Seeing is believing?

Ankhon Dekhi (Seeing through own eyes, Hindi; 2014)

Written, Directed and Supporting Actor: Rajat Kapoor.

On one end, we are told not to accept everything related to us without prior investigations. We have been thought to sieve, evaluate, ponder, perambulate and scrutinise thoroughly before believing anything to be true.  Even then, sometimes, our senses deceive us. Seeing is believing, they say, but in the same breath, they say the world is an illusion, Maya, a mirage: so many names. 

On the other end, we are also cautioned that specific unwritten rules cannot or should not be questioned. This includes queries on divinity, scriptures and belief systems. They have a name for it, blasphemy, and the punishment does not look pretty.

It is said that we only use 10% of our brain. Like much of our chromosomal loci which remain dormant, so is our brain. Would we be at a different level of civilisation if we were to utilise the remaining unused part of the mind? Or perhaps we would just be more creative in annihilating each other? Just to recapitulate, serial killers and psychopaths have extremely high IQs.

A 50-something-year-old man, Babuji, is going through an existential crisis of sorts. After discovering that his daughter's boyfriend is not as much a loafer as everyone describes him to be, Babuji takes a vow to also see things from his perspective; no more listening to hearsay. The problem is that he took the whole idea to the limit. He was sacked from his job at a travel agency when he refused to promote tourists' destinations as he had never seen them. Babuji quit his job as he thought it was based on a lie. Just lying around the house, jobless created friction with his younger brother who decided to move out.

His new outlook also helped Babuji to look at things from another angle. He appreciated things after a first-hand experience and expanded his knowledge in making money in a poker game. His one lifelong ambition was to experience the joy flying like a bird, to feel the cold gush of wind cutting through his bare skin as he scaled down a height in the free skies. But, as they say, be careful of what you wish for.

The character in the film reminded me of a sad incident that unfortunately happened to a friend's son. With the ease of access to knowledge to the studies of the occult and realms of the unknown, the curious young man thought that cyberspace was God sent. Exploring into readily available articles online, he delved deeper and deeper into secrets of life and Consciousness. He soon went in-depth to examine questions of Death. He was recruited (it was proposed later on) into a cult which wanted to experience Death. It was later discovered that he succumbed to smothering in a freak accident as he was performing experiments inducing asphyxia with a plastic bag. Sometimes, one wonders whether the human mind is capable of dealing with the Truths of the Universe. Are some things better left unanswered?

An entertaining movie minus the usual clutter that is often seen in most mainstream movies.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.