Suckerpunch..

May angels rest beside your door, 

May you hear their voices sing. 

May you feel their loving care for you, 

May you hear their peace bells ring. 

May angels always care for you, 

and not let you trip and fall, 

May they bear you up on angel's wings, 

May they keep you standing tall. 

May they whisper wisdom in your ear, 

May they touch you when you need, 

May they remove from you each trace of fear, 

and May they keep you from feeling greed. 

May they fill you with their presence, 

May they show you love untold, 

May they always stand beside you 

and make you ever bold. 

May they teach you what you need to know 

about life here and here-after

May they fill you always with their love 

and give you the gift of laughter…  

                                                  

                                     *****

Who is an angel?  


How do I recognize angel?

When I just thought of these questions, this wonderful poem which I read long back by some“unknown” (angel???) suddenly popped up in my mind. Let’s just put the question “who” apart. Let’s just take “how”. Since childhood, due to a “family ritual” of night story telling by guardian, somewhere around in our subconscious, a picture of our angel (might be hazy) is developed in our mind and as we grow we paint them with different colors of properties/characteristics on it like “Angel will give all the happiness to us”, “angel will take away all sorrows from our life”, “Angel will bless us with the way when we call them”. But how do we recognize angel? They come in any form, any shape and anytime, anywhere. Everyone meets angels daily. So many people might have experienced a crucial call (in a highly crisis situation) from an “unexpected” person who comes over as an ‘angel’ to rescue for financial help. Sometimes at the cricket stadium when IPL ticket is lost, some security guy as an angel restlessly rushes to you to handover your lost ticket. When you are about to get engaged, your friend becomes an angel to bring your engagement ring you have forgotten at home. When you misplace your purse/tie while going office, your wife is your “everyday angel”. Sometimes you are tangled up with your creative design/writing; a small cute girl playing around near you; becomes an angel (by the way, all kids are “certified” angels from God) and shows you much simpler solution/way. Sometimes angels do come in the form of an evil or a monster; sometimes they just come so harshly in the form of challenging situations. Sometimes adverse situations or worst realities become an angel to remind us that “We hold the power to control the world we create”; to remind us about our true power, our true form, the true self. 

When worst circumstances are to be faced, when worst situations are to be fought; when screwed up reality is to come over, our eyes just simply close for a while and which eventually ignites the power of imagination inside, then you start dreaming about happy events, favorable circumstances, situations you like, situations you control. Yes, this is the world you create; yes this is the world you can control because it is all yours. In our ancient Vedas, our rishis also teach the same that “Go inside; you will find all the answers.”  Reality is just not enough; it simply makes us institutionalized (Refer The Shawshank Redemption for the manifestation of 'institutionalized'). It forces us to think “JUST LOGICALLY”. (A bit of craziness or stupidity is necessary to have an exceptional pleasant change from monotonous boring logical reality). To unlock reality, God has given us a key of imagination, power of conscience; intuition. Open the eyes of the mind and run the super power horses of imagination in the direction you like because you are the master of it, you are the rich owner of it.

                                                   *****

With the tagline of 'Reality is prison' one of the most unique and multi-metaphoric movie came very recently which I unfortunately missed for theatre watch; Sucker Punch from a brilliant and maverick film-maker, Zack Snyder (Remember, a brilliant power packed, 300???).  This guy is just exceptionally amazing. As a gaming freak (used to be), the first thing caught me that he has created a big screen multi-layered video game in the form of an Imax cinema in which some hostage girls use weapons of Indian philosophy and power of imagination to escape from their hell-like reality (Congratulations!!!; again discovery of India is rediscovered by US and gifted back to us with the tag:Made in USA. Actually it is a sucker punch from Hollywood on the face of some of our shallow Indian film makers [of course with some pleasant and respected exceptions]…).

A cute teenage, Baby doll is sent to a mental treatment center on the allegations (false obviously) of sister’s murder. She sees so many girls like her trapped there. Trapped?? Yes. Because this center called 'Lennox House' is just a false curtain, behind which those authorities run a billion-dollar business of sex and striptease under the monitoring of owner named, Blue. Here Snyder has smartly and extra-ordinarily portrayed the stage of girls’ mental treatment center with the backdrop of porn industry by showing all the girls in school-dresses (Which are the most popular outfits in porn industry). He has brilliantly shown so many fantastic relevant metaphors like: Music played in the Lennox house is the metaphor of distraction for the people outside and intoxication of drugs, cocaine and heroines for innocent girls forcefully trapped inside the hell of sex industry. Dance is used as the metaphor of sex and striptease. Tired of observing and facing all these bitter realities; Baby doll creates her own imaginary world to escape from this hell. But she can’t accomplish it all alone. There are other girls also who join her in this redemption plan. One of them is: Sweet pea, who is just as normal as other girls but is voluntarily trapped here to rescue her sister (Rocket). Altogether, mission redemption starts:

Baby doll in her imaginary world (where she is the super woman and controls her world) goes to a guardian (read: her Subconscious/Conscience) to seek a guidance for how to rescue. Guardian (again remember, her conscience) tells that she would need 5 weapons in this escape mission: Map, Fire, Knife, Key and XXX (5th one, which remains mystery and which can only be revealed by her, no one else). Here also, map is used as the metaphor of path (path of life), Fire as the metaphor of 'Light' on the path (read inspiration/motivation), Knife as the metaphor of values, ethics; skills which are our strengths to fight and take appropriate decisions in any damn situation. And finally Key as the metaphor of 'effort' ('sincere' effort), a final shot; a final knock at the door of destiny. Finally Baby doll reaches at the door of redemption with Sweet pea (the only other survived girl) using these 4 weapons. When they finally come out of the premise, she sees some security guards. If they are caught by them, they will be dead for sure just as other girls were shot during escape. Only one of them can escape from it. Now there is a choice between her life and the life of Sweet pea. She pauses for a while, remembers what guardian said and wonders where the 5th weapon is? As guardian told; the 5th weapon is the secret which will only be revealed by her. She realizes that 5th weapon is nothing but she, herself. How??? She realizes that, this is not her story; this is the story of Sweet pea. Baby doll now realizes that she wanted to escape just for herself while Sweet pea had voluntarily accepted this prison-life just to save her sister. Sweet pea was suffering in that hell just to rescue her sister, who is now dead. Sweet pea should be the one who needs to be escaped. Wow!!!The moment of self-realization!!! The rediscovery of lost self!!! So just like the main protagonist of the drama goes into the background; takes the back seat and supportive character becomes the center of the story, Baby doll asks Sweet pea to escape alone. Does freedom mean that we have to be free from ‘deed’? Nope, it’s not possible. We just have to be free from the feeling of ‘doer’ of that action. (Again: a metaphoric reference from ‘Shrimad Bhagwad Gita’). She realizes that this redemption fight was not for her own escape but she was just the cause (omen) for the rescue of Sweet pea. Bravo!!! She distracts the security guards and finally Sweet pea successfully escapes. What happened to Baby doll??? She has got the emancipation of her life, her destiny, her true freedom.

In the end, relieved Sweet pea finally catches the bus towards her home and asks:

Who honors those we love, the life we live?

Who sends monsters to kill us and at the same time sings that ‘we will never die’?

Who teaches us what’s real and how to laugh at lies?

Who changes us?

Who holds the key that can set us free?

And movie concludes with the simplest (and the only) answer of all the complex questions in the universe:YOU…

You have got all the weapons you need…

NOW... FIGHT !!!

DESSERT:

' If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.'

                                  --- A powerful punch line from Sucker Punch.