A walk in the clouds.. » The ugly, the bad and the good

Thursday, February 10, 2005

11:35 PM

I recently chanced upon a nugget of information that left me horrified, so I thought I should promptly share it with all my readers and spread the joy. As someone once said — a hundred scarred souls are better than one. Yes that someone was me, so what?

Now, unless you were living under a rock all your life, you have heard of the movie Casablanca (1942). This Humphrey Bogart — Ingrid Bergman — Paul Henreid story of love, honor, duty and sacrifice set against the backdrop of World War II is a perennial cinema classic. But I bet you didn’t know they made a Hindi remake of it! Not just any aira gaira remake we’re talking about, mind you. None other than Armaan (1981). Bogart’s role (Rick) played by Raj Babbar (Yikes! Is there no God!?), Bergman’s role (Ilsa) by Ranjeeta (I’m still recovering from sher Babbar, so no comments) and my favorite block of wood — Deepak Parashar, playing the role of Paul Henried (Victor). Oh the horror, oh the tragedy! Oh that reminds me, the Germans are replaced by the Portuguese and the scene has shifted from World War II to Goa’s liberation. Pure joy, I tell ya.

Imagine this — the smoke filled Rick’s Cafe, Sam playing the piano, Bogey taking a long drag on his cigarette and .. <jarring scene change> .. Shammi Kapoor at the piano, Raj Babbar trying to swallow a cigarette and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better — enter Kalpana Iyer dancing to Bappi Lahiri’s ramba ho samba ho. Or is it Prema Narayan? Either way, it scars you for life, eh? Well, that’s about it for ugly.

Now for something a li’l more worth your time. A couple of days back, I got a very interesting comment from Braveheart on my Ghost stories blog. I am quoting the relevant portion here—

You have rightly pointed out that there is no reason God should be more respected than Ghost. But we the weak human beings protect us always through defence mechanisms. God is our biggest spoof, out strongest protector. We take refuge in his arms all the time. But Satan should be worshipped just as much. I am saying this because if you dont worship him, you fight with him. And fighting with him is fighting with urself. It weakens you. It wouldn’t ever let you discover yourself.

So the key lies not in surrendering yourself, but absorbing him into urself, and hence, growing bigger than him. You should not reject what you are afraid of, you should submit, absorb and grow through it.

It got me thinking again about a topic that I often mull over.

Good is not the result of the absence of evil, but the ability to take on evil, accept that it is a part of us, and then find mechanisms to deal with it. Reminds me of a line from a song from the recent movie Swades (2004) — Man se Raavan jo nikaale, Raam uske man mein hai. To do that one first has to accept that there is a Raavan in all of us.

I don’t think this is true only of evil. It extends to a number of negative emotions in general. Grief, hurt, fear, turmoil .. I once had a conversation with a friend about relationships. She mentioned that she avoids getting emotionally involved ‘cos it can lead to grief and pain and she doesn’t want to get hurt. I remember that my reaction was that as long as she avoided that pain, she’ll never learn to deal with it. It is much better that she jumps into a relationship and handles that hurt if and when it comes, and thus, no longer *fears* the pain. Not quite in the same spirit as good vs evil, I know.

They say that peace comes not from the absence of conflict in life, but from the ability to cope with it. True of inner peace too. Acknowledging one’s inner demons, and yet not letting them consume us, is one of the toughest things to do.

That, and keeping a straight face while watching Armaan.

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