“I woke up in the morning,
found my eyes wet...,
with love you gave me,
found my eyes wet...,
with love you gave me,
in the last night dream…”
Consider a hypothetical situation: you love a girl a lot. She also immensely loves you. You both are unlike personalities. So sometimes you do share some sweet clashes and misunderstanding. One day, you meet her. But she completely ignores you. It seems to you that she does not know you at all. You are puzzled. Why is she behaving like this? Ohh No!!! Not because she is angry with you!!! But she does not remember you at all. You are a completely stranger to her. Now what will you do?
*****
In 21st century, the pace of life has expedited. So according to the theory of relativity [!!!], we should get more time for peace. But now, even the span between two breathes is shortened. Due to technology, the work is accelerated but at the cost of fuel of enjoyment. Lots of civilians of youngistan are afraid to show their soft and hot [what??] feelings. What if she will refuse? What if she will get angry? Not only singles who seek different ways to propose but also couples, who are already sharing warm partnership, shiver on the edge of fire of unfaithfulness. “Will he be angry if I tell him, I do not want to watch this movie?”, “OMG… I forgot his birthday... what will I do?” “Why you have not wore the shirt gifted to you?” Couples are driving the car of their relationship on 4 weak conditional wheels: unfaithfulness, impatience, comparison and doubt. So what is going to happen? Accident!!! Where is unconditional love? Where is innocence in flirting? Where is implicit trustworthiness? Nowadays after 14th February, growth in the business of counseling centers and psychiatrists is also clearly visible. A Lot of hearts become one. Lots of them break into uncountable. It is nearly impossible to forget true love under any situation,
“Tujhe bhoola diya...
Tujhe bhoola diya..
Phir kyoon teri yaadon ne
Mujhe rula diya…”
Ohh!! We wish we could have an eraser to delete unwanted memory. Habit of forgetting is the biggest gift from God. Imagine, what will happen if we could remember everything. Our decision making will become so complex. Fortunately we do have that gift but unfortunately we do not have a choice of what to forget. To forget something, it has to be remembered. Even after forgetting, it has to be remembered that it is forgotten. Aaah!!! How could I remember this!!!
Last decade has seen number of mind-blowing and great movies. But my personal favorite and one of the most beautiful one came in 2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In today’s short-living relationship era, this movie wets the heart just like moisture tickles a rose in the beautiful dawn. The movie is a bit puzzling and complicated. But it is just like a mysterious but beautiful girl who needs patience to get blossomed and passion to spread her folded beautiful fragrance. At every repeated watch, it does something very pleasant somewhere in the mind. I could not resist myself to set my views on it. So here it goes…
Joel is simple, kind and introvert guy. He is alone but not lonely. He is very romantic by heart. Somehow, he comes over to one unknown station where he meets Clementine. The girl is extremely beautiful, extrovert but impulsive. She is whimsical. She is a kind of moody who changes her hair color depending on her state of the mind. She may seem slut and restless but may be this is just her shield to protect her inner sincerity, sensitivity and purity of the heart.
When they meet at the station, somehow both of them are able to find some level of comfort and intimacy while talking. It was like their meeting was the only thing left to happen. There is some strong pre-existing connection. Why?? They share this intimacy because they have been in relationship in the past but they have erased each other from their memory. What!!! Here the flashback starts…
[Flashback: Joel and Clementine are sharing happy love relationship. As they have supplementary characteristics, they complete each other. Against the massive flow named Clementine; Joel stays firm like Calm Mountain. Against uncontrolled blow named Clementine, he is like peaceful, mature but persistent tree. Then one day, they have a dispute and angry Joel scolds Clementine. In response, Impulsive Clementine reaches to one peculiar treatment center. Does this center provide counseling or psychiatric medication? Nope. It simply erases all the memories of the person that you want to forget. It is just like to run vacuum cleaner on her every memory file involving that person. So after the treatment, you will have no memory of that person. New beginning!!! You will remember everything but the past moments of that person.
Clementine has no memory of Joel now. When Joel gets one bill receipt in hand, he comes to know that Clementine has erased him from her memory. In retaliation, angry Joel also goes to the treatment center to erase Clementine from his memory. Doctor asks Joel to recollect and remember all the moments that he had spent with Clementine and he wants to forget. Scrubbing starts. One by one all the files are being erased. Each moment is disappearing. But…
…Joel realizes that whatever moments he wanted to erase from his mind; are the most beautiful moments of his life. Without those moments, there is nothing left in his past to rejoice. Suddenly he screams from his own mind to stop the erasing process. But nobody can listen to him. He is helpless. After few hours Clementine will be completed erased from his life.
Regretted Joel desperately wishes to keep at least one memory of her where the vacuum cleaner cannot reach. One memory as a priceless seed using which he can again grow his tree of love. Eraser is moving fast. Each moment of love is being destroyed. Each moment of fun is being disappeared. Each moment of mischief is being dissolved. Clementine is almost erased from his memory. But suddenly, she pauses to talk him.
Clementine: Why you have told them to erase me?
Joel: yeah... I should not have. But you erased me first. Why did you??
Clementine: oopss... Sorry… you know me. I am impulsive...
Joel: That’s why I love you…
Clementine: you try to recall such place I do not belong where you can safely hide me from the eraser guys.
[Joel tries to recall for sometime]
Joel: ohhh... I cannot remember anything without you…
And suddenly he hears crooning of Clementine about some unknown railway station……..]
*****……at which he has met Clementine before the flashback. Somehow they receive the CD of case history which contains all the information they had recorded about each other before erasing process. Finally their past gets reincarnated.
Clementine: I am not a concept, Joel. I am just a screwed up girl who’s looking for her own peace of mind. I am not perfect.
Joel: I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.
Clementine: But you will. When you will then I will get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.
Joel: okay. Whatever but I love you…
In the final scene, both of them embrace and move along with each other in the beautiful snow….
…and a song is played in the background:
“Change your heart…
Look around you…
Change your heart…
It will astound you…”
*****
Movie beautifully makes us realized that “unconditional love is the priceless asset”. I do not know how I should feel when I am in love. But the only thing I know is: I don’t love you because you possess so and so qualities. I love you because whoever you are, whatever you do, the only thing I can do to them is to love. When your eyes get wet, the only thing I can do is to wash them with my care. When your nose holds fire of anger, the only thing I can do is to rain over it with my feelings. When your lips talk unwanted things, the only thing I can do is to kiss them.
In this film, Joel says he could not find anything that he doesn’t like about her. Unconditional love strengthens him to love her imperfections too. Take any artist; be it painter, be it musician, be it sculptor or be it film-maker. They simply observe the world. They see some inadequacy in it. A painter tries to fill the colors of imagination in his painting to fill its incompleteness. A musician tries to create some synchronized beautiful rhythm to correct the distorted harmony he listens. A film-maker just portrays situations which gratify him to fill imperfections he has found in real-situations. One movie which I saw earlier, what happens in Vegas? It is beautifully said about the couple in the climax, “Individually, there are so many problems in both of them. But together, they just make a perfect couple.”
There are lots of things that I want to talk on it. But my imperfections are giving me patience to wait and to have some more progressive experience… To Milte hai ‘Break ke baad’....
DESSERT:
“Love is the answer, but while you’re waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions” – Woody Allen.
