From the soul...for the soul...

Love. It is such a misunderstood emotion, ill-used term and overused description of feelings. When, in all my experience (and I have some in this particular field), I have come to question - that is it indeed a feeling? Because when feelings go - vacuum remains. Can true love ever "go"? Because feelings are fleeting...you can feel love for a person by just hearing her/his voice...or by reading kind words in a chat box or by just basking in the radiance that surrounds beautiful faces. A person can uplift your heart by saying the right things at the right time... make the pain go away... fill the vacuum. That person can generate feelings that provide succour to your ailing soul...suddenly all your questions will seem answered. Before you know it...you start missing that person... start wishing to hear that voice again or read those words again... you start getting possessive... and mistake these myriad feelings for Love. When nothing can be further from the truth. This particular phenomenon is universal and more commonplace than you can imagine... people fresh out of a relationship feel it the strongest - and people in relationships that are not meeting pre-conceived expectations.

People fresh out of relationships - especially intense overpowering ones - may decide consciously "I've had enough... I am never gonna fall in love again. Let me enjoy being single!" But like all wounds, addictions and accidents - healing requires time. And a wound inflicted as a result of a broken relationship is the deepest one of them all. It affects the way you behave - changes the way you deal with people...and worst of all your injured soul (unbeknownst to you) constantly is searching for a "host". So pretty face, kind word, sympathy - Bang! Love and you feel that there is indeed hope and love in this world. The same goes for people in sad relationships - and so many people find false recourse in the arms of the "perfect other" they didn't get.

It's good - in that it makes one smile. Makes one get up in the morning and rally on through the day. Maybe - it even works in some cases. But for most foolish souls - it ends in disaster. Leaving a person in a deeper hole than before, a soul more wounded and an outlook that seems sullied beyond repair. Only difference - this time the person so confused with images of false hope and elusive love that it puts into motion a series of nameless, meaningless affairs - which can only end in a broken wasted life. One keeps chasing shadows which flicker and eventually disappear. So is there a solution to come out of the abyss and into the sunshine?

Maybe...the answer lies inside. The answer is to fill the vacuum with the wonderous joy that life provides us - which is not associated with the affections or lust for another person. Each one of us is a world in ourself... with most of our potential to live and grow left untapped. Sure enough - most of us are lucky to have life itself - something we are so willing to give to another person. As my life progresses and I experience and see beauty and pain - I realize there is so much love in the everyday...love that is not ephemeral like a feeling... love that does not require someone else's fulfilment. There is love in your duties towards your parents, there is more fulfilment in a job well done or project in which you shine. There is real, imperishable beauty in literature and music, arts and dance. There is a sense of accomplishment in running a couple of miles that far surpasses that found in momentary liasons or experiences of passion. There is an earthy "realness" in the company of old friends - much more solid and therapeutic than a crush or an infatuation. All of these provide "chicken soup" for the soul...fill the vacuum and elevate the soul from the depths of hopelessness to the elevation of enlightenment.

And when you feel that there is no longer any need for another person to give you happiness or make you feel "complete"... that's when will you find the true love of another person. That's when you will learn to distinguish between love as a feeling and real love which is the icing on an already beautiful cake.

All ye broken/sad hearts out there - live on! Love yourself. Discover and explore all that life has to give... that is the only path to true love.

Apocalypse Now - Revisited

Hi readers...I am back after two months of silence... turmoil in life, turmoil at work... didn't really feel motivated to share any thoughts...because those thoughts really weren't worth sharing. But something has happened in the past few days...made a new friend who is a saint. Sometimes one just needs the human touch to come back to life I guess. ;)

So what am I reviewing today? Apocalypse Now. It is not a new movie...infact was released in 1979 - and I remember watching it for the first time in the 80s. I hated it. In fact I remember I went back to the rental shop and asked for my money back...! How these impressions stick in one's head... as a result I ignored all Saigon movies for the rest of my life. Then suddenly - on HBO - I saw a Marlon Brando special...where they showed a few clippings from Apocalypse... the one in which shaded by dim flickering light - Marlon Brando''s Colonel Kurtz is washing his bald head in water... while Martin Sheen's Captain Willard is kneeling, tied-up, in front of him. Something struck my matured (and tempered) sensibilities... the sheer dizziness of the movie came back to me after all these ages. And I suddenly wondered - why did I not like this movie? So I got the DVD to give the Francis Ford Coppola's seminal creation another chance.

"Horror....Horror..." Apocalypse Now is one of the scariest and the most beautiful movies I have ever had the honour to see. The Oscar winning Cinematography is pure art - of the depraved crazy spinning kind - which has been manifested as moving pictures. Every scene has been painted with the desperation and the futility of war - seen through the eyes of Captain Willard. Mind you - there isn't much violence in this movie - but still it hits harder than 10 Black Hawk Downs. The movie charts the journey of Willard to the untamed interiors of Vietnam - and to the border with Cambodia - where a renegade Colonel Kurtz has started his own little war - not approved by the Pentagon. His orders are to dispose of the Colonel and restore order. As the river-boat with Willard and his 4 men makes its way upstream... the movie shows various pictures of conflict and horror... rarely have I seen such a potent combination of real and un-real shown so effectively on screen. You can't help but flinching when Willard shoots an injured Vietnamese woman when his crew insists on taking her to a hospital, so that their mission is not delayed - or when you see a handful of "all-but-dead" US soldiers counting their hours away in an an army post where the Commanding Officer had been killed a long time ago. No escape. No Mercy. Just blood, guts and war.

But the real icing on the cake (if there ever was a euphimism!) is Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz. I checked - he has screen time of less than 15 minutes...but it is one of those roles which will leave an indelible impression on one's senses...one that will not be wiped away with time. Colonel Kurtz had "gone over". He had conquered fear - but at the price of his soul. He thought he was God...because in his universe which he had created - he infact was. Copolla somehow (I don't know many other auteurs who could have managed this) manages to evoke our sympathies for Kurtz - how a rising star in the US army turns into a perpetrator of inhuman genocide. How during war - there are no winners...and how the horror of human depravity comes to the forefront. Sure enough - Willard himself starts sympathizing with Kurtz... but somehow in the helplessness of it all - he sees that Kurtz wants to die. As the jaded Photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) says - "His mind is free...but his soul is dead."

What happens in the end is for you see and digest... but what the movie leaves you with is a dry mouth. It leaves you shaken, and makes you wonder why the hell do we war? And Apocalypse Now manages this without preaching for a second. That is the real beauty of this movie. I am so glad i decided to revisit this classic again. You should too...

Apocalypse Now (1979) - Running time approx 155 min. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring - Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper