Cast Away

I am not sure about the exact date but i saw this film 5 years ago not intentionally though. There was this contest in our college organized by our department for being the best person with quick wit and communication skills. It was called "vibr(e)ance". Till now i don't have a clue what it means. Anyway i happened to be in that team that conducts the contest and i was picking up video clips for a round thats when i was showed this movie. My senior was a marwari who pronounced "porumai"(patience) as "poramai"(envy). As an english film buff, he forgot his actual work and sat through the entire movie unknowingly forcing me to watch the movie as well. Most of the time i didn't cared about the dialogues(monologues most of the time) and paid enough attention to understand the plot alone.

Next time i saw the movie some 4 months ago. The second time i was actually watching the movie. Enjoyed the movie, acknowledged Hanks' great acting skills, amazed about the product placement marketing skills and went to sleep.

Today i saw the same movie for the third time. Only this time, this time i travelled along Tom Hanks. Whenever he spoke with Wilson, i was hearing on its behalf. Why this sudden attachment with the film and sympathy towards the character?
Turns out, it is not sympathy but empathy. In a way i have been cast away for 2 months now. Yes, there are lot of differences between Hanks and me in terms of plight we face but there are lots of similarities too.

He had no one to speak except Wilson which is ofcourse delusional. Yes, i have people to speak here. Hotel waitresses, receptionist, cab driver. I see them daily, smile at them and ignore them the same way thing they do with me. You might point out there are office people. Yes, there are many. I speak with them daily about what SCTE18, ISO/IEC 13818-6, ETSI EN 301 192, ETSI TR 101 202, CCIF etc etc. You call this speaking? I do talk to my family twice weekly. Still there are lots of time when i am alone having nobody to speak nobody in sight infact. I wish i could say that my laptop is my Wilson but i am not that desparate as Hanks' character.

He had to find food so am i. Yes i have all the dollars to buy food in indian restaurants in El Camino Real. I tried few times eating out but how many times should i have to go alone. I never cared to know what my mother does before she brings the hot food. Anyway necessity made me to take up utensils. After the first week, the cooking enthusiasm died out. So, stopped cooking vegetables or should i say stopped trying to cook. I had bought ready-made mixes, chips and eggs. i guess the bachelor boy going to america is a big business for all those MTRs and Ruchis. This has been my food for almost 2 months now. Every time tom hanks catches a fish or tries to fry something, i saw me preparing a rasam or boiling rice. When he sees the desert isle theme party, he shows little interest just like i got used to my same set of food items. It's not hate for the food but the sigh of the monotony.

On returning home, Hanks finds certain things changed from what he expected. Mostly things that he cared. While it is too early to say that i would feel the same because my trip to home is still 2 weeks away, i know for sure atleast chennai would have few new one-ways and traffice diversions.

Well you may accuse me of making storm out of a whistle. The emotion might be small when compared to a cast away but feeling lost is still significant enough to ponder. If just a 2-3 months of being away makes me write this post, i really don't know how am i am going to cope with my wannabe expatriate dream. But there is always hope that everything would fall into place and there would be some wind to guide us to the place where we want to go.
"I've got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow, the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"