This post is going to reveal some of my house keeping habits, but what the heck 🙂

When I get really lazy, my laundry piles up to the point that there are no more clothes to wear 🙂 . Eventually, I have no choice than to get to it. I then have to do two rounds of washing for 3-4 days to empty out my laundry hamper. After which, I get to the folding, which is one of my least favourite jobs. The only way I can motivate myself to do it is by distracting myself with a movie.This time, my folding pile was so huge that I had to watch two movies back to back to get the job done.

The two movies I chose to watch today were QUEEN & HIGHWAY (FYI – both are Indian movies, Hindi).

On the surface, there was something quite sweet and entertaining about these movies. I also enjoyed the subtle romance, but on a deeper level something about the storyline that not only had me
reflect more, but also inspire me write something about it.

Both movies are about, unexpected events that take place in the lives of the protagonists, both young women, coincidentally, two days before their wedding. These young women are literally thrown into unforeseen circumstances that eventually create a huge shift in their thinking and outlook towards each of their lives.

QUEEN is the is about a naive middle class girl in Delhi, (India) who decides to go on her honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam alone, after her fiancé walks out of the marriage two days before wedding.

This journey introduces her to many “first time” experiences in her life, which pushes her completely out of her comfort zone, like travelling on her own, exploring a new country by herself, new language, noes culture, trying alcohol for the first time, close encounters and deep friendships with women from all different walks of life, an unwed mother, a pole dancer ; sharing a room or a few days with three strangers, all men and how she slowly finds her own identity amidst all of this.

All of these experiences lead her to reflect her life of the past, about her life up until then, how her life had revolved around being the “good girl”, an ace student, always doing the right thing, wearing the right clothes, striving to please everyone in her life, her teacher, parents, family & fiancé. And how she had been willing to sacrifice many dreams for sake of the relationship including taking up a job. She also explored the cultural norm of how certain things were considered “unwomanly” to do. She realised how she had created her identity out of all that past conditioning.

Now, on to the second movie..

The film HIGHWAY outlines the story of a young woman who is kidnapped before her wedding and held for ransom wherein she develops Stockholm towards her kidnapper. She falls in love with her kidnapper.

The few weeks that she spends travelling with her kidnapper, leaves her feeling shocked about her own reactions to the situation, about how she wasn’t ready go back home and her old life. Unexpectedly, she lives her dream life, wanting to live a life of spontaneity, adventure, freedom & living the wilderness.

At one point during this journey, she recalls her experience of being sexually abused as 9 year old, by a very close family member, of how she felt betrayed by her own family, by her mother, who not only failed to protect her, but enabled the situation by hushing up the whole thing. She recalled how she had felt unsafe in her own home, among her own people, how she had to put up pretences of being cordial and friendly with her abuser, because it was all supposed to be okay on the outside.

She saw the prison her life had been and was yearning to break out of it.

Back to my reason for this reflection…

Both of these young women eventually came back home, at the end of the movie, but they din’t really come back the same. They experienced deep transformation, and a huge inner shift during their time away. They had their identity on this journey they had taken, and were not ready to go back to their old lives. They weren’t their old selves anymore. They just couldn’t settle for less. They wanted more out of their lives, MORE LIFE in their lives !

The unexpected adventure, became a teacher, opening their eyes to a life they had previously been unaware of. They probably had been
longing for it on a subconscious level, and the universe just brought it to them in a package they dint recognise initially.

This “call to adventure” as Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist calls it, can come in many forms. This is just the beginning of the “Hero’s Journey”.

I’m sure we face similar experiences in our lives, though not as dramatic as in the movie. We face different challenges, illnesses, difficult relationships, financial crisis, divorce, death of someone really close and other unexpected situations which are really adventures and also our teachers.

Whether we like it or not it is going to be one heck of a wave. It is going to be hard, scary, like stepping into the unknown and exploring radically different perspectives -but eventually coming home to ourselves. With the knowing of course that, there are many more of such journeys to go on, in the future.

Its ultimately up to us, to choose to RIDE THE WAVE ! for when we do, we are taking the HERO’S JOURNEY