Finding Neverland

Movies are of 2 types. They are either meant to entertain you or move you. Unfortunately the ones made now are made in secret joint venture with the pharmaceutical companies to increase the sales of their headache pills. The only move possible is you move even before the ending credit rolls up. Today I found a movie that was an exception....a glorifying one. FINDING NEVERLAND.

For those who have never heard about this movie, this is in short about it. J M Barrie was a famous author whose play had flopped and panned as well. He finds himself in what is called as a writer’s block. He comes across a family of a widow and her 4 sons....the most interesting of them is PETER. Based on the adventures with the boys that Barrie has, he writes a play called PETER PAN, which is about a farie who would never age, and his chronicles.

I know what you are thinking. So what’s special in this movie? Imagination. Just turn back time and think what you imagined when you were a child. Didn’t we all imagine flying? A world without gravity, without any school, without the strict math’s teacher, without any homework. A world where plants have chocolates as flowers, where candies could grow on tress, where we could fly as high as we want and do what we like. What happened to that innocence?

The present generation of children seems to have been robbed of their innocence. I remember my friend telling me that one of his young relative once mentioned in the beach "hai…fan maadhiriyae kaathu varadu illa?". Pity that children are made to attend computer courses, play stupid video games and kick karate in vacations and not explore what lays around in this beautiful world. I have no doubt why we all starve for someone as J K Rowling to imagine for us as in Harry Potter.

But on the other side, when I happen to stroll by the shopping mall near my house, I smile to myself when I see children playing happily on their perambulators. I envy them as well, as I as a kid never had a perambulator and I wonder now I am too large to be carried in one at present. There was kid at this Disney toyshop that was running around picking everything he could and throwing it around. I could imagine how his father must have been so fit for his age. But isn’t it amazing the amount of energy we had as kids? I remember playing cricket from morning till evening in Gujarat at about 42 Degrees. The previous month I gulped 2 cold drinks and 2 buttermilk packets after just an hour of walk in the mottai veyyil of Chennai.

So tell me....what was your Neverland?