A Virtual Romance

I watch a lot of movies and recently I watched this new movie HER which was well received by the critics and audiences and really brought in a new plot.

But I'm not going to talk about the movie here. I'm more interested in the plot and the thought behind it.

The movie revolves around a person who falls in love with an OS. This is a virtual person which interacts via voice and so programmed that it actually sounds like a real person.

The question that I asked myself was if it was possible to be in love with somebody/thing of whose physical presence you are not aware of. I've read some stories where the people fell in love with each other only by writing letters (Pan pal is one of my favorite) but even in this condition you know for a fact that there is somebody who is actually writing those letters. You know that there is somebody who is breathing may be on the different side of the planet and in touch with you. I know some people who are friends with people from other parts of world on social networking platforms without knowing them personally.

I'm not saying it is weird but not really able to understand those circumstances when a person falls in love with someone from virtual world (or totally imaginary). For me to fall in love with someone it is required to know the person as a person not as a social networking profile or a mail id.

It is more like a person who is committed to nothing and it literally makes sense.

Pehla Girmitiya by Giriraj Kishore

A hindi book after a long time and this one is really big.

The book revolves around the Gandhiji's stay in South Africa and the activities at that time.

He went to South Africa on a one year permit and after seeing the conditions fo the indians and how they were treated he made a point to fight for a difference and that too with non-violence. We can say that SA was the laboratory for Gandhi to test out his hypothesis of non-violence and it really gave the results with no blood shed. This put the stone for the movement in India which he led later.

The book is a mix of facts and fantasy where he tried to keep the things as close to the reality as the information available. There are some invented dialogues and there are some genuine speeches delivered by Gandhiji.

The book is pretty big (almost 900 pages) and I finished it in 2 months. But somehow I felt that there are better accounts on Gandhi's life other than that and this book can be a stepping stone who wants to explore his philosophy.

If you want to go for a visual account of it than you can go for the movie "Making of the Mahatma".

I wish if you start it and finish it you'll have better understanding of what made him so great.

Peace