So,
I was watching Bajirao Mastani last weekend and just when I was about to doze
off, as the climax approached, the last scene of the movie really connected
with me. Now, before some of you start to defend the movie, let me just clear
the air by saying that I am not going to write a review of the movie. This
article is not about that. I respect your opinions if you liked the movie (I am
not intolerant, you see?) and agree with you if you think a 30 minute story was
over-stretched into a 2 and half hour movie. So, let’s get to the point, shall
we? Warning: Spoiler alert!
In the last scene, the sick Bajirao runs
in the river (I think Godavari) on seeing a cavalry approaching to kill him.
The horses are running on water like it’s a small puddle and suddenly there are
even flaming arrows coming from the skies. Bajirao is hit by a few of them and
they light fire on water. He is also cut with swords by the men on horses. It’s
real, quite real for him. He has in his hand his metallic belt like sword
swaying and is fighting the cavalry but in vain. His attacks have no effect on
neither the horses nor the men sitting on them. He swings his weapon on one of
the enemies and the horse just passes through to an unclear destination, like
the warrior in the river didn’t exist. Bajirao tries to fight and avoid the
flaming arrows but they hit him but don’t really hurt him. He stops swinging
after a while. At a distance, his wife, Kashi, looks at her husband swinging
his sword madly at an invisible object. The whole world is peaceful except her
husband. Bajirao soon realises the truth and the cavalry disappears. The arrows
and the fire on the river disappear too. Bajirao is laughing. He is laughing as
crazily as he was swinging his sword at, well, nothing. He’s realised the truth
and that how crazy he was before. He is liberated and quite literally soon after,
from life. Wouldn’t you feel liberated too? What if the job that you hate so
much but have to do it every day, was a hallucination? Would this knowledge
liberate you? What if the fact that your father doesn’t understand you, is just
a hallucination you’ve been making real? What if your financial problems were a
hallucination? What if that nagging girlfriend was a hallucination or that
insecure boyfriend was? Not only your problems, the good stuff in life can be a
hallucination too. That iphone worth almost half a lac (50,000), your dream house, your
bank balance, the care free life that you enjoy, it’s all a hallucination.
So why is it a hallucination? Feels
pretty real, doesn’t it? It feels real to everybody else too, so how is it a
hallucination? The answer to this is in the question, what’s real? Nothing is real. Nothing is absence of everything. I know it’s a basic definition
and there’s nothing epiphany-like in it but have we really tried to understand
this definition? Do you know when you get nothing? Alright, I’ll give you
nothing right now. You ready? Just imagine this and go slow. The chair or bed
that you’re sitting on isn’t there. There’s no table either. There are no walls
around you. The clothes that you own, including the ones that you’re wearing
right now, don’t exist. Your glasses (if you use a pair) don’t exist either.
There are no bed sheets, pillows, blankets, footwear, bathroom supplies, food,
trees, plants, animals, other human beings, grass, insects, birds, buildings,
vehicles, not even air. There’s no Earth or other planets and satellites. This
computer isn’t there either. It’s just you in this entire universe. You look
around and it’s all dark, black. There’s no sense of direction or speed as
there’s nothing to compare these two dimensions with. There’s a black out and
that’s all there is, forever. You’re floating but you don’t know whether you’re
moving or not and if you are then towards what or in which direction. Is this Nothing? No. Now, imagine that you don’t
exist either. Now we have Nothing.
Everything is absent, nothing is present. This is real. A blank canvas, an
empty notebook. The moment you paint, the moment you write, is the second stage
of hallucination. The first stage being, your existence. The moment you
acknowledge your own existence, you start to hallucinate. This is so because,
you start to create meaning out of your existence. Of course, you’re a baby
initially so you accept the meanings that are told to you by others and as you
grow, the basis of meanings created by you, are the ones that you had accepted
before. Nobody is born an Indian or a Hindu or Muslim but these identities are
labelled upon us and we are taught, really well, how to hallucinate. Some
hallucinate about engineering, some about medicine, some about flying a plane
and more. We create meanings as if they are permanent, we create rules as if
they have been the governing force of all mankind, as if the ‘Gods’ want us to
follow these rules. We also create a God and worship our creation as if it is
our creator. It is all an hallucination.
So, if this so and nothing is real, then how do we get out
of this hallucination and reach that reality? There is just one way, death! All
the great saints, sadhus and babas are aware of this hallucination
but are still a part of it. This is so because we are not meant to escape this
phenomenon and neither should we try to. We are meant to realise that we’re
hallucinating but we can’t escape it. But the realisation does put our hearts
at ease, doesn’t it? Knowing that everything around us is not real, it is all a
figment of our own imagination and creation, gives us some degree of power. The
fact that your partner is upset with you, is your own creation and thus you can
change this fact. How? That’s a question only you can answer as it’s your
creation but nothing is permanent. You create everything and you have the power
to create whatever you want, it’s your blank canvas, your empty notebook. You may
not know how to paint and write yet, but practice and you will be a great
painter like Buddha or a great writer like Krishna, Christ or the Prophet. We
call them Gods but they were all just normal humans like us, hallucinating but
always aware of this fact and they created what we know about them today. They
knew that they can’t escape the hallucination but what they could do was
hallucinate about what they desired. And this is exactly what we need to do
today. This doesn’t mean that we sit all day just imagining stuff. When you
hallucinate, the hallucination is so real that it alters your actions.
Therefore, whatever we desire, should reflect in our actions. If you want to be
rich, your actions should be such that you’re getting richer. Rich people work
hard (unless you’re Mukesh Ambani’s son) and they plan everything amongst a lot
of other actions that they take. If you want to be famous, do something that
makes you famous. Whatever it is that you want, take actions to hallucinate
about that reality. In the end, none of it is going to last but for as long as
you’re lasting, create for yourself that you wish could last forever.
