FOLLOWING

“We plan so many things in our life. And if it goes wrong, we just think that it’s the way of destiny. But destiny is just any other plan. Difference is that it is not written by you, but on you!”

  Just think… When you start reading a story expecting a smooth narration and end up with a messy one, how irritating it is! If it is the case with a story, what would be the case with the life? How does it feel to be in the middle of a chaos not knowing what exactly lead you into that? Nerve snatching! Right? It was my situation, but I tried to be cool, as recollecting and re arranging the happenings is the only hope left for me. I tried to recall where it exactly went wrong. Come, follow me, lets get out of this confusion.

DAY 1:

It may not be the day when it all started, but it’s the day exactly when it got diverted. I broke the only rule I set as my principle. I, Ravi, am just any other 22 year lad, with lots of passion down my blood and my passion is writing. My goal is to write a novel and not like just any other one. I wanted all my characters in the story to be perfectly normal and real. To make them that way, I started following people, Just randomly. I used to follow them and observe their way of living. It worked. Following a person, noticing what he does, how he behaves, what’s his mentality, was an informative thing to do. It got rid of my loneliness. And gradually it became an addiction. To keep things under my control, I took an oath- “Under any circumstances, I wouldn’t follow same person twice! ” just to avoid stalking. And this is the day I broke that oath. I saw a strange person, fair, brown haired and all he did was to write down something. I just don’t know when this ‘informative’ changed to ‘interesting’. It became more interesting when he broke into some random houses, de-arranged the things but did not steal a single penny! I was shocked. My mind tempted me to follow him once again and I broke the oath. Following him became a habit.

DAY 20:

At last I did meet her, in real! Her stunning look dazzled me at the first sight. She was an absolute beauty and was better than what she was in a portrait. My brain was warning me not to fall for her but her precious smile slipping out of the beautiful lips gave enough strength to my heart to over power the brain and I fell for her in the first sight(may be second)! I did what I was  supposed to do- follow her. It was a bit easy as I already have been in her house before and it made my following look casual as I knew the details.

DAY 22:

I asked her out for coffee and she agreed at first instance! It was like our first unofficial date. She was stunning, as always, but her precious smile was missing! She looked as if in some trouble. She refused to tell her trouble at starting but after enough pleading that is required to make a woman speak, she unwinded her trouble. She broke up recently and since then her ex was black mailing her about the house documents which he made her sign when they were in love and ought to be married. I thought this is the best chance to help her and make an impression on her. This is the best chance for me to enter into her life. And the only person who can help me out on this is Arya.

DAY 5: 

It has been five days since I’ve been following this guy and every moment passed increased the zeal in me to know about this guy more and more. As usual, he went to the coffee shop early in the morning. I followed him. As I was waiting for my order, he got up and came straight to me.

“Hi, I’m Arya” he said with a stern voice,

He was about my age and height and he had a pretty serious look on his face.

“Ravi” I said.

“May I please know, why the hell are you following me?” he shouted in whispers.

After certain hesitation, I told him the entire story behind following him.

“Hmm… your honesty and approach! I like both of them. You can come with me if you want. I’ll teach you something useful.”

“Sorry, but I don’t fancy robbing someone’s house.”

“You know something, I’m a writer and I don’t rob houses. I just break into them, study them and displace things so as to study their feelings! It helps you a lot!”

That sounded interesting. I joined him. It was fun. And we got to study mentality of different people more closely. It was better than following!

DAY 10:

It continued- breaking into the houses of different people. Not only his hobbies, he made me convert completely into him. Now I too was alike the person I found interesting. I too was brown haired and exactly dressed up like him! I liked all this.

DAY 15:

This was a lucky day. We broke up into a house as usual and were taking details. In the bedroom, I saw a portrait, which changed my life forever. It was the portrait of a young girl, sparkling eyes and a dazzling smile. She stole my heart at the first instance. But I had a fear of meeting the girl whose house I broke into!

