Movies that helped shaping my thought process 2 The Three Colors Blue

After ‘Gandhi’, I have to mention the film named  Blue from the famous The Three Colors series. or its creator Krzysztof Kieślowski. His art of storytelling has influenced my thought process to a great extent.

I had been writing a series of parallel stories since the year 2000; I had no idea at the time that these are called parallel stories.  Most of the stories dealt with the dark aspect of the human mind and had an undiluted structure. I didn’t compromise by altering even a single sentence of this chronicle just for the sake of so-called linearity of structure. The result was that for those who couldn’t devote enough time to a paragraph and reflect on the human feelings behind those words, this series remained indecipherable or worse, an exercise in futility. I experienced great creative satisfaction while writing them and was eager to see the reaction of my readers. This was where I faced a problem; you see, most of my friends are not into literature and hence, I couldn’t depend on them to give me a proper feedback. Moreover, I was residing away from my home state, Assam, so I could not understand first-hand how the readers were responding to my creative effort by any sort of interaction with them.

I concluded that the stories into which I had put so much time and effort, turned out to be some incoherent gibberish. I went into a kind of depression, repeatedly asking myself whether I should compromise on my writing style. Should I start writing in a simple linear style (which is not my way of storytelling)? Should I write about populist clichés that do not excite my creativity at all? (Assam has its own trends of bestselling plots). On a more megalomaniac note, I was beginning to think that there was no one in this world, who thinks like me, that there were no takers for original thinking, that I was a lone man amongst an indifferent swarm of people.

Then I happened to come across this much heard series – directed by Kieślowski . Three colours Blue was my first Kieslowski movie, which I watched in 2007. As the film progressed, I realised that the thought process of the protagonist or the scriptwriter behind the scenes reverberated with mine.  Many of the frames of ‘Blue’ inspired me. What I found most inspiring about this series is that the auteur didn’t compromise on anything while presenting his creative vision, yet he was able to connect with his audience, to convey his version to the world. This fact encouraged me and eventually I decided NOT TO CHANGE MY STYLE.

In this movie, there is a scene in which the female protagonist was having coffee in a restaurant and a street musician was playing some music. The tune was the same as the one her husband was composing, but he died before being able to complete it. How could an unfinished musical score have reached the street musician? Later, during an interview, Kieślowski had this to say about it, “Music never dies, it vibrates, swirls in the atmosphere, you just have to pick it up from nature.”

I watched Three colors Blue in 2007, but this message from the scene was the seed of a Play –ঐক্যতান Akoikyatan (The Beethoven of someone’s love), I had written, directed and staged in 1997.

At that time, the whole unit of the play had the same doubt that I had been having – “Does anyone think like us?” The discovery of Kieślowski through Blue was a positive propelling force for me, it reinforced my intention to continue writing in my own unadulterated style by being true to myself.

Movies that helped shaping my thought process 1.Gandhi

The thought of selecting ten movies that shaped thinking process came to my mind while I was noting down my favorite books. I have to admit after books, movies are my food for thought. All the movies I have enlisted here cannot be called the greatest movies of all time by everyone, but they seems to have affected, inspired, encouraged, me the person and all the bizarre thoughts that engulfs me most of the time.

Now I am a lazy bone, if I plan to write about 10 movies in one blog I could never finish the project due to pressure in the day to day life and change in my interest.  

                                                                        1.Gandhi :

It was 1983 or may be 82, one of my early memories of going to movie hall and watching a movie was that of Gandhi. It was turmoil time for my states and ordinary life was frequently halted by various kinds of Bandhs. It was one such bandhs in those days we walked to the cinema hall –should be it was Apsara to see the movie –Gandhi. At the same time posters of then super hit movie –Disco Dancer was also displayed in the hall and my mind wanted to see –Disco dancer only. But we were forced to see Gandhi.

I have vivid memory of few scenes in the movie hall -like the Jallianwala bagh massacare, or Om Puri the angry rioter throwing a roti to Gandhi and appealing him to give up fast the Raghupati Raghab raja ram at the end.

Face of Om Puri that I can not forget

After that I have watched the movie n number of times, in many independence days, Republic Days, Gandhi Jayanti this movie frequents television channels even now.

Every time I watch the movie I go through a spectrum of positive thought process, many times it is about Indian History, many times about the communal feud we have, many time about perfect cinematic representation of something that actually occurred not in a distant time from today.

Later on when I was working on my original play –‘A German Dream' in 2000, I felt the pain this great man had undergone while searching truth. That feeling is a life changing event and may be the seed of this change was implanted by this great Richard Altenburg film.

I had traveled a lot to feel the smell of the place where Gandhi left his foot print, or may be to research about things I wrote and while visiting those places scenes from Attengorg’s Gandhi came to my mind as if I was present there when history was shaping up.

As in when I was Jallianwala bagh I could hear the crying baby near the  maut kakuwa(Myter’s well ) , I could hear a angry mad rioter shouting at Gandhi at the Hydari house at 26 balighata road ,Calcutta ,or in Sevagram I could perceive how could he virtually run the country from a faraway village n Maharashtra. Same is feeling evrytime I visit Rajghat or the Birla mandir in Delhi.

At that time budget of the film created a lot of controversy , some said with this budged –indian Government could have produce ten movies but as the final product was out ,the product silenced most of the query that was circulating in the media.

When the curator –Sir Richard Altenburg died, just a few days ago various article surfaced about his life long effort to make this movie a reality .26 years of patients and hard work is not a small thing at all. It may be a example of patience and pursuance to any people in the age of restlessness we are in today.

And now I lough at the thought that one day I preferred 'Disco Dancer' over Gandhi

I wanted to watch Disco Dancer over Gandhi

Mid Life Crisis

I have been suffering from the disease since I was 15 or something, and the symptoms continue to persist even today. I started suspecting the disease without actually knowing how you feel like if you have the disease. Without going through the signs and symptoms I was sure of my mid life crisis.

I think I acquired the bug watching some of the auteur's so called classic movie where they actually depicted their sexual frustration arising out of long standing marriage and the protagonist take fantasy with some young girl and faces consequences out of it.

But with me acquiring the disease at 15, without a girlfriend or any obvious psychopathic tendency (to the best of my belief) was something very peculiar.

What started with a silly joke with friend gradually turned into a (pseudo)philosophical metaphor.

If you don’t know the length of your life then how can you define your mid point? If the journey can be ended at any point, why the midpoint can’t start as soon as fifteen?

So what were the symptoms like?

With time symptoms are also changing, but to be precise whenever mind is full of melancholy –I think this is it.

In nineties the symptoms were precipitated by lack of connectivity with the so called world at large, Guwahati was a small city then and there was paucity of information regarding what we thought to be happening world.

Now I live away from my loved city, there is excess of information though but nothing is there to fill the vague in those time of incompleteness.  

There are many other precipitating factors that lead to such desperation, so I started a methodical root cause analysis for the so called disease I am suffering from. It can be loosely hypothesized “as not having achieved what I thought to be achievable at that point of time”. With time the faith and confidence level is getting down and down and down. As the suspicion of failure is creeping in that is leading to the melancholy which I call as “Mid Life Crisis”.

I cannot tell you for sure but if I have to explain “My Mid Life crisis” to you; I got to tell you it is almost like love. While explaining my mid life crisis I have to quote from my memory of a famous film whose dialogue still resonates in my mind. The film was "Suraj Ka Satwa Ghoran” by the maestro Syam Benegal .Here after a long and complicated tryst with the ‘element’ called love protagonist Rajat Sharma explains :definition and feeling about love is something like soul or God ,until you find one your quest for love will go on .

So my quest for my mid life

The life journey of life is mysterious and unknown

To the great Indian middle class, Mid Life crisis has nothing to do with libido, mistress, or sexuality,

Being grinded in a routine called life we long for a way out looking for some sunshine and if we smell of losing the goal sadness creeps in. We name this sadness by various name, and mid life crisis is just one such example.   

