Deep Impact

We often hear people admiring the age itself, a bit enviously too, when they see a child playing around in a ‘care-free’ manner! We say, “Best age, lucky age..” etc.. and then add, “no worries”

But, when we try to be like that hero of the ‘hit’ movies Dilip Kumar (Ram Aur Shyam, Gopi, etc) where this wonderful character has done admirably well, singing “Saala Main tho Saheb Ban Gaya” (See, even I have become a “sir” / “gentleman”, to deserve respect from others ‘automatically’!). The hero of such movies glides through life effortlessly, blending into the situation, doing just what is needed, and the rewards pouring in by itself! We would wish, why not throw aside all our far-sightedness, future plans, worries, etc and try to live life each day at a time, as it comes, and enjoy every bit of it?

But then we also happened to admire that ‘Angry-young-man’ in a series of movies, where he maintains a stoic composure all through, not laughing, smiling at appropriate times, dissuading the best offers from life, good jobs, temptations, pestering from good looking girls to wed them(the heroines), etc. They have a deep scar from their early life, and choose to retain it all the time (Movies like Khuddar, Zanzeer, Kaala Pathar, etc). The hero, in these stories has some specific purpose, some serious wrong to be atoned, rectified, remedied, etc. We would look like fools, if we try to maintain such passive ‘looks’ all through. People around would say, “does he not even know how to smile once in a way?”… No use trying to live that way. We make the hero a super star with that role, but would hesitate very much to try living that way. A serious person might be liked by the boss (“job sincerity, work-conscious, responsible”, etc that boss might say… but the other-colleagues constitute the bulk of people with whom we have to get along most of the time!).

Then, how to go about it, is the question. We have our personal appearance, likes and dislikes etc which are not easily changeable. We have our desires, goals, problems, too.

In that game of chess, a person who can ‘think’ of two or more moves is a good player. Anything like 5 moves is a champion! The problem is to think of 5 moves of all the coins(chessmen), that of ours and the opponent’s! Permutation and combination after each moves is an astronomical mind-boggling number! The alternative is, to look at many moves with few coins, and few moves of the rest of the coins. The skill is in the choice of key-coins.

How many things can we maintain awareness about in a subtle way, not losing track of, at the back of our mind at least, is the clue in life. How many times do we say to ourselves “Oh! It has totally slipped out of my mind!”. How strong do we hold on to our inner priorities, and for how long? (Just to cite an example, that great actor, Dilip Kumar is said to have accepted only one film at a time, and used to ‘live’ some roles visually, 24X7, for some time, till he is confident that he has ‘become’ that character almost ‘as-if-real’ before allowing it to be recorded on celluloid. No wonder, experts in the film world quote him as the scale/barometer/benchmark of good acting!
Either we wait for something to have a deep impact on us, or we ourselves indulge in that preemptive ‘strike’ unto ourselves, embracing a deep impact.
When some people are around, our confidence level seems to get boosted up for no apparent reason, by their very presence, and things seem to happen smooth, by itself!
(For those who still feel like asking 'where does that self confidence come from?',
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100818124008AAXLJv3
My answer:
It comes from the preemptive strike that we carry out several times, before we actually confront the situation.That is why we have those war-games, during peace times, mock drill for fire-fighters, mock drill with lights-off to familiarise during air-raids, etc. While the civil authorities do take care of our mass-well being, and try to familiarise us with some practice, beforehand, to boost our self-confidence levels, they do not and should not interfere as to how we choose to handle our personal routine life.We have to conduct the full-dress-rehearsal as much as possible, even if only by strong visualisation, never leaving out details, and eventualities.)
Psn(19th August, 2010)