DAY 25:

 Arya helped me out in the pre plan session. Everything was ready- cell phone jammers, dis alarmers and a pistol! But destiny had a different plan for me! That day while coming back to the house, Arya met with an accident and died. His last wish was that he wanted to retain his identity in the society. He want his name to be shining more than it actually is now and to carry the last plan of his life with elegance! He made me promise to do that and then lay dead in my arms. I decided to make his last wishes true and hence made his death certificate on my name and I took his name. I am his identity from now on.

DAY 30:

  I wanted every bit of the plan to be executed perfectly. It would be a tribute to my friend and chance to me to earn her. I went to the bank and placed the jammers and dis alarmers as planned. And I made my way to the locker with a gun pointed to a civilian, whom I took as hostage. But when I broke the locker, it was empty! I was startled. I started breking all the lockers in disgust and in no time I was surrounded by police. 

NOW:

I was ready to face the consequences and agreed my fault in the court. But the judgement came out to be a big shock to me:

“This person, Arya, has been sentenced to life time for 28 robbery cases and a probable suspect in the recent assassination of the minister”

All I could do was to plead and shout out my true identity, but they wouldn’t even consider it saying that “the person you’re claiming to be- Ravi is dead 5 days ago and there’s no way to cheat us”

As I was being taken away, far among the crowd, I spotted two known faces, Arya and the girl smiling and hugging each other. Entire journey of mine flashed before my eyes-

“Being suggested to follow the people, made attracted towards the actions of a person and breaking my oath, changing my appearance, plan to break into a house and finding a portrait of very attractive girl, meeting her in real, persuading me into robbery and giving his identity to me!”

Who followed whom? I’ve fallen prey into this carefully spun web of him and this time, it was not destiny, but him, that had other plans for me!

__________________________________________________

ORIGINAL STORY BY : CHRISTOPHER NOLAN.

 

Merry Go Round

“You need not talk for hours to show your love. it can all happen in just a sip of coffee, a blink of eye, a line of a song, or in just a bunch of words.” 

                      ~ My Friend.

“There will be one moment in everyone’s life. That moment seems to be more valuable than the entire life. And the person who gives you that moment is your soul mate. For me- That was the moment and she’s the one.”

                    ~ Me

  “Dad, you promised me to take to the exhibition today. And as always you got some other important works! ” cried my sweet angel Maya.

   She has the reason to be sad. This is the sixth time I’m cancelling our exhibition plan. My life partner, Swetha, is no more in this world and all these years, I’ve been the father and mother of my sweet 5 year old daughter. I’ve never been to the exhibition after the sweet memories that left me a sour past to remember, at the age of 15. I don’t wanna recollect those moments and hence have been neglecting the requests of Maya. But today, she was desperate. I could no longer bear the tears from those lovely little eyes. Vroom, we went to the exhibition.

   Maya was happy, happier than ever. Seeing her on the merry go round reminded me of my first love! 20 years back, a similar merry go round stole my heart for ever and ever.

  “It happened in the year of 1992. I was 15. It was raining heavily that day. We were playing football in the nearby ground, just when a faint sound grabbed my attention. It was from the old merry-go-round that was on one corner of the ground. On that, I saw a beauty just going round and round and made by heart go round faster than it. Heavily drenched, she looked like a down to earth goddess. Her hair was flying all over, resembling the waves of immortality. Just when the merry-go-round turned with her, facing me, I saw the most beautiful face in my life. Seeing her face, first thing that my mind imagined was about the amount of hard work the Lord has done in creating such an immortal beauty and blending innocence along with it. He made her so damn perfect! So perfect that he too might have felt jealous of her beauty and hence he tried to make her imperfect by creating a mole just below her lips. But, he ended up making her beauty unmatchable. That mole made her look more angelic. The first thing I noticed about her is that mole and it just swept me off my feet. From that day onwards, it has become a daily routine for me to wait in the ground for her and just keep on seeing and admiring her beauty. However sweet the dream may be, you have to wake up from it, and one day, she stopped coming to the ground and that’s the end of my story! Silly, isn’t it? No… not at all silly for me. This short lived encounters with her clarified one thing for sure… Love at first sight! It may be unsuccessful, but it was love! After that incident, I never met her again, except in my dreams. As in the maximum cases, my first love too, was a failure and I too got over it and fell in love again with Swetha, my colleague at work who became my life partner.”
  

