Good Will Hunting

Just few days back one of my friend asked me to download him some movies and we hopped around the issue of the new blockbusters and drag flops. I asked him which movie he’d want me to download for him and he said ‘jis main kuch motivational.. u know inspiration type’. Next beat I asked him.. ‘Good Will Hunting daikhi hai?’

The are only few moments that completely revolutionize your life. Its like one day you wake up in the morning look around your own room and see something new…maybe the curtains look different, maybe you got up the wrong side of the bed. In all you feel different. I clearly remember when I watched ‘Good Will Hunting’. I was maybe 13 years of age and it was probably 2001. Although the movie came out in 1997.It still scores 9.91/10 on IMDB. I was mesmerized, caught in the awe of what should you do or what do you WANT to do – the theme of the movie. This was the movie which began my journey to know the unknown. To touch the intangible, to push my limits and to break free from the ‘routine’. I was just 13 and needless to say wasn’t really that mature. Then I watched it again when I was 16. Every time I watched it I learned something different. I just watched it again… today I am nearly about to turn 22 and the movie still leaves me speechless and I am still caught in the web of what should you do and what you WANT to do? Sometimes I get courage from Will Hunting, a rebel prodigy (alert!! Movie spoiler ahead =D) who left cent% IQ level & buck loads of money behind for a soul mate. Because that was what he wanted.

There is this dialogue in the movie which I particularly like. When Sean (the therapist) asks Will that why he didn’t take the job at NSA(International Security).

Will:
Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin' "send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain't too
long 'til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive so he's got to walk to the job interviews which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

(Meanwhile Sean sit there and looks at him to continue)

Will: So what'd I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure I'll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President!

Maybe its hard to understand the relevance of the above dialogues if you haven’t watched this movie. It is a MUST watch.

Sometimes I think when I am twenty-five I am going to watch it again and maybe I would be surprised again.

Scripted world =D

Indeed life throws a curve ball here and then and if we have it to our most disadvantage it makes our nerves raw least when we need it. There is so much we learn as we grow. We experience new emotions, see new shades of gray, imagine smells and learn that people change. I have been as I say one of the luckiest one to learn a lot from tv series, cartoons, movies, music and even from the back cover of the toothpaste box. In old times there was ‘Ainak wala jin’ and series like Aaisiyana, Alpha Bravo Charlie. Today there are countless that I follow.

I read somewhere that ‘All life’s toughest questions are answered in tv series’. I think that person was wise. Even though series and show border on corny, cheesy and sometimes highly predictable plots they do have all the right aspects covered. The story always has a damsel in distress, a knight in shining armor, a villain and ‘the other love interest – well competition is always good =p. Sometimes the damsel is the guy and knight the girl believe me feminism has altered a lot of things. Anyway coming back to the point don’t you think you have all those aspects covered too? Ignoring to comment on being in a relationship and all =D we all do have that rival in our class or at work who we make faces at when they aren’t watching. There is always a potential problem lurking around like flunking, hiding stuff from your folks, getting in trouble for vandalism (which was maybe was when you accidently broke the flower pot on your university premises), breaking promises of ‘don’t-tell-you-know-what-to-you-know-who’ and what not! =D, fair crises of heart and mind, being ditched by your best friends, the makeover routine, the rebellion and sometimes if you could have it way corny we all do have a title soundtrack of our lives too =D but really are life’s truth really answered in television shows?

Maybe yes. For everyone whatever they watch they take a different story from it. Like I have watched the movie Italian Job so many times. First I watched it for the hot Mark Wahlberg, next time I liked the heist part and third time I loved that ‘payback-is-a-bitch routine’. Friends, Dawson’s Creek, One tree hill, all playing around friendship. The focus is not really characters and their friendships. It’s how people evolve in relationships. Why some of us grow up to drift apart and while some still stick to the ground afraid to put themselves out there and some manage to find the balanced place.We do have the famous long list of Disney series with Zack and Cody topping the list.. well then can you say you don't know any 'London Tipton/Paris Hilton' character from your life? I bet not! Series like House M.D, ER, Bones, CSI NY all focusing chemistry and sheer geniuses of people who had fair amount of ‘issues’ and still made it to the top. The new series Flash Forward made me think that maybe after all knowing the unknown isn’t what I want =)(*curses ABC production for sacking the show*). Vampire diaries – well that one puts Edward Cullen to shame(Damon Salvatore!). There is Supernatural and Castle even though the first one is a horror cum humor and later being crime cum humor series its kinda funny how both of these genre horror and crime could even remotely be connected to humor but then Dean Winchester(a character from Supernatural) said “A man has gotta smile and ….eat pies’. I even watched sci-fi.. infact the first few series I watched were Farscape, X-files and Roswell … I was .lets say an sci-fi buff then and I guess from them I learned that aliens not necessary have to be green =D

So maybe watching television shows does not go all in vain. Even if you don’t get anything by them they do kill time perfectly and sometimes you even learn good comeback lines =D.

The Joys of travelling...

..and the wheels on the bus go round and round...round and round..round and round =D we all surely have heard this nusery rhyme when we were young kids. It was so much fun making the rockety circular movement with your fists and chuckling along the rhyme little did we know what Karachi ki public buses are like.

We grew up and the mode of travelling changed from 'school vans' to public buses. Karachi's 'Busain' as known are a jungle of alpha numeric codes. w-18, g-25, 2k and what not? =D They are more colorful then a bride to be married, rickety like an old metal junk and window less like a glass house in busy common street. They hover over a car and shrink away from trailers.

My commute from home to university and university to home is ride on one of these spectacular pieces of art. I usually have to change two buses. Its your lucky day if you get a place to sit which is mostly one to million of chances, not so much if you have to stand and maybe its just a bad day if you are standing in vicinity of 'knocking-you-out-conscious-odor' ... if you know what I mean =D

Standing and commuting is all around completely an interesting experience. It requires that you know how to balance/cancel out your weight with your feet, the art of holding your bags and keeping your hands free since you have to hold those long steel rods above your heads and mostly you should know some physics; law of momentum and concept of inertia are pre-requisite. Either you ignore the 'blank expressions' of the passengers sitting all around you and stick to your music player or you can participate in the 'innocent-eavesdropping' of whose 'bahu said what to whose saas'... it always make a good entertainment for your ride home and the list of 'things-i-never-wanted-to-know' increases exponentially. The bumpy rides are like no other. You hang on to your dear life being swung from one side to the other. If you were lucky enough to get your foot in and stand by the 'gate' of the bus in an over crowded bus you surely will enjoy the wind in your face because if at that time you are sitting inside only two things are possible either you have high tolerance level for body odors (considering this sweltering heat in karachi) or either you are dead by then =D.

Its a good practice for your vocal chords too since they get exercised. You mostly have to shout by default twice until the driver hears that you 'meant' to get down on the 'last' stop. The conductors ask for money before you have even dare to breathe in the confines of the bus.

But no matter what one says. Karachi buses are different. I traveled in buses in Wah Kent those blue grey big things it bordered on boring yeah maybe spacey and airy but not that fun. I traveled in Metro in USA again zing the metro card and you are done no yelling and fighting of the conductor for ever increasing the rates.. no fun again.

So in all Karachi buses are claustrophobic, achingly colorful and painful fun to travel on =D you are missing a lot if just because of your prissiness you ignore travelling on them.