How John Coffey Changed My Perception through The Green Mile.

When you first get a glimpse of Michael Clarke Duncan in any movie or television series, the first impression he makes of, of a giant behemoth, standing at 6ft 5inches and weighing 290pounds. He looks monstrous.

Though nothing in him makes him look ugly, his flat nose, his thick lips, his bald pate or his rippling shoulders none of these things make him look ugly. Maybe it is case of a person's inherent goodness.

We so easily judge people by the way they look, it is an experience which I have felt though out my life too. And it feels so strange that as you physically change, the people who do not know you very well keep altering their perspective about you.

If I am fat, I will be proclaimed to be shy, stupid and someone not ready to get out of his comfort zone. So if I lose the excess fat, add some muscles, pierce my ear, get a tattoo then I become a playboy and a dude!!!!

But what happened during the process of growing from fat to thin which changed me? The answer is nothing!.

I generally hang out in a badminton court with my friends where we smoke, we chill and crib. There is a bunch of kids play badminton. It’s an evenly balanced group of fat and thin kids. The fat kids I find our more aggressive, they show leader like qualities. And that’s that.

So we are what we are, we alter ourselves, temper ourselves to be better but a change in physicality will never make us any different.

So coming back to the point of Michael Clarke Duncan, when I was a young kid my favorite genre of movies was action. Hence I saw him in two movies one was “The Daredevil” and second was “The Scorpion King”.

His portrayal of Kingpin was menacing and on the other hand his portrayal of a loyal supporter to a justified uprising was heartwarming.

The main inference I drew from this was that this is a man you can never mess with, even recently he was cast as Jake's girlfriend's father (Two and a Half Men) and predictably Charlie Sheen and his brother were shit scared of him.

And I was like: Man, this dude is a bad ass.

Yesterday I was lazing around at home checking with friends if anybody was interested in watching MIB 3 and as usual all the lazy bums wanted to chill at home.

Nothing was up on TV besides a movie called 'The Green Mile' starring Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse and James Cromwell.

Michael Clarke Duncan is introduced as an inmate on death row, who is extremely massive and as he walks in, one of the jailor keeps shouting "Dead Man Walking" "Dead Man Walking" with his each step. The man taking those steps is not a bad ass but a sweet, innocent hulk of a man.

When introduced to Tom Hanks, he says: "My name is John Coffey Sir, boss! Sounds like Coffey but spelt differently"

A man who is being charged of raping and murdering two little girls, but his introduction is enough to make you realize that this person can never hurt anyone.

A true gift of God, he has magic healing powers and he heals Tom Hanks, James Cromwell's wife and even a fellow prisoner's dead mouse, "Mr. Jingles".

His tears when the other inmates are electrocuted to death are most shocking and touching, he will make you cry.

When it is John Coffey's time to walk The Green Mile, Tom hanks is inconsolable, he does not want to commit the crime of killing God's special Child. HE asks him:

Hanks: "What do you want me to do John?"

John Coffey: " I know what you feeling Sir Boss, but I have accepted this and I want this to be over. All my life I have been on the road alone. No mate to share my life with, like a lonely sparrow on a rainy day" " I cannot see this pain and this hatred people have for each other. The time is ripe for me to go. But before I die, I would like to watch one of them flicker pictures. Yu know I never saw one of them sir boss"

And with that John Coffey departs from the world as we know it, leaving behind teary eyed prison guards who alone knew his truth, a special man, a true child of God.

It was so strange that a man his stature could downplay his stature to such an extent, he genuinely generated sympathy and compassion for all that is good in our lives. A movie more touching than "The Passion of The Christ"

A must watch to learn that it is not always that what we see is what we get.

It’s a journey that all of must take to see beyond our perceptions.

A character like John Coffey is well remembered even after they are gone.

 An Excerpt from Wikipedia

As Hanks finishes his story, he notes that he requested a transfer to a youth detention center, where he spent the remainder of his career. Elaine questions his statement that he had a fully grown son at the time and Paul explains that he was 44 years old at the time of John's execution and that he is now 108 and still in excellent health. This is apparently a side effect of John giving a "part of himself" to Paul. Mr. Jingles, Del's mouse resurrected by John, is also still alive—but Paul believes his outliving all of his relatives and friends to be a punishment from God for having John executed. Paul explains he has deep thoughts about how "we each owe a death; there are no exceptions; but, Oh God, sometimes the Green Mile seems so long." Paul is left wondering, if Mr. Jingles has remained alive for all of this time being but a mouse, how long will it be before his own death?

Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby

When morgan freeman won the best supporting actor for million dollar baby. I found that really stupid, he just sat and stared and the only good deed he did in the whole movie is to punch that guy who was messing with the retard.

But i believe when  Ihad formed that opinion I was too young to understand the gravity of his contribution to the movie.

Sometimes to act with clint eastwood you have to let him overshadow you, you have to supplement and not let your ego define your art.

When I saw the movie a couple of days back, the restraint he had shown during the whole movie in his acting, his attitude of accepting whatever is coming on his way and to tackle each and every situation with silence was just awe inspiring. It made me feel that how can a man of his calibre act a person with such minis ule presence.

The sequence which actually drives the point home is when the toilet is overflowing and a member of their gym tells nim to clean the pot, he shakes his head removes the lid and gets back to cleaning the toilet.

Similar restraint is shown through out the movie, hence when he tries to save the retard that scene stands in stark contrast of what he has stood for through out the movie.

