Watching the movie 'The Lunchbox', I was drawn into a different world sans all the clutter of modern day technology. The simplicity,the sensitivity and the pure emotions in the simple story of 2 strangers who get close to each other through exchanging of letters over the lunchbox was so delightful. It made me ponder over the complications that man has imposed on himself through his own intelligence. Technology was meant to make things easier for man,but the opposite is happening right now. We are moving into a complicated, insensitive world where people just do not bother about what's happening to others and relationships are getting more and more fragile by the day.
There is a line in the movie "Most of the problems are not as bad as they seem"! What a true line this is! We find out ways to complicate every little thing and lose sleep over them. Most of the times,what we perceive as problems are just slight deviations from the routine and it's we who create a mountain out of a mole hill and create a real 'problem'. There is no substitute for simplicity, and nothing can be a problem as long as we simplify things for ourselves. There is a story of a girl who was angry with her mother for getting her tight shoes,until she saw a man with no legs! Everyone has their own set of problems, and there is no need for any of us to get bogged down by them. The real test of character is to take them in the right sense and work for solutions,rather than pondering endlessly over the problem.
The advent of mobile phones,emails,social media and the like were supposed to bring people closer. But has that been the case? The answer is a resounding 'NO'. In the past,people used to write heartfelt letters to near and dear ones, which would be preserved for many more years. Now,we have technology which delivers the mails or messages within seconds,but do these mails and messages have the same effect? People use shortened words which have shortened or no feelings, which would probably be deleted any time.In fact,we even tend to forget close ones' birthdays too,only to be reminded in Facebook! The addiction to television,phones,smartphones,internet, computer etc has created such a miserable world that people no longer have time to have a real face to face chat with their own people. The spare time will be spent on these gadgets and the like and we complain later that time runs very fast these days! It's a fact that time and tide waits for nobody and it's also true that 1 day=24 hours thousand years earlier and also thousand years later. But what matters in the end is how we utilise that time for what we intend to do every day. What was supposed to make our lives simpler has actually made it more complicated, devoid of emotions and feelings and has truly made us forget about the simple pleasures of life.
We spend so much of money to buy the 'In-things', and follow senseless trends to be recognised as a big shot in life. We tend to think of happiness in terms of material things,but are we indeed happy? Are we able to find any degree of inner peace? We scoff at or ignore the things which can make us happy most easily,but in the end,its those simple pleasures which really give us some degree of peace and contentment. What are those simple pleasures? They vary with each person; for one,it might be watching nature in its resplendent glory,watching sunrise,taking a walk in the beach; for another it might be chatting with close ones,lending a helping hand to those in need. The goal is to find out such free pleasures and indulge in them everyday for some time because happiness,peace and everything is within us. It just needs an uncomplicated mind to 'FIND' them.
The movie reinforced the concept of simplicity within me and brought out loads of positivity and brought to the fore many ignored facets of life. As the docomo ad goes, "Keep it simple,silly", that's a profound mantra for today's times. Hope we see a nicer,gentler,kinder and a simpler world to live in and our efforts should be in that direction. Mahatma Gandhi had told "Be the change you want to see in the world". Well, it first starts with every single one of us!
