the start

It was written on 4th may but i am posting it today.

The start could not have been better. Today is Sunday, 4th of May, 2008 and i am flying to California for an internship at kosmix, a startup in search domain.

It all started by me waking at 5 am, a rarity but i had to catch the flight. Early mornings are good everywhere, be it India or US. On reaching airport, they are playing wonderwall at a reasonable sound for me to get high. Climbing the escalators on Concourse E, I look above my head and there is a modern art hanging in a bulging-in position, full of colors but it is dominated by a reddish shade, a shade which you get when you cover a bulb with red umbrellas in a lamp. In between those colors, there are boxes of caricatures of people with a 3-4 word phrase which do not make sense completely but they are there for a reason. Some artist's mastermind, may be. Effort is needed to decipher it. I have to turn around to match the pace of escalator in order to maintain my look at that painting. But it is not a good idea to not to look forward while going up on an escalator. I realize it just in time to look straight and the painting will have to wait for some other time.


Best comes in the flight : I switch on my laptop and start watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

It is a movie about a person, Jean-Do, who wakes up from his coma only to find himself paralyzed completely except for three things - His left eye, his imagination and his memories. We see the movie from the perspective of Jean-Do as we can hear his thoughts although others cant. Not only this, we see the movie from his perspective as well, aka the camera's scope is limited to the vision scope of Jean Do's left eye. By using these simple yet creative technique, we see the process of how a person copes up with such paralysis, his memories gives us a picture of his past and his imagination shows us his character. And on top of it add the complexities of human nature, his dad, ex-wife, kids, girl friend, nurses, each defining a new meaning to human relations. All this makes the movie a classic and the best thing is that it is based on a true story. Jean-Do wrote a book after he was paralyzed and we get to see how he wrote it. Truly an inspiring emotional story captured in this movie with a positive attitude showing meaning of life and its beauty. The analogies to being paralyzed are too good. An old man trapped in an apartment, a person taken as a hostage, a vegetable, all are shown in a good manner.