Thoughts on a Sterilization Tragedy

 

I was shocked on hearing about the ‘sterilization tragedy’ in Chhattisgarh. Yes, it is in fact a sterilization tragedy. Sterilization - Sterilization (also spelled sterilisation) is defined as “any of a number of medical techniques that intentionally leave a person unable to reproduce”. A government-organised family planning camp in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh, took a wrong turn on that fateful day.

Sterilization also means making a surface, article etc. free from any kind of organism. This is essential for any health care practice, especially in a setting where any kind of surgical operation is taking place, even as simple as sterilization for population control. Such a setting should not exist with without strict sterilization and aseptic practice.

However, we all know that India is a land of “Jugad”, and ethically and scientifically recommended practices are things that are beyond our comprehension.

But, what led to the tragedy? I don’t have any detail about ‘what happened in Chhattisgarh’ but I have an insight into what usually happens in India in the name of infection control practice through my professional experience.

We are at a pre-historic stage in terms of awareness, and burdened by lack of resources. The situation is even worse in government hospitals situated in the periphery.   

I was more surprised when I heard that the doctor in question has been suspended with immediate effect!

Blaming the doctor, making him the scapegoat for everything that went wrong in a medical set up is an inherent problem of Indian society. But no one wants to see beyond that. Root cause analysis of any problem is not in finding a scapegoat and burning him like we do in Dussehra.

It is a clear fact that all those hospitals run on poor supply of basic necessities like soap, trained nurse, proper equipment for operation (cloths, autoclave, gloves, nurse and proper ventilation in OT) etc., but all hospitals are given targets to achieve within a given period.

Target of fulfilling the dreams of different governments/ employers, like increasing the number of operations, increasing high tech operations and achieving “x” number of total sterilizations, free Anti-tubercular therapy or anti retroviral drugs given to tuberculosis and HIV infected patients respectively during the year.

This is where the problem starts:

People are over worked and they are given exorbitant tasks to complete without any infrastructure. If you don’t do it, you are not following the instructions you are given, so you are in danger of losing your job. And if you make some compromise and continue to work with whatever resource you have, then you are doing your duty.

At first, nothing will happen, even if some infection occurs, people will think infection is a normal incident. In fact, most of the practicing physicians think that we have antibiotics to tackle the bugs. But as a clinical microbiologist, I have observed through my practice and research that most of the hospitals in India are full of organisms, against which there is no antibiotic at all. And the sad thing is that there is no new molecule in the pipe line in the near future also

The reason for the deaths can be something other than infection also, like spurious drugs reaction, operative complication, wrong case selection etc. Root cause analysis of all of them will lead to one answer: non adherence to the mandatory stringent quality control norms.

Because many of us are not aware of such things and even if we do, we turn a blind eye to them as they are costly and time consuming and there is no chance of earning any revenue by these quality control procedures.  

The problem we are facing today has only one answer: prevention.

But how?

Adherence to basic quality control norms for prevention of such occurrences, which is the only option we actually have.

Or the same story will repeat itself:

Healthcare practices

Without soap….

Without instruments …..

Without infrastructure for the required purpose…..

With an uphill target to fill.

Till we have those manage it with some “Jugad”

And if something bad happens, identify a symbolic culprit (a doctor in this case), sack him from the job and we are all happy till a repeat incident happens.

 

I was late in blogging it even though I made the draft immediately after getting the news and I was totally upset with the incident and after three days of the incident now the focus is changing to some spurious drugs, but point is same _ total apathy towards quality as we all do in every aspect of our life.do you know any medicine we buy from the chemist next door may turn out to be spurious.it can be a chemical manufactured by some unknown unlicensed company. Even a branded medicine can also be carrying a label only but actually it might be some chalk powder packed with the companies genuine looking level by some crook, everything I mentioned doesn’t matter to us as we live in the age of apathy, compromise and Jugad.