#03. Will Was Good

Will was good, and so are we.

In my class today, we discussed the Great Depression and the fear factor. Fear always asks the same question: "What if?" During the Depression, people saved so much for an uncertain future that they forgot the present was now. They held on so tightly to what little they had that they couldn't see what was possible. We do the same thing with our lives—holding back our gifts, our love, our futures, all because of fear.

Think about Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, two kids in their twenties writing a screenplay. What if they had questioned the outcome instead of diving in? They didn't. They wrote Good Will Hunting and won an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

In the movie, a math teacher finds Will Hunting in the corridor and shouts, "That's people's work, don't do graffiti here!" As they approach the wall, they discover Will has solved the toughest problem in the class—a problem that stumped MIT students, solved anonymously on a hallway chalkboard. But genius wasn't Will's real problem. Fear was.

Later, therapist Sean Maguire, played by Robin Williams, asks Will a simple question: "What do you wanna do?" Will doesn't have the precise answers we think we should give. He's brilliant but lost, talented but terrified. Here's what makes Sean different—he doesn't search for answers. Instead, he talks about his own life, his mistakes, his late wife, showing Will how to be vulnerable around the people we love. Vulnerability is a strength, not a liability.

We're all dealing with this gap between the self we are and the self we want to be. But what if we are more than the fear we experience? The most powerful scene comes when Sean tells Will, again and again: "It's not your fault." Will breaks down because Sean gave him permission to be human, to stop running, to accept love.

The movie ends with Will driving to California to find the girl he pushed away, and Sean leaving for a trip he's been postponing. Both men choosing the uncertain road over the safe one. It's bittersweet, not because it's perfect, but because it's real. The ending whispers to us: make that one little effort, give it a try, just one more time.

In the end, it's all about a road not taken for fear of what doesn't even exist today. But Will was good—broken and brilliant and scared and good. And so are we.

What road are we not taking today? Or rather taking today?         

(Pic.) The "end of the road" is actually only a push away from opening new pathways :)

                           

#02. Frida's Carved Canopy

A white canvas. A flash of colours. A piece of art.

One day in my class, a student showcased her painting. She posed a question to the audience—what do you see? Interpretations filled the room, each voice adding its own colour. When my turn came, I offered something different. This isn't about claiming my reading was superior; rather, it's about how deeply I understood her vision. That painting explored the delicate boundary between the world within the self and the world beyond it.

Earlier this week, I stumbled upon captivating news—El Sueño by Frida Kahlo sold for $54.7 million, making it the most valuable work by a woman artist ever auctioned. When critics labelled it a reflection of her dreams, she famously countered, "I never painted dreams; I painted my own reality." Amid a long-term terminal illness, her body weakened by polio since childhood and her spirit tested by a turbulent marriage, Frida was confined to her bed. Yet while her body remained bound, her mind soared free, and her creativity knew no limits.

Being an artist is like wielding magic, and I believe we are all artists in our own right. Don't we constantly imagine ourselves being this or that, saying one thing or another? Whether navigating pain or pleasure, laughter or tears, remorse or defiance, we all yearn for the freedom to express our truth. In an earlier interview, Frida described her art as a bridge between worlds—a space where she could explore her morality. Not a morality subjected to others' judgment, but one aligned with her gut, her conscience, her unapologetic self. Perhaps that's the real magic: the courage to carve our own canopy in a world that often demands we conform.

Frida painted her reality. What will you and I paint in ours?

(Pic.) Frida's Carved Canopy :)

#01. Towards a New Beginning!

HOW ARE YOU?

I am just like all of us. I have my own way and structure of living, my own values and beliefs and my own way of nurturing myself and others. I am not selfish or may be a little, like all of us, as we deny that, don’t we? I am not here to preach or teach. This one is for myself as I just want to write these thoughts. I write these thoughts because I just don’t want to merely survive, I want to live and fortunately I have lived, rather than playing the game of survival of the fittest (most of the time precisely). 

This one is my first up – HOW ARE YOU? You have asked me this and I might have asked you this so many times that I have lost count. What are we expecting in return – I am fine, thank you!? That is what they teach us in the etiquette classes right? Be this, be that and behave this way and that way. Well, I agree to all of that and I do follow all of that... but is this question ('how are you'?) only about that? 

One day someone asked me, ‘So how are you Mandira?’ and that day, I did have lots to say. But as I blurted out three to four sentences the listener drifted the topic to something completely dry and absurd. I stopped, I swallowed and gulped some water. I sat at my desk for a while and asked myself, ‘Mandira, did you do that when you asked someone How are you?’ – Unfortunately, the answer was – Sometimes Yes! I didn’t feel good about this. And I promised next time I ask someone How are you… I would prepare myself you be all ears to hear the answer and not look only for a – I am fine, Thank you!