Watching a
movie without a reliable feedback or without reading a review is a risky
business. Not long ago I had been to a movie by Madhur Bhandarkar. The movie
Heroine staring Kareena was such an emotional disaster that it became even more
difficult for me to convince myself about any other movie being a nice
entertainment. Apart from wasting money and time it turned out to be mentally
punishing. It challenged my wisdom of relying only on Madhur Bhandarkar’s
antecedents and ignoring reviews. Its fall out was inevitable. To the
desperation and anger of my family I ruled out many proposals for having a
great time in theater. Of course they always had the choice of going without me
for which they were reluctant. Last Sunday again the movie came on the agenda. This
time it was Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. The favourable reviews were assuring and yes I was optimistic about
Farhan Akhtar. As promos projected, he had worked really hard for the movie.
Milkha Singh the best athlete we have
ever had has always been an inspiring figure. I decided to take risk and
invested my time and money. We all enjoyed. It was a really good movie. Nice
blend of flashback, thrill, tragedy and positive dynamism. But for the slightly
overstretch in time it was a great experience watching it.
More
than just entertaining it is an inspiring movie. It has lot of hidden messages.
Milkha was a natural runner but that is the talent you may be born with. Not
enough. You have to sweat it out. A born runner not doing enough to give
justice to what is being bestowed by divinity is a waste. And doing justice is
not about winning or losing, it is about body drenched in sweat whole day. It
is about saying no to all kinds of distractions and single mindedly pursuing
the dream, not just of winning a local competition but of fighting the best in
the world. Better said than done, the fight begins with oneself. The first
sight of hardwork takes away most of the enthusiasm. The dream melts quickly. We
resign to our fate; accept the defeat not on the field, not in the mind but in
the heart. The imagined picture of our body fighting for the breath, sweat
oozing from every pore, throat as dry as desert and every part of the body
releasing painful realization of its existence
drills a big hole in the heart. We are now content with our comfort, we may not
forget the dream but the realization of it gets a decent burial. And those who
are smart enough can always gain sympathy by finding a nice little excuse or
just by blatantly blaming it on ever available fate and circumstances.
What
is true for Milkha cannot be less true for others dreaming in different fields.
Milkha ran for only few seconds in the competition and his zeal to run for even
fewer seconds never waned. But to run for even fewer seconds he had to run hundreds
of miles everywhere on the field, in the mountains, on the plains, in the high
altitude zones. He ran alone, he ran pulling the weight, he ran strapping the
weight above ankle, but this weight was always less than the weight of the world
record he wanted to break and was much lighter than the humiliation he already had
suffered in the defeat. For those wonderful seconds, a beautiful moment on a
bright day he ran for hours every day for weeks, months, years. That’s the
spirit of Milkha. It is seen everywhere. The scientist forgetting about the hours
he is in the laboratory, a dancer losing sense of time while practicing, a
student forgetting food and water while studying all have a thread in common, that’s
the enduring spirit of Milkha Singh.
I
once read an incident about the great
classical singer Ustad Bade Gulam Ali Khan. A man used to go to his work along
the lane where Ustadji lived. While going to work he heard Ustadji rehearsing a
note. When he came back in the evening he found Ustadji working on the same note. He must have been doing it for hours. A
break, some rest and he was at it again. What a pursuit for perfection. Working
on minute details for hours. Building
brick by brick. No wonder his legacy still stands tall even after his demise. The
stories of greats are all strewn with such incidents. The temptation of
dreaming the whole picture and being enticed by it is difficult to resist but
it is at the cost of working on the weakest link. The difference between great and one who could
have been great lies here. Those who adopt a short cut do not leave the legacy
of life time achievers.
Working on such tiny details for hours, days and weeks is not all
physical. It often is about mind for the sense of monotony is extremely
difficult to defeat. Having a terrific devotion to perfection and dissolving completely
in the practice perfecting the tiniest element is like hitting a huge rock with
small hammer and chisel, till it breaks along the lines drawn to the design. It
is not all about breaking the rock into pieces using sledge hammer for it
breaks the rock to undefined pieces. It is all about removing smaller unwanted pieces and ultimately carving a
sculpture out of it. Being Milkha is about carving an athlete out of rock solid
talent. The role of mentor is catalytic. The process revolves around self,
inner and outer.
What
is then in people like Milkha Singh that makes them different? They are
supremely passionate about what they dream. But is passion enough to resist the
temptation of distractions? Is it enough to drive you to run when all resources
seems to have been exhausted? Is it enough to push the body every time beyond
the physical level of endurance? Passion is what we all possess but that is not
enough, what one needs is an element of insanity, that glorious insanity that
drives the body as mind orders, that too without complaint. You have to be
insane about your dream. This glorious insanity insulates these men from the
diversions, attractions and frustrations arising out of interaction with
society. They dissolve into themselves, into their pursuit of perfection. They
don’t follow the order set for them by so called sane elements in society. They
choose their own path. Those who follow the path not marked by society are
quickly labeled as insane. But those who get immersed in the glorious insanity
in pursuit of their dreams are later accepted by society as greats. They rise
to the pedestal as idols.
Their
iconic stature hides the insanity with which they once labored hard. Everybody has
a great hidden in him, so there also must have been that glorious insanity hidden
somewhere deeper in the self that pushes one relentlessly to work harder beyond
physical limits, without adhering to the norms of comfort defined by society.
We must discover it. We must strive to find it. When one finds that glorious
insanity and identifies his dream, it is just a matter of time before the volcano
erupts.
Till then Bhaag Milkha Bhaag…
