Off late, or maybe its an exponential function of getting older, I've begun to see more shades of gray in our lives. Not to mention I have a huge trouble differentiating between greens and grays ( I think I am colourblind), but that again, is digression.
The grays I am talking about are absolutely divergent from the simple problems as we used to face. much like the transition from 11th standard's finding forces of friction between two cubes, to finding the forces of friction between all bodies in a moving cycle.
Earlier it was so simple to point the good vs the evil. God Ram was good, Ravan was evil! it was simple. But then IBN live ran a story saying that in south India, some people actually worshiped Ravan and thought Ram was evil! Even that could have passed off as an exception, if it wasn't for a wiki article on Indo-china war in 1965. Before that, as most Indians, I thought that the fault was all Chinese. After reading that article, it wasn't clear who was wrong. Chinese, according to that article, were just trying to protect their territory. Whose fault was it then?
Then I watched Devdas (new one, again). Obviously the hero in the movie, Devdas, was loved by everyone. Poor guy, because of the pain he went through because of Paro leaving him or his father punishing him for everything, he got into drinking problems. Although otherwise a drunkard is considered bad, in this case Devdas won all the sympathy because we all 'knew' why he became a drunkard. So then, something becomes despicable only when we judge the act. But as soon as we get to know the reason behind the act, the whole picture turns itself on head, and the character become a hero of a Rs. 30 crore plus movie.
There was this character in this movie. That of Devdas's bhabhi (sister in law). She comes out in a very sinister portrayal. But I now think that was because the movie doesn't get into the details of her character. If Devdas had his reasons for turning into a drunkard, she must have hers for turning into a bitch. Maybe if those reasons were shown in the movie (like a disturbed childhood, early rape or whatever is heart wrenching enough), we might not have considered her evil. Assuming her part of story was shown and we looked at her with the same sympathy as Devdas, who was responsible for all the fracas? Whose fault was it anyway?
I think the point that comes out is that there are so many shades of gray that I am bound to get confused in between them (and I almost thought I was colourblind :P) Most of the people in the world are living in the various shades of gray. Let's be a little more careful the next time we point are fingers 'knowing' whose fault it actually was after all.
