Nostalgia...

Sometime in 2001, on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Pilani, I wandered in the hostel corridors and landed in my friend’s room. The rain outside had made that day very special in that part of the country, which is known for its arid weather. Me and my friend decided to watch a movie and started sifting through the CD’s that were around. My friend picked up a movie CD with a weird name “Shawshank Redemption” (well, if you removed the ‘w’ in the first word of the title, it became the name of many kannada folks in our college J ). Once the movie started, we were able to confirm the fact that the first word was definitely not a typo error on the CD cover. Little did I know of the impact that the great movie featuring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman would have on me. Though some of my friends didn’t like the slow pace of the movie and actually “missed” the ending(!), I watched it couple of times for the sheer performance of the crew and the powerful dialogues.

Fast forward to 2009. A rainy Sunday afternoon in the silicon valley of India, which is quite common in the second half of the year. After a great lunch, me and my wife decided that it was time for a good movie and just when we switched on the television, “Shawshank Redemption” had just started on one of the channels! The movie still had the same charm, even though I had seen it many times during my college days. I highly recommend this movie to anyone asking me for a movie recommendation! It is very hard to pick a best scene from this movie. One of my favorites has to be this:

Andy (Tim Robbins) is just out of 1 month in solitary confinement, after playing Mozart in the public sound system inside the prison. During lunch time, an interesting conversation happens between Andy and Red (Morgan Freeman):

 

Someone: How did you manage a month?

Andy: I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company...[points and taps his head.] It was in here. [gestures over his heart] And in here. That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you. Haven't you ever felt that way about music?

Red: Well... I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it, though. Didn't make too much sense in here.

Andy: No, here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.

Red: Forget?

Andy: That there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone. That there's... there's something inside that they can't get to; that they can't touch. It's yours.

Red: What are you talking about?

Andy: Hope.