Well, of course the change series was supposed to end at part IV, but I just chanced upon something too good to miss at this blog. Thanx Nikhil!
It's from an Italian movie called Cinema Paradiso, and the story below sums up the essence of change. With time, perspectives, needs, aims and desirability changes so much. Sometimes we can't understand it, and that's when it hurts. But we must, for time is the most powerful of 'em all. The tormenter AND the healer!
This one's about love, the volatility of love, the time-bound falsification of love, the fact that things can be wrong even if nobody involved was wrong, the fact that nothing is forever!
Love perhaps is one of the prettiest untruths ever. Perhaps.
Moral of the story, anyone?
It's from an Italian movie called Cinema Paradiso, and the story below sums up the essence of change. With time, perspectives, needs, aims and desirability changes so much. Sometimes we can't understand it, and that's when it hurts. But we must, for time is the most powerful of 'em all. The tormenter AND the healer!
This one's about love, the volatility of love, the time-bound falsification of love, the fact that things can be wrong even if nobody involved was wrong, the fact that nothing is forever!
Love perhaps is one of the prettiest untruths ever. Perhaps.
MAN: "Once...a king gave a feast for the loveliest princesses in the realm. Now, a soldier who was standing guard saw the king's daughter go by. She was the most beautiful of all and he fell instantly in love. But what is a simple soldier next to the daughter of a king? At last he succeeded in meeting her, and he told her he could no longer live without her. The princess was so taken by the depth of his feeling that she said to the soldier, "If you can wait for 100 days and 100 nights under my balcony, at the end of it I shall be yours."
With that the soldier went and waited one day...
two days...
then ten...
then twenty.
Each evening the princess looked out, and he never moved! In rain, in wind, in snow, he was always there! Birds shat on his head, bees stung him- but he didn't budge. At the end of ninety nights he had become all dry, all white. Tears streamed from his eyes. He couldn't hold them back. He didn't even have the strength to sleep. And all that time, the princess watched him.
At long last, it was the 99th night...and the soldier stood up, took his chair and left."
BOY: "What happened at the end?"
MAN: "That *is* the end. And don't ask what it means. I don't know."
Moral of the story, anyone?
19 comments:
Hmm... the moral of the story is ' Don't play too hard to get?' hehe... Sometimes, we like to test how much we are loved by our partners. However, test of love may jeopardise the relationship and risk destroying it.
Let me try. It's simple, maybe naive, but let me try. After so many hard days and nights of waiting for the princess, he could make sense of it all, and realized that he can love without wanting and that's enough, no need to create disturbance for everyone by marrying a princess, or maybe he felt that they both had already experienced the most beautiful part of their relationship and didn't want it to decay by doing any further mortal stuff. That's the message I got, that there is no telling what is the most beautiful thing about something unless you're a part of it, and when you're a part of it, it mostly turns out that it's not what it previously appeared to be.
don't ask what it means. I don't know
He had got something to prove. He proved. He wanted the decision be still in her hands. She can decide according to whether she loves him or not, and doesn't need to give in to her promise.
Hats off to THE MAN!
(don't know why women need proofs all the time!)
Thanks so much for visiting, and for carrying the torch - there is so much we can learn if we are open to the lessons of the world, don't you think?
Best wishes!
[bellona]
you're right. and girls especially like this testing business a lot. Some of it i feel is ok, maybe reqd, but we often overdo it.
but then at times i feel the more genuine things withstand everything...i dont know.
a friend once said...most relationships aren't worth the effort. when they are, they are worth all you got. If only we knew how to differentiate...
[v]
Nice perspective there...and I would say the first half of your comment is freshly innocent and positive. Maybe a bit too poetic for pragmatism though.
But I agree when you say that things appear differently from within and without. I just finished an article on the same theme. If BSP decides,u amy just get to read it some day.
[ritesh]
you do. or you will do.
[the introvert]
I guess women need proofs because they take too many things too seriously.
But your idea is good. The man probably was a genius. By this act he actually seized back the control of his life and fate in his own hands. The power dynamics of that relationship if it materialises would be quite in favour of the guy.
[franny]
Yeah true. Life is but a process of learning at every step. and there are so many lessons all the time. We miss so many, but anythign absorbed is a bonus in itself!
thanks to you for the story int he first place!
There is no moral in the story. The end is that the west wind blew on that 99th day and changed the Man.
i am feeling EXACTLY like the soldier n am gonna do something similar..or maybe i did already.. so i can understand perfectly :(
it probably is the realisation that somebody who can make u go through all this just for proving your love, doesnt rally love you. n maybe the soldier realised that more importnant than being with the one u love is that u be with the one who loves u. the soldier proved his love n at the same time proved that he was strong enough to live without that love.
it somehow reminded me of the 'lady n the tiger' by lord byron ..where the lady throws her hanky into the tiger's pit n looks at her lover challanging him to get it back if he loved her. the lover goes in fights the tiger, gets the cloth n throws it at het face n leaves her forever coz someone who could put her lover's life on line just to prove his love wasnt just worth it..
(i guess u know who i am :) )
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.
I'd say the soldier simply realized, in the words of Faiz: "Aur bhi ghum hain zamaane mein mohabbat ke siwa".
Roughly: "There are many more things to grieve over in the world, other than love".
Ah, so you're back. My apologies for having taken so long to realise that.
My interpretation: Time lost in waiting corrupts. The longer you wait for something, the more the doubts eat at you,the more your strength and will is diminished.
The older you grow with harsh experience, the less naive you are. And the less naive you are, the more impossible things seem.
The soldier started to see: That the princess was cruel, that loving her wouldn't change that or the fact that she was cruel and she would not make him happy. Also, that life spent in such a fashion for such a fiend was part of the stupidity of a boy and not of the man that he had lost his bright-eyedness to become.
[johney]
The west wind blew away love?
[the doc]
If you could understand perfectly, you wouldn't have put ":(" at the end of the first comment.
The lady and the tiger was an open ended story, so this is just one of the various versions. The point is, we wouldn't know for sure until we were there itself, and if we were really there, I'm not sure if we'd like to share what knowledge we just achieved.
"Is it worth it?" An Enigmatic question isn't it..
[Jack sparrow]
Wise am I or not, it's all Ithaca's gift
but if I find her poor I would be undeserving
For I should know she who gives never runs empty.
[siyaah]
As a contrast, I'm reminded of a song.."tumhe aur kya doon main dil ke siwaay"
"Ye ishq nahi asaan bas itna samajh leeje................" :)
[ekantha]
Welcome again!
Well, you have a rather depressing interpretation, but valid nonetheless.
when we resign ourselves to time, we basically resign ourselves to decay.
The wait is more important than the goal, or the path is more important than the journey, or something of that sort.
The idea is, once you have achieved your heart's desire, you have nothing more to live for.(I know that I sound like a nihilistic Richard Bach)
[piyush]
As many people that many morals!
But yeah, nihilistic but good one still.
so you think he lived out all his love finally?
"And don't ask what it means. I don't know."
thats the moral. :D
oh, i already posted that. Crap!
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