I am driving back to home from work on a very cold evening.
The windows in the car are all rolled up, the heat is on full blast and I see
outside a landscape that has changed completely into winter mode with not a
leaf on the trees. Tiny snowflakes float down aimlessly, some landing on the windows
and immediately turning into tiny water droplets. The car moves effort less on
the newly paved road. Without knowing what the drivers around me are thinking about
or where they are coming from or going, I can almost judge their moves on the
road. It has become a routine, a very dull routine for me.
Everything around me is so predictable, and suddenly I
realize how much we take life & relationships for granted. I don't remember
anymore what smelling a rose feels like, I don't remember what breathing feels
like, and I don't remember what getting a tight hug from a loved one feels like.
I don't remember what it felt like to sit in the shade of a tree with my best
friend my husband lying next to me and watching sun play hide and seek with the
leaves, I don't remember sitting and watching sun set against the emptiness of
a sea, I don't remember what feels like walking barefoot on green grass or on
warm sand of a beach. All this of course won't be possible were we not pulled
by a single force. Gravity.
Few days back, Ashish & I stole some time out of our
super busy schedule for a date and decided to go for a movie. Anyone who has
kids would know it’s not an easy accomplishment. After discussing the time, the
movie and the location, we finalized on a movie which had been making a lot of
buzz. Gravity.
I went to the movie with no expectation at all simply
because I didn't have time to think about it. Ok...so it’s about space, people
stuck in space and then in the end they get back. What is such a big deal about
it? We bought the tickets, took hold of our 3-D glasses and started walking
towards the theater. I was more absorbed about the fact that I had left my kids
back then with the movie. What are they doing, are the sleeping ok, and are
they fighting, are they playing...
We enter the nearly empty theater, selected our seats and
settled down. I took a deep breath and I forced my mind to stop wondering about
kids and concentrate on the movie. I looked at Ashish sitting next to me and I
realized suddenly we are alone, all by ourselves with no distraction and I just
smiled. I held his hand and felt the old comfort creeping back in.
The movie began on a casual note with astronauts trying to
service the Hubble Space Telescope. They have subtle incidents to indicate the
lack one strong force, Gravity. Dr. Ryan Stone
(played by Sandra bullock) doesn't hold on to her equipment tightly
enough and they go flying away in space. When Matt
Kowalski (played by George Clooney) catches it and returns to her, she
replies - I am used to tools dropping on the floor not floating away. I
chuckled and then I felt my heart skip a beat. How do you manage in a place
which so endless? What do you see when you look up or down?
A Russian missile then strikes on a defunct satellite, which
causes a chain reaction forming a cloud of space debris floating towards them.
This high-speed debris causes lot of damage and detaches Dr Stone, who tumbles
into the empty space. This is where you realize how helpless you can be up
there. With nothing to hold on to, you just float away, but to where? Human
body can deal for a while without food or water or air, but not all at the same
time. At that instant, I felt like all my senses come alive, I noticed I was
breathing really hard, I noticed holding on to the cold soda really tight, I
noticed my feet tapping on the floor (an old habit when I am scared). I really
wanted to stretch my hands to hold Dr. Stone and pull her towards me, pull her
towards the safety of Gravity!
Ultimately she is rescued by Kowalski
and as they start the journey towards International Space Station, the sun
rises in the backdrop. Watching the warm sunlight that we all know so well
spread through the cold and alien outer space, I realized how numb we have
become to our surroundings. This simple yet most beautiful motion of earth
revolving around the sun has created so many miracles that it’s even hard to
imagine. Two tiny figures of astronauts moving across the large canvas of earth
and sun remind me how little and helpless we are. We don't really control
anything. We just feel comfortable lying to ourselves that I we are in control.
When they reach ISS, they try to grab the shuttle but become
entangle into a giant parachute. Against the protest of Dr. Stone, Kowalski cuts himself and drifts into
empty space and you see Dr Stone floating all by herself in the space. At that
moment, I am reminded of another dialogue from the beginning of the movie, where
she indicated to Kowalski that she
likes being up in the space, away from all the maddening life of earth and she
could get used to it. At this point, I feel like asking her again, can
you...really? However much we always say to ourselves that we just want to run
away from all this craziness; we can never really run away. At the end of the
day, we always want to head home. Home where craziness is, home where your kids
fill your heart with laughter, home is where love makes it all real...
The movie goes on and Dr. Stone finally return to earth and
in the end they just show her feet firm on the ground...
I am not sure if any movie has left such a big impact on me.
Made me realize that how tiny we are in front of what made it possible for us
to evolve. When I came out, I held on to Ashish’s hand and looked down on my
feet. When I came out of the theater I looked up in the sky and felt the
comfort of being surrounded by things that make me alive. That moment i realized that love is real, family is real, home is real, even the smiles and tears are all real...just like Gravity is real...
