Unseen, Untold, Uncreated

This impromptu post emerged out of a conversation with my dear friend, filmmaker and writer Ritwik Goswami. His latest offering "Fade To Black," led me to think about all those  metaphorical films that are lurking in dark spaces, in some state of gestation. As negatives(yes I used that word deliberately) in an archive,  as scripts in a file, as lives yet to be chronicled, all waiting to be brought to to light. We can connect at some level to these unmade films in our own lives.

"Fade To Black" uses the constraints the creator worked under - ten minutes viewing time and 48 hours to create the complete film - to open the audience to those untold stories and films-in-waiting. For me at least, its real strength lay in that.

This ten minute film has left powerful spaces where stories lurk - written and unwritten. The stories of so many kids who don't remain in this world to tell them in person. They reveal themselves differently to each of us and we are left to relate to them and unravel them. 

The film is a reminder to me all over again, that when we are gone, a huge part of us remains that will never be known to ourselves or to anybody. Unless it is through these connections in the stories of others. 

Azaan's was a life unlived. So many possibilities of what could have been. Yet so many possibilities of what it could still be in other lives. Not sure what the title stood for in the mind of the film maker but to me it affirmed that it's darkest before the dawn, that we can "mine the darkness" and illuminate the future ...

Watch the movie and find out for yourselves. You will recognize that the stories - told and untold - are our own.

Note: Film has Queer Content

There is so much more I could say but I don't want to give away anything.

Footnote: A Director's Cut would be welcome. Not to speak of "The Making Of"

And just adding that the viewer can fill in the "nuances" :)

Don't Stop Believing ...

The elephants that paid their respects to their savior on the first anniversary of his passing triggered this post.

Picture courtesy BBC One, color altered

"A herd of elephants stayed in silence for two days after the death of Lawrence Anthony – the man who saved them. Exactly one year after his death, to the day, the herd marched to his house again. It is something that science cannot explain."

Science is a journey, ever evolving.
As we are.

My favorite phrase from the  Corinthians, "Faith, hope and love" came circling back to me as it does periodically bearing new meanings like gifts. What these elephants felt was love.  And what my friend Ted revealed in his comment under  the elephant post shared on my timeline was love!
"I actually do love things like this that science can't explain!"
But it was also a lightbulb that illuminated a fresh doorway into the Corinthians and their oft-quoted triad.
Within those three, love had the edge: "The greatest of them all is love."
Love makes the magical connection between beings, between unlikely entities.
The how, the why and wherefore, fall into place in their own time. Faith gives us the hope that we will understand someday, what we don't today but accept all the same.
Maybe in our lifetime, maybe not. Nothing is set in stone. I for one, believe science will evolve to the point of explaining this.

Which brings me to a another insight that flashed out of my head in response to a heated and none too civil conversation on another Facebook Post and wrote itself on my wall:
"Between the post and the comments lay the truth."
"What is truth?" asked Jesting Pilate eons ago. The answer comes from my friend Neelima :
"In between lies a hidden tapestry of imagination....Each finds his own meaning."
There are no limits on the imagination. What imagination believes today, science will "prove" along the way.

This post is for my "thinking cap," Bharat Sharma(I'm sure you got that from the title). I enjoy the challenge of bridging your point of view and mine!