The guy who he gives a beating loses his molar and to that Morgan Freeman speaks out a number. The number as per popular opinion is the number of men he K.O'd in the gym  and those who also lost their teeth while brawling with the man.

It shows two qualities which we all strive for: one is acceptance of life as it is and the will to stand for what you presume as right and then doing right by it.

One more thing which my immature mind back then forgot to register was that he is the sutradhar, in theatre he is the person voicing concerns, adding and subtracting the progress of the story as the movie is progressing.

His heavy heart and the timber in his voice is one of the major attractions of the movie in question. Even in bucket seat he stands as a stark contrast for what jack nicholson stqnds for, the rich burgeoise.

To his light childish voice is his heavy and brutish voice. To his spoilt ways are his straight forward and honest to god life patterns.

To end this discussion it is prudent to assume that without morgan freeman, million dollar baby would not have ben the movie it was and still is.

Diet Chart for All

Dear People whom I care about.

I see you guys piling alcohol, smokes, joints and oily food in your matka and that makes me really annoyed.

Somebody cant breathe, someone pants after 10 reps of half crunches.

Hence Please follow the below diet chart to a maximum possible extent to increase your life span.

Breakfast:-

8:00am Oatmeal with milk and a banana.

11:00am 2 eggwhites scrambled with one scoop oatmeal.

1:00pm 1 slice of whole wheat bread, veggie of choice and sour lassi (in summers)

3:00pm (this is the worst time for snacking) for gym buffs use a protein shake and for rest munch on salads.

The key to make a salad interesting is low fat dressing and mustard sauce.

5:00pm Tea heavy on sugar. the milk will satiate your hunger

8:00pm Dinner (add lean proteins like chicken, fish, egg whites and add one green veggie)

11:00pm before bed if you are hungry have cottage cheese with wheat crackers.

If alcohol, oil, salt and sugar can be contained by anyone of you following this. I guarantee a steady drop on excess sodium and fat.

Cheers to a healthy life!!!!!

Aspirations and Our Will to Achieve

Life is tough for everyone. A person can be born with a silver spoon or no spoon at all. For those who are born with a silver spoon they have tremendous pressure to fill in their mum dad's shoes either by running a factory, a brand, a company, a mill or whatever. Yes we do see a lot of rich kids driving fast and killing pedestrains but that does not include the majority of the lot. If we look at the TATA's, BIRLA's, AMBANI's and so on.... they are kind of example we would want to learn from. People who took what they had and expanded on it.

This article is not about being rich or being poor. It is also not about limitations of what we can acheive when we do not have enough resources at hand. This article is about people who choose their destiny and build their lives around their ultimate goal.

It is about the kind of risks people are willing to take to acheive what they have dreamt of. It baffles me: what inspires people to take that risk which no one is willing to take? Earlier my thought process wat that those people who take risks and make it big are those who had nothing to lose at the first place. But reading the Sergei Brin and Larry Page story, reading Matthew Perry's life story altered my thoughts completely.

I am working with an MNC, I have a fair enough life and I would not take a risk cause their is too much at stake wherein two dudes who were on the verge of completing the doctoral thesis from Stanford decided to drop out  (Sergei Brin and Larry Page).

A national level tennis champ(Matthew Perry) decided to opt for acting as a career, imagine he was not even the first choice to play Chandler Bing. Jason 'Transporter' Statham was an Olympic diver before he chose films. Our surroundings are filled with such examples, these are the guys who have made it huge but their are others too nearby us who have acheived and made us jealous atleast.

Luck favors the brave! lets modify it.... Luck favors the brave, the intelligent and the diligent. Diligence at what we do is a key to our success and we have to be intelligent. We need to know that if we dream of becoming something, that dream has the potential to be turned to reality. To those who dream and follow their dreams I respect you with all my heart and soul.

Below are excerpts of a couple of celebrities lives whom I admire for their sheer grit.

Read on......

Jim Carrey: Today Carrey is one of Hollywood’s top-paid comedians, but growing up, it doesn’t seem like he had too much to laugh about. He grew up in a camper van with his family in Canada, working 8-hour days at a tire factory to help make ends meet. When he was sixteen, he dropped out of high school, moved to L.A., and began shadowing Rodney Dangerfield (a successful comedian) at the Comedy Store in hopes of hitting it big. Well, he didn’t exactly hit it big immediately, but over time, Dangerfield grew fond of the little comic, and Carrey became his opening act. He made fast friends with other comedians through the club, including the Wayans brothers, who later gave him his first big role in their show In Living Color.

Of course you could argue that Jim Carrey was lucky—he was lucky to have met Dangerfield; he was lucky to hit it off with the Wayans—but it was his hard work and persistence that took him to L.A. in the first place, and to where he is today.

 Marshall Mathers was born to a poor, working-class family in Missouri; though, now famously, he spent most of his youth in Detroit. Mathers got into the rap scene at a very early age, and by 14, he was entering rap battles under the stage name M&M. Several years later, Mathers seemed to hit rock bottom. He had just had a child with his on/off girlfriend, Kim; he was estranged from his mother; and he was heavily into drugs and alcohol; but ultimately, the hardships in his personal life proved to be fertile ground for his lyrics. He was approached by a producer after winning second place in 1997’s “Rap Olympics,” and since then, has been producing hit after hit. Today, Eminem has made over $48 million in record sales, owns his own record label (Shady Records), has won 11 Grammies, 9 VMAs, and even an Oscar.


IF YOU HAVE AN IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANT, GO GET IT!!!!!!