The time to act is now ! (Cinematic Series- Schindler's List)

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Schindler's List! Yes, I watched it again and it gave me goosebumps once again.

One should not simply stand alongside and observe when something seriously wrong is happening. One needs to act, in whatever capacity possible, but some action to eliminate that wrong is needed. Will that action help, or to what extent it will help doesn't really matter. What matters is whether you acted or not. Schindler's List is about such action. It's about the action of a single man to save lives of the innocents from the entire hateful killing machinery known as Nazis.

This man was Oskar Schindler. Apart from his act to save around a thousand odd Jews from the onslaught of Nazis, what appealed to me was his detachment from the ego generally attached with any social work. So Schindler considered himself as a mere businessman doing his job and he never ever pretended that he was doing some great social work. Another important point which needs special mention is that Oskar acted not just emotionally but really very strategically so that maximum number of people can be saved. And this is what needed.

The little girl with red coat and and pianist playing the piano when Nazis were continuously firing the guns around are two points in the movie which exhibited the positivity and the ray of hope even in the darkest moment.

So my impression about the movie is that its about optimism and the power of common men to do uncommon things.   

" The time for freedom is now" ( Cinematic Series - The Great Debaters)

Being a debater myself, movie 'The Great Debaters' moved me a lot. And every time I watch it, I love it more. This is what Wikipedia has said about this movie -

Based on a true story, the plot revolves around the efforts of debate coach Mr. Tolson at Wiley College, a Historically Black College, to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow laws were common and lynch mobs were a fear for blacks. The Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University. This was their 47th annual debate team.( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Debaters )

Critics have talked a lot about direction, acting, script, and everything. I am not an expert on it. So I will prefer to narrate the things that shook me, struck me like a hammer. First of all, the concept of debate to highlight the issue of racism that prevailed in America is extraordinarily innovative and great. This is because colored people fighting through debate forum, having only words as their weapons when whites around them had lethal weapons to murder and lynch them. 

The second thing which touched me a lot is the nature of debates. Logic is generally considered as the basis of any debate. One logic rebuts the opposite logic. Whereas here what I found out was the beautiful blend of emotions and logic by the debaters of Wiley College. And this is very instinctive and unavoidable. One can't expect colored people debating simply for the sake of victory in debate competition. Their competition was not just for medals but for survival, for dignity, for respect. And such situations trigger your emotions as well which is pretty natural and beautiful. 

And the last but not the least is about Samantha Booke. She is the only lady member of the debate team in the history of unbeatable Willey College Team. Her way of arguments clearly highlights the double gravity of her pains. Why double? Because she is not just colored but also a lady. In the USA of that time being colored was a crime, and being a colored lady was a double crime. Her grace, presence, and sensibilities are awful.  

" War is a dirty business,Sir" (Cinematic Series- The Angel )

" The Angel" is the recent movie I happened to watch. The movie is about Ashraf Marwan, the intelligence guy of Egypt who also worked as a spy for Israel during 1970s and saved the crucial lives of millions by feeding the information of war to Israel. In Wikipedia, the plot of the movie is given as - 

The film highlights the story of an Egyptian spy Ashraf Marwan, a confidant of President Anwar Sadat, turning into a spy for Israel. Ashraf Marwan was the son-in-law of Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, but later became Sadat’s (Nasser’s successor) helping hand. One day in 1960s, he telephoned the Israeli embassy from a London’s telephone booth to offer his services as a spy. The Mossad enlisted his services and Marwan began passing vital information to Israel. He warned the Mossad about the planned Arab surprise attack that started the Yom Kippur War in 1973, preventing what could have resulted in a huge number of Israeli casualties.  ( 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Angel_(2018_American_film) )

In recent years the world has witnessed fanatic nationalism, chauvinism across different nations including European countries, USA. People are ready to kill the others beyond borders. Wars, killing is looked like the solution. Borders of the mind have become stronger than borders of nations. 

But here was a man Ashraf Marwan- Egyptian by nationality and humanist at the heart. For many, his act of spying for Israel when Egypt and Israel were on brinks of the war can be morally wrong. But his efforts were aimed at peace. He wanted to save millions of innocents. His efforts fructified, Egypt and Israel signed the peace agreement resulting in long-lasting peace between two countries. 

His tactics can be disputed but not his intentions and vision. I believe that the world today needs more Ashrafs. But do we have any place in our world for such Ashrafs today?

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.