Invictus

I had heard the name, and knew Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon were in it, but beyond that, I hadn't cared to know much about it. I rarely get to watch movies these days, in spite of subscribing to Netflix (both online AND via a Roku player I bought) which has essentially become a monthly donation to them.

So when this movie started playing on one of my flights last week, I reluctantly switched my headphone connection from iPod to the armrest port and started watching. I wasn't too keen on it anyway -- it mostly served as noise-canceler as I tried to read a book over the screams of kids and loud adults around. But I did catch a recurring reference to an old English poem that continued to linger in my mind long after I disembarked. And then the question hit me! Where did the movie's title come from?

It is from this poem, written in 1875, by William E. Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

It is never too late to find inspiration. And it's never too much.

Mothers know best how to protect... against all odds!

Does this need a title?

With all the recent goings on -- busier work schedule, travels, etc., etc., the best I can come up with, once in several weeks, is nothing but a ragged patch of disconnected thoughts and observations. Darn! It is hard to write once you lose touch, especially if all you write day in and day out is code, proposals, estimates, project plans, and emails. And an occasional shopping list that never gets looked up.

Thankfully, I can still read. Though not as much as I used to. I read Lajja recently. It was long pending but I ended up not liking it. Found the style very immature. Maybe it was the translation that did it in. Still, I fail to understand why the author was taken so seriously recently in Karnataka where people ended up killing each other over something she was supposed to have said.

***

What is worse than getting stuck in the middle seat between two men on a long flight? Of course, getting stuck in the middle seat between two women on a long flight! No wiggle room whatsoever, and you can't even nap fearing you might sway a bit too far like a drunk and embarrass yourself!

But then, you can't always help it. I couldn't on Monday.

A hefty lady to my right. She wouldn't even let me imagine that we had an armrest between us. And she closed the windows even before the plane took off cutting me off totally from the outside world and thereby depriving me of the joy of seeing sunset from 30000 feet.

To my left, a skinny woman who busily worked away in her notepad calculating some strange numbers -- tens of thousands of dollars per week. Wonder what business she was in.

And me, with my skinny book, sitting like an overwhelmed school kid. And Pandit Jasraj singing my favorite Todi variations into my ears to help me forget the discomfort.

I was hardly 3 rows from the door. So as soon as the doors closed, I started looking around for an empty aisle seat, and I didn't have to look far. The 3-seater row to my left had an empty window seat with the other two occupied by a young Chinese couple. The guy then moved to the window seat, leaving the aisle seat vacant. Perfect. And as I was eyeing that seat, the guy noticed me and in one quick perfect move, asked the girl to move to the aisle seat leaving the middle seat vacant. What a disaster! I resigned myself to my fate, and settled down uncomfortably into my seat. But I couldn't help notice, albeit grudgingly, that the young couple flew the entire flight sitting a seat apart! It was as if they were saying "We would rather keep a small distance between us than allow a stranger invade our privacy." Fair enough!

***

I have seen women cry for all kinds of reasons, "absolutely no reason" being one of the more common. However, I had never seen a woman cry watching a movie on a plane! The skinny lady who was working some crazy numbers before the movie started got so absorbed in the movie that at the end, as Leo Tolstoy was dying, broke into uncontrollable tears that wouldn't stop even a good ten minutes after the movie ended! I just couldn't believe that somebody could cry in public while watching "The Last Station"! Sure, it was a good movie with some great performance by Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer, but still....cry?

I guess this lady has never seen a bollywood movie!