‘No Smoking’ Explained

For those who could not understand what No smoking is all about, here is the mystery resolved for you.

I assume you have already gone through the previous review. Continuing from there on..

This film has nothing to do with quitting smoking. But everything to do with quitting any addiction in life. Smoking being one of the worst, yet popular addiction is difficult to kick, because of the availability of cigarettes was just chosen by him. This film is about habits, that has gotten in to us, in the subconscious, which makes us feel we need it. The inner struggle , whether for good or bad.

the dream K is having is of Siberia represents oppression, a communist rule, where there is no individual liberty. He strongly believes in his autonomy and is suddenly made to give up that liberty. His dream state just signifies that.

Typically anybody who is being forced to quit an addiction goes through phases like this. All these are just mental phases, which are jelled so well with reality that you always keep on guessing “what is going on?”.

* The Baba is a Doctor. The Baba who lives in that complex underground world does not exist. He does not use any of those punishing techniques and instead does a psychological treatment of K. After all smoking is more a psychological addiction

* The dialogues about Antaratma etc. show the subconscious state of K – The effect of forced transformation. The person who firmly believed in his autnomy(and hence highly resistant to change) is amde to undergo a significant change(almost from one extreme to other). Baba is just trying to tame the subconscious of the subject(Mr.K).

*Remember a lot of unusual things happening to Mr. K, including the Police instance where he takes Police to Baba’s hideout and make Police talk to Baba- Beautiful description of disturbed mental state of the subject. All of those acts show the abnormal state of mind Mr. K is going through. You might have noticed people acting abnormally when not provided with cigarettes..ever thought what he is going through.

*There are no actual loss of ears, eyes, family, what ever. Those are fears of losing loved ones harming them, causing harm to oneself, by smoking, there are no accident, but its what he is going through. His brother has lungs problem, he lost his wife(she is not dead but she left him)- all of this is attributed to his cigarette smoking habit and that is what the different punishment indicates to.

* the dialog I reached here through bathtub, him though Almari, signifies the subconscious of other people going through the same, similar phase * the other K inside the that dirty room, trying to reach the original K, is none other than his subconscious trying to reach him, and make him smoke, the dirt signifies many things, the smoking dirt, the suffering he is going through * remember the announcement “those who have paid full fees can go for the bath”. It means the course is complete, where the subconscious is cleaned up * finally he, the subconscious, is being burnt , and finally K is relieved and treated.

* the cut finger is none other than the fact that, he is missing the smoke in his had, the fingers which are cut are the ones which we use to smoke, so when he finally quit smoking, he is missing those, the only way he can get out of it is to get himself company and relief, which is why he has to enroll another person for the program.

Now what do you think about the movie!! Do you like it now or not?? Isn’t it The Matrix of Bollywood?

~Read this and many more reviews at http://cinemagarage.blogspot.com
~~Quality Reviews by AbhiTaneja and Sandy

Confused!!

These days I am going through a different kind of dilemma..A dilemma related to the lifestyle..I don’t know which one is better and that is the root cause of this dilemma!

The Person I used to be:
I was never a Maggu(bookworm) but I was always sincere about my studies. I knew what I had to do and had a sense of dedication towards completing it… Everything else was secondary. Not exactly but I was a kind of timetable guy(those whose life is a timetable and they can tell you what they would be doing at certain time in future)… I liked all what I read and did not understand what some of my friends meant when they said all those studies were waste of time. Those people tried looking in reason to do those things and could not find it.. Frankly I never attempted. I was blinded by the passion of computers and IT. I loved all of those stuff. And I had a good academic record.

The Person I became:
I started looking for reasons to do each and every act I had to do…did not find good enough reasons for most of these things..lost interest.. started getting confused from time to time!.. started criticising systems and pedagogies.. started believing that all of this is useless and I must only do whatever I want to do.. started looking down upon students who loved these studies.. attributed all of this to the education I have had till now(It enabled me to think and this system is making me stop thinking).. My rationale changed to: The only way to survive in a B-School is to stop thinking.. My friend circles got smaller in size and closely bound(as against loosely bound large friend circles along with some close friends earlier).. I stopped studying.. did not have anything else to do as such so got into watching movies and devised a thousand ways to kill time.. never bothered to read cases or do any kind of home work before classes.. the funda became- only time to study is a day before exam(or rather a few hours before exam).. became over-confident(Ohh..this thing..yeah it is very simple..it can be done like this..it will hardly take anytime.. will look for it whenever required).. And obviously academic records suffered!

When I was what I was, people used to say they were much more happier than me..they did not have to read as often as I used to.. Now I ask- is it fun?..Perhaps not!

Having seen both the sides of the coin.. now I am confused!! Though it might not look like so from the post and the post may look biased towards what I was but to be true I am confused! This appears to me a vicious cycle which never ends. As far as the factor of happiness goes, I think it is all in mind and it is our mental state which makes us happy or sad.. I had no issues studying then and was happy; Now even if I am not studying I am happy for not reading. There was always a positive frame of mind and I appreciated things a lot; Now I have a destructive frame of mind and find happiness in ridiculing others and trying to dominate others. Earlier it was helping others that used to bring a sense of satisfaction; Now it is getting people to help me with ease. The funda used to be- Why not do it when you can do it!; Now it is- Why should I do it if I can get it done!.

I do not comment on which one is correct and which one is not. If I ask my parents, it is first; If I ask my colleagues, it is second. No matter whether you agree or not, actually, both of these are correct. And that is where the confusion is- Which Abhishek is better: Abhishek @ DA-IICT and before or Abhishek @ IIM-C??

Having lived more than two terms as Abhishek of now, I think it is time to get back to the original mode now. Let’s see how things turn around in days to come.

~Direct feed from Abhi’s world.
~~For more interesting posts, visit http://abhitaneja.blogspot.com

Thank you