  “Daddy, daddy…” came my daughter clinging in my arms. “… Mom used to tell me story of her childhood, when she used to love the merry-go-rounds. You know what, she always used to tell me about a boy who used to watch her daily while she goes round and round. Then one day she shifted along with her family to some other place where she met you after many years! Isn’t that cute daddy?”

She asked sweetly as a tear rolled down my eye.
 

 "Life is a merry go round. You may leave the moments you enjoyed the most but life takes you back to those moments, this time not to leave them, but to live them."

THE ‘WHITE KNIGHT’ RISES

"I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don't want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because it's frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting...I quite like to be in that maze."

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

  

 This may be one of the boring topics I choose to write, but I insist on this topic because it was he who had influenced me and my thoughts (and even my life!) to a large extent. Elegant, innovative and deep thinking – that’s Chris Nolan for you. This article is about the chronological rise of the Nolan and his masterpieces. 

1.    FOLLOWING (1998):

It is the directional debut of Nolan which showed the world how powerful the ideas of this genius can be! It is also the most underrated work of Nolan so far. With a complete runtime in black and white and a budget of mere 6,000$ (which is almost 40,000 times less than the budget of The Dark Knight Rises), it still is one of the least expensive full length feature films in the history of cinema. The shooting techniques used by Nolan were a revolution back then! Nevertheless, it turned out to be a gem! Nolan never had to look back since then.

2.    MEMENTO (2000)

   Many people think that there’s very negligible amount of humour in Nolan’s works. But the fact is that humour is present underlying, all along the movie. Very sensible and realistic sense of humour makes Nolan a unique thinker. Here’s a small example of his mastermind moments, which made me cry and smile at the same time

  Natalie: What’s the last thing that you remember?
  Shelby: My wife….

  Natalie: That’s sweet.

  Shelby: ……dying.

   Memento is about the story of a short term memory loss patient, who seeks revenge for the rape and murder of his wife. It is considered to be one of the most ambiguous and unique narration in a movie, in the Hollywood history.

3.    BATMAN BEGINS (2005):

Already, there were eight to nine movies based on the theme of Batman and all were below average grossers! And this time, Nolan, whose previous movie (Insomnia) gained mixed reviews, took over the responsibility of rebooting one of the darkest superheroes ever. And this time, it turned out to be legendary. Superheroes knew only one thing prior to the release of this film, which was to knock out the villains and save the world. But Nolan’s Batman Begins was different. Not only different, it was special because it was about the journey into one’s own heart- overcoming fears and defining one self.

“Its not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you” is among one of the tens of inspirational/ philosophical dialogues from the movie.

4.    THE PRESTIGE (2006)

   What inspires me about Nolan is his way of approach, both in script selection and in the way of living. He is one such person who has confidence and courage blended in right proportions. Well, that’s the way to live the life. This time he sprnikled his magical quotes in different proportions all over the film. Right from the first dialogue “Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled”, the entire movie just lifts your spirit, giving goose bumps at times. Nolan once again chose a unique narration style which gave more strength to this wonderful piece of work (ART!).

5.    THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

   One more feature of Nolan’s movies is that, if you watch the movie say four times, you feel like watching four different movies. That’s because you can never understand the entire concept in a single time, due to its depth- both in the dialogues and in the situations and not to forget the trademark narration style. As in the case of “The Dark Knight”, which has a million strings of concepts wounding up into a tight screenplay. The reception this movie has got, both among the audience and the critics, is huge! A sarcastic and witty dialogue for you:

                                                             

 Joker (to Rachel): A little fight in you, I like that!

 Batman: Then you are gonna love me. 

