Retro

While I was channel surfing yesterday,I noticed that Broken Arrow,the John Travolta starrer, was playing. And my mind went back to 1995,when the movie was first released.At the time it was the talk of town.Everybody wanted to see it,everybody loved it,and many began to practice smoking a cigarette the way Travolta did.

Now,twelve years hence,the colour of the movie seems to be a tad faded,the make up second rate,all the principals were much skinnier,and smoking is on the verge of becoming taboo.

What i am trying to say is that what we adored and swore by 10 years ago,well,it need not be ten,it could be as recent as 6 months to a year also. Our opinions of things and what they mean to us always changes,with many of us dismissing what we thought of as good and adopting a more attractive and modern stance to things as we grow older. With the exception of music,maybe,although hip hop is THE music everybody listens to nowadays.Guitar based rock and blues and jazz have a much smaller,albeit more loyal following.

And the very colour of the movies of old,when seen now take us back to a time when perhaps life was simpler,when people were nicer,when fuel didn't cost as much, and we always look back to that time fondly.When falling in love was a lot easier and less complicated than what it is now. Conversely it could be a flagpost of a very difficult time in the past for a few people,one that they disliked intensely and would never dare think of for a long time to come.It varies. But what i am trying to emphasize is that cinema and songs and old classmates and friends are the most potent stimulus to remember the past,with its good and bad,and i feel that we are now at a time where we need to remember the past more than anything else.Not because of the good memories,but because there might be lessons learnt then that we need to apply now.And most people tend to keep the past in a water tight compartment that you cannot have access to,because should there be a leak,then all the contents of the compartment come crashing down. We must learn from the past,consciously,and with dilligence.For only once we embraced what has happened for what it truly is can we forever send it away,with valuable lessons learnt from same.