HIGHWAY
‘Highway’ – the Feb’ 2014 released movie, it surely did real good business, grabbed an enviable number of positives critique and definitely gave a lot to Alia Bhatt to flaunt in her ‘profile’, as we engineers term it.
For me, it was one of the rarest (read ‘mahaa-rarest’) movies for which I dragged myself in front of the silver screen and surprisingly there was a will to it. Not sure if A R Rahman’s music alone could entice that fervor in me or it was the curiosity to watch something that pretentiously felt different, but then every other nowadays claims to be ‘different’. Anyways whatever caused me move, the crux is that I watched the movie and was real impressed; so much that this idea of blogging it down could be dumped in hindsight for the entire weekend… and here I am.
So first of all, why am I scribbling things here? People with much more knowledge on such aspects have already given their word, the songs on the script and allied opinions are already up in the air. So what’s new..? shall I just say that I loved this movie and was left with goose bumps and a lingering state-of-mind is what’s making me spend so much for a movie (read ‘the pettiest mode of killing time, esp. when its Bollywood’).
Well, the entire focus is on the last part of my question… ‘A lingering state-of-mind’. It can be a very subjective interpretation of the entire plot, but this is a rendezvous with my thought on the movie and what really made me cling to it.
The movie starts with a blurred shoot of some wedding’s preparation. Then the bride fleeting (first thought: she’s absconding for the love of her life ‘usual B-crap... I want to run’; second ‘more Anglicized and intelligent’ one: she’s out with her fiancée… true!!! Wow!!), she gets kidnapped, then an all India (for those whose India is confined to NCR-Gurgaon-Shimla-Kashmir + pinch of Punjab) tour, some love-shuv budding, merry-go-round tale and dhaashh… the hero is shot dead (that’s an upbeat novelty in B-crap books), then Alia goes ferocious to her family and some business… some details missed/skipped, but ultimately it gives mixed feelings to the viewers.
Now I might be crazy to the way I mapped it and took this concept to an entirely new plane.
First shot, amazing Himachal Pradesh (some pass, I don’t really know) that reminded me of my native, I’m deeply in love with. Then my passion for the lens’ version of imagery, all plaudits in the first minute itself. Later, as the story progressed, I found it reverberating with our course of existence (mine for sure). This is how it is right… We have a few things, but then it’s always something else that we covet for. Something different, something we hadn’t had access to. That’s the race. But not everything happens under the school of obedience. We desire for something, possibly we go ahead to attain that; might even find it fulfilling and the next moment the fairy tale is all shattered and skittered. A sense of fright, despair, helplessness overwhelms us. We may feel doomed for some span, probably just want to get rid of all of it and actually want to get back to the usual existence we were running away from (if not defying absolutely). But there comes a time when we do realize is way back is not a choice we have. In that despair, in the weariness of fighting against one’s own existence, steadily we start getting accustomed to all of it. That’s how it is. Many a times, we don’t really give up; it’s just that revelation that there’ no point crying for the bygone than to ‘move on’ and we start carving out better prospects in the contextual present. We start mingling with persons and situations we didn’t even found worthy enough to give a side glance, let alone a face-off. And there also comes a time when we get comfortable amidst the newly found haven. We start building our future trajectories from the present itself; howsoever deviated it may be from our pre-postulated trajectory. We start living in that moment, feeling the vibes of that instance, collaborating and even synergizing with the participants of that moment. Progressing on the same lines we start moving towards our newly found trajectories and even assimilate in ourselves the exuberance of the ambient and our accomplishments in those settings. Now as everything else evolves, so does our definition of accomplishments. But again, life hasn’t been to the school of obedience, for sure. Never would it follow a predictable route. That’ll be too silky to be called ‘life’. One more momentous happening and things may change in entirety of their very existence. We may be pulled back to our ‘usual course’, which has lost its normalcy way back in time. Now that part and parcel of our existence, doesn’t even defines our very being. Probably it’s meant to be a journey and we evolve way too forward from our niche point. Those same characteristics which defined our very existence, the significance of their presence itself become questioned. Obviously many-a-things remain etched I our medullar canvas for long, and some eternally as well, forming a part of our experience, the guideline to our thought process and also the lamps to guide our way through the forthcoming.
That was an interpretation of ‘my plane’, and the takeaway here was that it is our take on designing the trajectory which defines the very appearance of our existence. Evolutionism is critical. It does not imply instability or fickle-mindedness but a strong head to an open-minded tank. Provided the head should be strong enough in following its perceptions that it had in each level. That’s what intrigued me about the movie.
This lengthy proposal of my opinion might be more elaborate than required, more subjective than anybody else understands, but this is what brings a difference of interpretation when too many minds bog on the same toy. I guess that’s why they emphasize ‘entitlement to one’s opinion’.