…and a philosophical “Nolanian” dialogue:

Harvey Dent: You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

6.     INCEPTION (2010)

    Coming to the Nolan’s and Hollywood’s one of the best works- “Inception”, the discussion on why this movie is so special can go on for pages straight! The speciality of this movie is that you already know most of the simple facts about dreams, but our genius Nolan had embroidered the facts onto a special cloth of ‘dream sharing’ with such a perfection that whole world appreciated it. The way he use the concept to make it a nail biting thriller was just outstanding. Multiple level dreaming and incepting one’s brain left the audience shocked. A simple and interesting dialogue for you:

“Dreams, they feel real while we’re in them, right? Its only after we wake up that we realize how things are actually strange. Let me ask you a question. You never remember the beginning of a dream, do you? You always end up right in the middle of what’s going on.”

7.    THE DARK KNIGHT RISES:

   Ending this legend's collage with the a legendary closure- “The Dark Knight Rises.” Giving an epic ending to the epic series is never easy. But then, it is Nolan! Not much action, not many batman tricks, but what it contains is the NOLANISM. With the screen presence of Batman in the movie summing up to less than 35 minutes, Nolan made it big! The way batman describes his destiny in the dialogue is outstanding:

Catwoman: You don't owe these people anymore! You've given them everything! 
Batman: Not everything. Not yet.

Simple yet, powerful!

As for me, Nolan is the white knight of all his movies- a guardian of the moral values and creativity. He is the hero who gave the superhero (Batman), a new definition. This white knight is rising at an astonishing rate and hope he gives us many more masterpieces!

Go, watch Nolan's next piece of brilliance, "Interstellar", which is going to hit the screens on 7th Nov, 2014. 

For my written version of "Following", CLICK HERE

For interesting facts about dreams and dream sharing, CLICK HERE

For interesting facts about inception and dream interpretations, CLICK HERE

  

 

I LOVE US

Dear Maya,

              Sure, I’m writing this letter now, but at the same time thinking deeply about our friendship which stood by me all these years, missing your divine smile which used to comfort me in any adverse situation and feeling your presence every second of my life. So, I know you are fine and will be. The reason for writing the letter is a dream, a very very special dream. A dream, a very short dream that stole my heart and persuaded my brain to write this.

       I remember every detail of the dream, because it was not just a flash of unwanted events as it used to be every day. This was like a canvas beautifully painted by nature itself. In this dream I saw ~

    “Amidst the rustling leaves and thick darkness, I was waiting. Waiting for something or someone, I don’t know. But it was awesome- the wait. Just then, the moon did rise. Infinite darkness and immortal moonlight have been competing each other to gain my attention. Suddenly, it rained. It was not just an ordinary rain, it didn’t rain water, but it rained roses. I was soon feeling the velvety touch of roses on my cheeks. But all of a sudden, there came an earthquake and I sank into the deep grounds.” That was all I dreamt of. I dream of nature, I dreamt of moon, I dreamt of roses. I dreamt of us.

Didn’t u get it how this silly dream of meaningless consequences  was meant to be you and me? Ok. Let me explain how it is interpreted~

   “I was waiting. Waiting on a bench in the valley. I have everything in front of me that can make any person in this world overflow with happiness. The beauty of nature was so pleasurable to the eyes. But my heart was waiting for something else. It was waiting for you. The rustling of leaves that I dreamt of was your sweet smile which made my heart skip a beat. The thick darkness that competed with the moonlight to grab my attention was your curly hair. And the moon which had risen and swept me off my feet was your heavenly face. The shower of rose petals was your beautiful lips, which kissed my cheek. And finally, the earth quake which took me into the earth is your love which made me sink deep into your heart.

   It actually was not “I dreamt of us.”

It is “I love us.”

Waiting for your sweet reply, your choice, whether to make my(our) dream come true or let it always be as a memory to me. With lots of love.

Yours lovingly,

Arya.

NOTE for readers: THE PHRASE “I LOVE US” is taken from the movie ‘500 days of summer’

Click here to read: Letter-"Happy B'day, My Love"