Budhha, Gandhi and Guevara ( Cinematic series - Motorcycle Diaries)

I used to watch lots of movies during my graduation days. Some of my friends were movie addicts and were certified in the courses of film appreciation. Their addiction was contagious. 

After graduation, watching movies became a rarity for me. But for the last few days, I am again enjoying movies.  

So here goes the first movie I watched recently ( though I am pretty late in watching this particular movie). It is ' Motorcycle Diaries'. So this is basically a movie about the expedition of  Che Guevara with his friend Alberto Granado. This is a very long expedition started with a motorcycle, then continued with various modes like raft, truck, plane and what not. 

As the journey unfolds, Guevara's inner journey of thoughts about injustice, poverty, repression starts. His encounters with a couple evicted from their land by landlords, farmers facing the wrath of the market economy, artisans suffering the job loss, leprosy patients in want of treatment and societal acceptance proved to be the milestone for him and triggered him to become what he was known for in later days. 

The journey of Guevara reminded me of two great souls- Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Budhha. When Gandhiji returned from South Africa to India, in 1914 to serve his motherland, he also decided to first know India by traveling through its the nooks and corners. This journey helped him know about the reality of India, how Indians were suffering, how the Britishers were exploiting poor farmers, helpless poor, and million others. And later he started the movement against unjust Britishers and the movement came to be known as the largest unarmed movement in the world.  Later the world took note of him as Mahatma ( The Great Soul). 

Even before this, thousands of years ago, another great soul encountered with the sufferings of a human being. He also started his first journey outside his luxurious palace. He saw an old man, the mourning crowd, a decaying corpse on his long trip. This fundamentally transformed him and then he left his palace forever for finding out a solution to human suffering. World today knows him as Lord Budhha.

What is the common thread in these three personalities? They had different ideas, ideologies, tactics, aims, means and ends too. Their timelines are also quite distant. But the common thing is their thoughtful journeys and how it transformed them. The discovery of injustice, sufferings, grieves in the journey they took is something very common and struck me like anything. And most importantly, they met people, interacted with open minds, and gave it a deeper thought.

I believe there are takeaways from this for all of us.