A world where madness makes most sense!

        I do not know how many of you have watched the original Mad Max Trilogy. Don't worry, this isn't about me being all fanboy-y about them. But I would definitely say to any movie lover, watch them. And once you've watched them, watch the new Mad Max: Fury Road. Without batting an eyelid.

        I'm not one for subtlety, but I'm also not one to blow things out of proportion or to take them over the top. I stick to this because things normally don't make sense once they start to not consider where they should stop. But sometimes, there are exceptions. Some wonderful wonderful exceptions, which make you wonder "where was the line, anyway?" Mad Max Fury Road was one of such experiences for me.

        The movie, is simple. A bunch of people trying to hold on to their last dregs of humanity and start afresh in a world where everything is out of control and is just too cruel. The titular character is Max, a former patrolman who roams about the endless desert the movie is set it in, trying to live with his demons. And then there is the primary protagonist, Imperator Furiosa, who's trying to make good by helping a few innocent girls escape from captivity. But my favorite character in the movie would Nux, who starts off as someone chasing the good guys to bring them back into his boss' domain.

          Max, plagued by hallucinations of his murdered daughter. Furiosa, leading some strangers who she believed deserved to live better. Nux, who has been led to believe in lies all his life and has now seen through the illusion. All these people chased through ginormous sandstorms by people standing atop poles on cars being driven at breakneck speeds. If we do not think about who wins and who loses for a moment, we can appreciate the raw untamed vision of the director, George Miller. 

         I for one, was not even a little bit psyched when I saw the trailer for Fury Road. I went to the movie simply because I had nothing much to do that weekend and it was the only proper movie around I could watch. After the initial moments of the movie, I was pretty much let down, thinking "Hey!! This is not Mel Gibson's Max. He's more Mad than he is Max! Wait, that makes sense given the situations he's been through". As I sat through the rest of the movie, I enjoyed each and every frame of it immensely to the tiniest detail. Each and every scene was as grandiose as they would get, with all of them making sense to me. 

         Not even once during the movie did I think that something was blown out of proportion just for the sake of it. In this movie, everything makes absolute and complete sense! The people believing in an old man's word of "entering Valhalla", of death being the absolute glory, of them being their boss' property, that the women who were on the run "belonged" to their boss, everything! 

         The entire movie is one gigantic car chase, through raging sandstorms, flying bullets, chasing cars, exploding rock gorges, everything. At the end of the chase, the good guys reach their destination but only to find that it too had deteriorated with the rest of the world. And as anyone would, after that exhausting a chase, they break. Imperator Furiosa who in spite of being an amputee never once shows a shred of weakness through everything falls to her knees, realizing they have nowhere left to run to. But when Max shows her that there is still a tiny chance of survival, she regains her spirit. And not one bit of all this seems corny!

           In my view, the movie is one of the complete movies I've ever seen in my life. I was glad it was as insanely fun as it was. Oh, and did I mention there is a blind guy too in the movie? He is suspended off of ropes every frame of the chase, while playing a guitar that breathes fire. There is a scene in the movie where Nux looks a sandstorm big enough to engulf an entire city and probably more and says with content and genuine wonder "What a lovely day". Yes, this is how blown out of proportion this movie is. And yet, it all makes perfect sense. A perfect example of unrestricted imagination meets wonderful execution.

          This is me, sharing with you guys the spectacle that Mad Max Fury Road was. If you get the chance to watch it, do not miss even a frame of the movie.

"A world where madness makes most sense is, even if only a little bit, interesting" -Me.

What are friends for?

        If an eccentric were to explain the world, he would say its like one solution where there are particles attracted to and repelled from each other. Effective charge, valency, what have you. I, think that is indeed the best way to describe it. Circumstances define us, choices make us, experiences build us, and friends help us. 

          Today's world has turned almost everyone into a philosopher. People always have something to say. And an extension of this would be the attitude some people have towards others, be it warm and welcoming or cold and distancing. It is a given that today's world moves forward through networking. Get friends at the right places and push yourself forward through them. This, in my opinion, is both correct and wrong, as circumstances would have it. But, one has to wonder from time to time; "What if I didn't have these many friends? What if I was one of those 'I can't talk to him, he's a stranger' person?" To all those people, I will say this; your friends will find you always, even if you don't know where to look for them.

           Ever since I was a kid, I've never been able to make friends by myself. I always had something to say about the people around me, to keep myself distanced from them. If I were asked to recall the first time I went up and talked to someone all by myself, I wouldn't be able to remember such an instance. I really wouldn't. I've just made friends through the circumstances and through my friends' welcoming personalities but not through my personal efforts.

          On the very first day of my undergrad, I saw someone sitting over my desk. I instantly got ticked off and stormed up to him to give what for. Ironically, this encounter was something I would later recall as me making friends with someone. A Mr. Sebastian, who was my good classmate during 4 years of undergraduate study and a truly thick friend through the years. If I had just ignored him instead of going up to him and telling him off, I never would have gotten such a wonderful friend. 

           And thanks to him, I met a whole other bunch of people who's names if included here will turn into a long list. These guys taught me what it actually means to be the part of something. Amongst this bunch of merry maniacs, there's every kind of awesome person you'd expect to meet. I, for one, didn't think they would keep in touch after our undergrad, but truth be told, I got to know them even better after we all left college. I regret not being a better friend during our college years. Only when I was leaving college did I realize how much I would miss them all. And it was this feeling that made me realize that I finally had true friends. 

          Friends are the family you choose, as a friend told me. I for one, never gave importance to any of my friends till I reached my undergrad because I believed I could live all by myself. I thought you need reasons to be around people. I thought you had to explain to yourself why you were spending time with someone. But my friends made me realize something important. Being self sufficient is a respectable notion indeed, but there is nothing as fun as sharing your time with good people. To all the introverts and egoists like me out there who think they don't need anyone, you're wrong. You don't have friends because you need them. You have friends because they're people who can appreciate you. 

         Sebastian, Raghavendra, Rupesh, Rushika, Shravan, Siddharth, Shruti and Shruti, Shreya, Supro and Doha, I cannot express how much you guys mean to me. I wish you guys nothing but the best. I'm grateful for how you guys were so welcoming towards this kid and have been such a treasure to me.