Tag: Forrest Gump

  • A lot can happen over coffee

    Part 2 of last week’s post. Contrary to what the title might suggest, this has nothing to do with Coffee Day. Well, almost.

    I waited outside Fresco’s for the next meeting and this caught my eye. Coffee, destinations and experiences.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTYh6OSnAIY

    And just as I finish erm, shooting the above, she zooms in and after parking the car, chides me for not responding to her first wave from inside the car, until I point out to her that from where I stood, I could barely make out that its her inside the car. I also tell her that it might be unwise to wave at people of the opposite gender when one’s unsure… I was meeting her after a few months, and was yet again, struck by the precociousness. She’d called me to discuss a website idea of hers. She is all of 22, and has a knack of making me feel ancient, though unwittingly. We agree that the place demands that we concentrate solely on the chocolate desserts, but then we compensate by (me) arguing that the Oreo’s cream in her pastry was just wasting space that should’ve been taken by more chocolate. I pointed out my unadulterated ‘Chocolate Demise’.

    I ask her about her new idea, and out comes the story that its happening thanks to the money made from another business of hers, that’s apparently quite a success. She informs me that the idea for the first business came about from an earlier meeting we’d had. She explained, and when I heard it, I felt like a favourite character of mine – Forrest Gump!! Meanwhile, her book is already with the agent, she tells me its been 5 months, and maybe its time to check out another agent. I tell her that’s a hell of a lot of things to be doing at 22. She finds it worrisome that she might be trying out too many avenues, too many side lanes, which might take her focus off the main road, and i tell her about the number of posts I have written about the paths not taken. After we’re through with our chat, I tell her that I’m very happy for her, the way she’s handling her life, and not to stop.

    I wondered about the stuff I’d been doing when I was 22. One week later, I watch ‘Wake Up Sid’. (I Saw, Puked, in case you like anagrams)  After the movie I tweet,

    Clipboard02

    Dil Chahta Hai was released in 2001. I was 23 then, close enough to 22 when one looks back now. Not then, of course.  Business management and beach bumming. There’s no comparison. 🙂

    A thought on WUS vs Lakshya before we move on.  Both are ‘coming of age’ movies, and that’s where the comparison ends, for me. Lakshya had an individual who got himself something to focus on, Sid just becomes relatively more mature. Movies work differently for different people, in fact I identified more with Lakshya than Sid, but to me, the comparison itself is perhaps unfair, because it means equating coming of age to focus. In my book, they are not the same.

    Though WUS did remind me of DCH, it was another comparison that gave me food for thought. Konkona plays someone who’s older than Ranbir, by about 5 years. She comes to Mumbai, focused about what she wants to do. Ranbir is barely trying to figure out what he wants to do. Two different approaches to life.

    I wondered if the age difference explained it, or was it the individual character, or their different circumstances. In many posts, I have explored each of the three separately. I have wondered whether today’s generation has many more choices than I had, and whether that’s the reason why I am constantly thinking about roads not traveled. I have wondered whether people are just made differently, in terms of aggression, risk taking mentality etc. I have wondered about how one’s circumstances, and the people one is surrounded with, influence one’s destiny. I have even wondered  about the combination – whether society has changed and has helped the young of today by giving them freedom to experiment, to make their own responses to choices, and thus made them smarter along the way, and helped them build confidence.

    And then i remember the coffee choices I’d seen as I stood in front of Fresco’s. Choices have always been there, maybe lesser, but there. I could have the coffee on the roadside or inside the CCD. They’re completely different experiences, and any judgment of one being better or worse than the other is simply a matter of perspective, based on time, person, place and so on. It perhaps isn’t even about the journey, its about how  one sees the journey, and what one wants to make out of it. 🙂

    until next time, ennui anyone? 🙂

  • A flaky post

    Paperweights. The ones with either a dancing girl/couple or a snowman at the centre. Turn it upside down, and the ‘snow flakes’ come floating down. Long trips away from routine make me feel like those flakes. I float for as long as I can, but i can’t defy the gravitational pull, there’s no way but down. All my floating is restricted to the confines of the paper weight, I can only wistfully look outside. When the upside down movement happens, I know that I’m in for a ride. I know it will be wonderful while it lasts, I also know the inevitability of the descent. In the initial moments of the floating, I am able to forget the ending, and enjoy myself, but towards the end, I end up counting the moments left. It is time to land, the journey is over.

    Remember Forrest Gump? Through the movie, there’s a white feather that floats around. A while back, I read somewhere that it represents destiny and luck, which is why it is shown to appear at opportune moments. Its free, unconfined and goes where the breeze takes it. Sometimes it gets stuck on to things, and then a gust of wind helps it resume its journey. Does it keep track of its journey, or does it just enjoy the ride?

    I read a piece by Fred Wilson recently, which talked about failure, and making mistakes, and learning from them. It led me to thinking about the words and their connotations. Both the words signify an end result that didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to. It made me realise that these days I have to figure out destinations before i start. And I’m not talking about trips or vacations, its about daily life. There are expectations set – about how the week should go, how the work should be, how the weekend should be, how the movie should be, what i should write, how it should turn out, and so on. The expectations are about people too. When it doesn’t happen the way I want it, there is a disappointment.  This might sound obvious, but I don’t know how conscious each of us are about our dependency on the plans we make, the expectations from life and what we do, our version of ‘what should be’.

    And as this happens day after day, the habit and the conditioning gets stronger, till we don’t even pause to think where this is all leading to. I realise that the more the conditioning is allowed to settle, the more the pattern for the journeys will be set, and the more it will limit the journeys that can be had. So its not even about work or entertainment or even a way of life, it is about the way the mind has begun to function, the thought processes, the walls and the defense mechanisms that  increasingly seem to have a will of their own. Somewhere along the line, there’s also the concept of ‘hope’. Hoping for a better day, a better way of life, all within the structure that I have brought into being.

    What if I let go? One of Forrest’s lines go “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it’s both.”

    Destiny, these days, raises a paradox for me. I could say “That is my destiny”, and work on something and perhaps achieve it. Success gives satisfaction and then I move on to the next objective. So its a bit like the destinations and the traps there. Or I could say “I’ll float and let destiny take its course”. But if I did that, can I be sure where I land and what I will be is my destiny? The best destiny possible for me. Heh? Ah there, control again. In either case, it seems a retrofit. Can i un-expect, not ‘control expectations’, just un-expect? Is that getting closer to objectivity?

    It is written. The post has to end. Did you expect it to end this way? Did I disappoint? 🙂

    until next time, nishkama karma points 🙂