Men, Women and Life in General

The Shawshank Redemption is about Andy Dufresne, an investment banker who is wrongly implicated in his infidel wife's murder, and is sent to the Shawshank Penitentiary in Maine. And how he comes to terms with his destiny. Realising he has a lot of time in his hands, he starts to occupy himself in a variety of things to keep busy. He begins to make himself a chess set carving the rocks with a jack hammer, gets the prison library into order, writes letters every week to request the authorities to provide an allowance to enhance the library, and begins to teach English. But mainly, he helps the jailors evade some tax, and makes the warden a cool wad of money, by handling his financial deals. Until one day, his English student reveals to him the truth of a lifetime.

Forrest Gump is all about man's achievement. It's about how Forrest, a crippled child, realises his strength and takes life head on. He gains his legs back, and runs like a man possessed. His running earns him a place in college, and he gets his degree by playing football all through college. He gets into the army, and goes to the Vietnam. He meets Bubba, from whom he learns all there is to the shrimp business. During the war, he also learns to play ping-pong and gets selected to the national team. He returns from the Nam with a Medal of Honor, and sets up the shrimp business to keep the promise made to his dead friend Bubba, and makes a big fortune out of it. With nothing left to do, he does what he does best - running. He runs all over the country for three years, and finally says, "I'm pretty tired now, I think I will go home."

I can't but draw comparisons between these two movies. Both are superlative, and hold your attention from the start till the end. While The Shawshank Redemption is all about patience, and willpower, Forrest Gump is about humility and simplicity. While Andy comes across as an extremely willed person, with a sound mind to draw a long term plan, and has the patience to implement it, Forrest is your local village simpleton. Yet both are ingrained with an exemplary zest for life. Both have good mentors, Andy in Red, and Forrest in his mother.

Both movies have beautiful lines which sum up the gist of life in the most marvellous manner ever, and mould your attitude towards life. The Shawshank Redemption - "Get busy living, or get busy dying." and Forrest Gump - "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get."

The Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair is about the life of a single middle-aged woman, and her pathos. Ladies Coupe reads like One Night at the Call Center, where four-five stories are woven around a central character. Akhila is your typical Tam-Bram lady, and the story begins as she enters a train to escape from her dreary life of being a daughter, a sister, an aunt and basically the provider for a family where she has no existence of her own, where she has no one to ask her about HER welfare.

As she sits in the coupe, she meets other passengers in her compartment, and delves into their lives, and realises everyone has problems, and viewpoints of looking at them. She meets an aged lady, who thinks that the happiness of a woman lies in the happiness of her husband and family; a middle-aged teacher, who overwhelmed by her husband's self-importance and lack of affection for her, seeks revenge by feeding him and making him an obese glutton, thereby making him lose his self-respect and come back to her; another lady who was the embodiment of the perfect orthodox daughter and wife, until her husband takes her ona trip abroad, and she realises what she was missing out on; a fourteen year old, who perceives what her parents cannot, and does things that others consider sacrilege; and finally, a house-maid, whose life is a pathetic kaleidoscope of poverty, unwed pregnancy, lesbianism and bisexuality.

All this is beautifully woven against Akhila's own life, her father's death at an early age, her being the 'man' of the family, and the parasitic attachment of her sister's family to her money. The story travels deep into her own life, bringing out her strengths and her realisation of her wants. The book does not give any answers, but leaves you with Akhila at her hotel, where you stand with her, having been a spectator to her whole life, as she looks out into the sea.

After the two movies and the book, I strangely feel, Akhila would have enjoyed watching The Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump, as she broods on her own life. Life, indeed is a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get, but you have to move on - either getting busy living, or getting busy dying.