when we think of Lord Ram, we automatically assign the face of Mr. Govil to him … vice versa id not true …. You whenever see Mr. Govil in some normal attire; you won’t always picture him as lord ram …. But as soon as you imagine lord ram you will definitely portrait the image of Mr. Govil. At least I do it.
Adding to this habit of ours.. or I rather say mine… I was always been notorious in the family as the guy pulling his cousins’ and nephews’ leg and teasing them to cry … My paternal Uncle use to call me “shakuni mama” depicting my evil side towards my nephew :) … and I use to imagine …. Do by any chance I look like …. Or I will look like … Gufi Paintal when I will grow old …. I didn’t even know that his real name was Gufi Paintal before I started writing this post …. For me he was just shakuni mama … and I can’t imagine more wicked mama than him …. I just loved to address my nephew in the typical accent “BHAAANJE”
Same is the case with the most handsome villain of all time… Duryodhana …. How can someone imagine Duryodhana anyone else than the great Puneet Issar …. No one can’t fit into the head when someone says “as evil as Duryodhana” other than the dude Mr. Issar …. Yet another face to mythology….
The point is …. Just give a thought on the thought that what percentage of your life lives in the Reel world believing into a delusion that it’s the Real World ;)