“Are you paying attention? Good. If you’re not reading carefully, you will miss things, important things. I will not pause, I will not repeat myself and you will not let anyone interrupt you!” Wondering about the relevance of the text? Well, don’t worry! It was just a sleazy attempt of mine to provide my wannabe hit blog a beginning imitated from an already super-hit movie “The Imitation Game”.
The tail-end part of the year 2014 saw two biographical movies making their way onto the global box office and then cruising ahead to gain nothing less but getting nominated for the Oscars which are poised to be held in January, 2015. The first to release was “The Theory of Everything” depicting the tortuous journey of one of the most celebrated scientists of the contemporary world- Stephen Hawking. Second to release was “The Imitation Game” portraying the wonders done by Alan Turing and the lesser known tragic end of his life.
I suppose that many of my readers would have also watched both these films given their ratings, fame and backdrop, but unlike most of you, I gave a thought to both the movies. Obviously, I don’t do it after every movie but then these weren’t some slapstick comedies or cupid-stricken romantic movies, but movies based on true events, movies that stand every chance of inspiring their watchers. Point is that I managed to figure out some things which we can learn from these two exemplars of cinematic art and they are as follows:
1.The maxim: “There’s always a woman behind a successful man” turns out to be true: Whether it be Jane Hawking(played by Felicity Jones) and her determination to keep Stephen alive and to be her aide for nearly 30 years or Joan Clarke(played by Keira Knightley) and her savoir faire that inspired Alan Turing to keep going on the right path, the fact that none of the two great humans, without the support of their better halves, could be as successful as we know today is very resplendent.
2.Homosexuality is no taboo and rather a natural phenomena: Alan Turing, apart from his contribution in the field of computers and automated machines, did break Enigma, the German code during WWII, an act which substantially led to the reduction of tenure of the war by about 2 years and hence saved approximately 14 Million lives. But just because he was a homosexual, he was conferred with a grave punishment of chemically castrating himself. Eventually, the man who turned the table in favor of England was pushed towards a situation so traumatic that he committed suicide! I think it’s time that we scrap archaic laws like that of Article 370 in our country too.
3.Time to make Bollywood movies on unsung Indian heroes: Just as I, being an Indian, am all-praise for two deserving British scientists, isn’t it possible that citizens of other countries might write about Indian innovators and recognize their achievements if their lives are portrayed beautifully in the form of Bollywood movies? Also, how much is it that we know about our countrymen’s inventions?
4. Age no bar: Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking are both examples of how neither old age nor an age less than even 25 years can bar someone from making seminal breakthroughs. While Alan Turing was only 23 years old when he first published papers on his invention- The Universal Turing Machine, Stephen Hawking also continues to draw ground-breaking conclusions on topics related to Time and Universe at an age of 73 and that too in a handicapped condition.
A final inference which can be drawn from the lives of these two legends is that it has been proven yet again that peculiarity and only an outside of the box thinking makes a person immortal. Despite the hatred they received on account of being different, they kept faith in themselves and continued treading the path of unprecedented success. My argument can be firmly endorsed by a dialogue of the movie The Imitation Game: “Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”
