There is a certain pleasure in watching a movie first-day -first-show. All the more if the gamble pays off. Which it did, with Dangal. Here is what I learnt. Always difficult to write this without giving the story away. But in the spirit of the movie, lets strive to do the difficult.
1. FATHER’S LOVE IS NO LESS
A mother is for loving and nurturing; a father is for guidance and growth. A mother is unconditional in her heart and unconditional in her behaviour. A father is unconditional in his heart but has to be conditional in his behaviour. A mother could have it relatively easy, her love is the soft love. A father has it relatively difficult, his love is the tough love.
A mother will often flow with you however you are; a father will be relentless until he helps you become your best possible version. When the kids are younger, these roles are often reversed but what nevertheless remains is that one of the two plays the role of guidance and growth and another holds the opposite polarity of ease and acceptance.
2. PARENTS’ AMBITION COULD BECOME A BLESSING
Quite often, the unfulfilled dreams of parents can become a big burden for the kids. Parents spend their entire lives trying to live through the achievement of their kids. And kids live their entire lives trying to redeem their parents. This can become toxic. However that which could be a curse can also become a blessing.
If the parents inspire with tough love and then back it up with soft love, the parents inspiration could lead to a fulfilling successful life for the child. It requires a lot of maturity on part of the parent to inspire without insisting and on the part of the child to see love in parent’s suggestions, decisions and sometimes even impositions. Families can fall apart if one of the parties lacks this maturity and families can bind deeper if both display such maturity.
3. LOVE ALWAYS WINS
Love is capable of outliving all friction if both parties give love a chance, time and again. Harmonising opposite preferences is never a cake-walk but it is an invitation to come up with one of the most profound relationships if two people with opposite world-views can come together and co-create something which is more than the sum of its parts. Without love, disturbances stand no chance to get reconciled. With deep love, disturbances stand no chance to sustain themselves. It requires deep love to make the other important, and when the other is important, the self can become less important.
4. DISCOMFORT STRENGTHENS, COMFORT WEAKENS
Even gold needs to go through fire to purify itself to its highest standards. One needs to often go through relentless disciplines to become one’s highest self. Comforts and relaxations can take away your sharpness; rigour and hard-work will keep it alive.
5. STICK TO THE BASICS
Nothing like the basics. We tend to discard tradition simply because its tradition. Tradition has perhaps thwarted our lives to a point where we have pendulated to the opposite end of the spectrum and become unconscious rebels. But the fact remains that the new age – with all its flash and dazzle – can attract us but only the age-old principles can redeem us. That which has been around forever is not from past times, its actually timeless. True tradition never comes from a past era, it always comes from a space that is beyond time.
