Mansi

Last Night...
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Not one for metaphors, atleast not those I had to 'grasp' in high school poetry, perhaps today I am at an age when I see no more and nothing short of metaphors all around me.
One of the last scenes of the movie - House of Sand & Fog - is shot over a bed, rich, gold and splendid. To the left is an Iranian Colonel. To his left is his delicate, still beautiful wife and somewhere to the center lower half of the bed, crouched as a baby is a young American woman.
This movie to me was about the ultimate dessimation of civilization.
We might be today a globe of boundaries and territories, but as a whole, we are still and will always be one civilization. Whenever we have rocked our world, it has always been about adding, extending or removing a boundary line - nothing more. Yet the impact on our civilization has been phenomenal.
In our civilization, there are some of us who've been here long, tempered by time and ages of learning. To today's children, we may seem irrational. Iran, Iraq, the Middle East and Asia, to name some of the current hotspots, represent this older civilization. The United States is on the other spectrum, the younger part of our civilization. The older civilizations are struggling in this new economy that favors the youth. Yet they feel no shame in leaning on their youth and hence transfering traditions forward. Their children will live in today's world but they will bring with them the wealth of their past.
[I see the same pattern being fostered between nations, where older nations seek the support of the younger, stronger nations in gathering together the traditions of our past and taking it forward for the benefit of civilization at large]
The United States today stands guilty of exterminating the old, the powerless. In face of any danger, the Americans respond with fear backed by the only force they have - military force - their only heritage in their brief history. They will use this force to get what they want even if as a culture, they possibly cannot know what it is that they seek.
In such fickle hands lie the dessimation of an entire civilization. Just like the museums and libraries of Iraq burnt to rubble and ash, the Americans in their fear will bring on us the end of all that we know and understand.
This is the message of the movie - House of sand and fog.
Everywhere we look today, especially in India, we see the hand of America. Seeing Manmohan Singh address the US Congress was more NEWS to us than watching an American president address any other gathering. Through movies, television, film, MNCs, retail and merchandise, we are being invaded by the American way. While I take no offence with success and some of us seeing it as the American Way, there is more to a coin than just heads.
9/11, the American embassy bombing in Sudan, the bombings in Indonesia and the recent London terror attachks - all point to the other side of the coin. The means certainly do not justify the end, it is too simplistic. American occupation of Iraq was the first of many firsts that like a tidal tsunami hovers over the life of civilization itself.
"He is a scared man. He is nothing without his gun." Lines from the movie apply to America, when hurt and provoked. The retribution in the movie is the life of a young man, the custodian of our civilization. Without him, our children, we have no identity. Without us, America will cease to be.
I was warned earlier that this movie would be depressing. I understand that now. I am depressed.
We have a scared nation ready to nuke just about anybody in order to get back that which was not only theirs to behold. America is but a deep crack, molten lava beneath, waiting to wash this world anew.

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This morning:

On further reflection, the concept of old and young, the circle of life extends beyond just nations. It is far more basic and modular to how we respond. It is a fallacy to think that the aged are rigid. Instead, I learnt that it is they who are most flexible when it comes to handling change. In contrast, their rigidity is their commitment to the good times, to take learnings forward. In order to do that however, someone needs to change. I feel as the younger generation, it is our role to step up to embrace that change. It is up to us to let go of our self-centered wants and desires, and instead brace up to accept the learnings of centuries past. We cannot afford to doubt ourselves and look to the American way. Theirs is a society of discards, runaways, wonderfully packaged into something they refer to as the American Dream. More and more we see them hijacking our heritage to make up for their lack of any. We are only eager to share, since that is our heritage, to share and partake of one circle.
I also see that I am coming out far more harsh against the United States than is warranted or even desired by me. Which brings me back to the circle of life. The conflicts demonstrated in this movie clearly apply to any society, group or individual. We are all changing, growing and with that comes the need to tranfer learning and knowledge, fears and weaknesses. Let us not exalt in our youth but persevere with our aged and partake of that which is for all of us to behold.