The Danish Girl -makes you root more for Gerda than Einar

I read a few reviews and articles about the film, The Danish Girl, directed by Tom Hooper. It pointed to the Director not staying true to the original story. I don’t want to get into the details of the actual story of Einar Wegener (or Lile Elbe) and his wife, Gerda (played by Alicia Vikander). I wish to base my understanding or learning from the screenplay of ‘The Danish Girl’.

It was obvious that Eddie Redmayne’s character will have maximum screen time. And a chance to exhibit a wide range of acting skills. He has done a wonderful job. He might even win an Oscar for his portrayal. Alicia Vikander was a pleasant surprise though. She is likeable, and has portrayed an ambitious painter without seeming arrogant.

She has been effortless in emotions moving from happiness to sadness. Her poignant looks where her eyes does all the talking. Seldom does one get affected by a character as much as you do while feeling bad for Gerda. She is so much in love with her husband, and misses him, yet allows him to be what he wants to be. Your heart aches for her. Even when she develops feeling for another gentleman, you empathise with her. In spite of everything, she stands by her husband and supports him when needed.

One of the dialogues in the movie quite simply sums up that the story should have been about Gerda and her fight with herself than Einar’s sex-change operation. Einar says that her brush strokes give him strength. He becomes what she (Gerda) wants him to become.

You can draw inspiration or analogy from Gerda’s character in real life. Be strong headed. Support the people you love. Put them before yourself.

You take Alicia Vikander with you, when you leave the movie. And I won’t be surprised if a lot of boys become Alicia’s fans. I, for one, fell in love with her.

I don’t want a Digital India

Everyone wants to make India go digital. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mark Zuckerberg (Free basics), Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Jio) and a host of other business people.  No one wants to work towards providing clean drinking water, continuous electricity of food to the unprivileged. The more infrastructurally developed we are becoming, the more emotionless we are.  Why are we as a society moving towards making ourselves so dependent on technology. Start-up India, stand-up India coined by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi is more towards online platform.  Nothing towards an offline platform.  Smart cities is another example of wrong priorities.  Why focus on 100 cities when the remaining 90 percent of agrarian population is entirely dependent on nature.  Entire focus in on the few privileged people. 

Ram Charan asked corporations to tap the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid but why will they do leg work when all they can do is set up an online facility and take support of government subsidies and encouragement.  India wants to be a super power and it is presumed that one of the pre-requisites to be considered one; is to have a bullet train.  There are positives in having the bullet train but only for the people of the two cities.  And if I talk of parameters generally considered relevant i.e. GDP, how much is saving 2 hours of commuting time convert to increase in GDP. This is a very simplistic argument I understand.  But then, does the argument have to be complex to consider it valid.  We want to compete with Singapore and Beijing and other developed cities. The question is why. Why not compete with ourselves. The kind of population we have, we need to convert our weakness of agriculture to our strength.  Just because China exported its way through cheap goods, doesn’t mean we follow it.  And we will never be able to do that because China will better you in anything you offer. India has its compulsions of democracy which China doesn’t have.

By blindly aping the western countries on mobile technology, we are missing out on our fertile land. India is blessed with abundant water resources in some states whereas others are affected by drought. Will an online revolution help us get over the lack of coherence in water distribution. I guess the answer is in negative. Then it is about time we focus on ground realities that be mesmerized by the virtual world.