Blanket Coffee

Whenever his memories started coming back to her mind,

Like a moving spiral staircase,

Or a maze she had been struggling with for long, still unable to find her way out.

His touch,

His taste,

His voice,

The light in his eyes.

What all made her feel something once,

Was now numbing her senses;

Whenever this realisation started coming in,

She used to reread the only letter that he had ever written her for the nth time.

Yes, she did not throw it away like the heart shaped platinum pendant he had gifted her,

Or the expensive watches and clothes,

Because it was the only thing that was unlike him.

It was her only way out of this labyrinth. 

Reading about the Holocaust in History textbooks was one thing and watching it come alive in a motion picture is another. 

There is a scene in the movie where a little girl in the red coat walks through the streets, the only color picture in the three hour long black and white movie, witnessing murders of her fellow community members, unable to comprehend why all of those were being killed. A man named Oscar Schindler watched her from atop a hill- her panic stricken helpless face acted as a catalyst in turning a war profiteer to one of the greatest humans in history. Oscar Schindler was able save 1200 jews from undergoing the "special treatment". The actress who portrayed the role of that little girl at the age of three did not know the significance of it at that time. She had made a promise to the director of the movie to not watch the movie until she was an adult but breaking it soon afterwards, she had watched it when she was 11 years old. She had confessed that the movie had left a traumatic impact on her for many years to come. She had not been able to make peace with her traumatised self for many years. This is the sole reason which makes me feel a little better for not discovering this masterpiece any earlier. Although the movie came out in 1993, three years before I was born, I just watched it today.  I am glad I watched it when I am 19 years of age or I guess I would have been in the same state as that actress of the movie. 

Of course, watching Airlift made my heart soar with pride but watching Schindler's list made me feel something I will not be able to put into words. I am not comparing the two movies which actually, really, belong to two completely different eras, narrate two completely different but equally true accounts, are directed by two different film industries- I am just trying to draw an euphemism here. If watching Akshay Kumar who played the role of Messiah Matthews in Airlift, the man who had helped in evacuating 70,000 Indians from Kuwait when Iraq had invaded it in 1991, inspired you...trust me, watching Schindler's list will crush your heart into thousands little pieces and make each one feel inspired by the character of Oscar Schindler portrayed by the actor Liam Nesson. At the time when 6 million jews were killed by Nazis in the 1940s, Oscar Schindler had risen to the greatest level of humanity by being able to save at least 1200 of them, being a member of the Nazi party himself. And he is seen breaking down at the end of the movie, for the first time, exclaiming "I could have saved more" right after he was given this ring, by one of the jews he saved, which had carvings in Hebrew translating to "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."

I urge everybody to watch this movie if they have not yet. You will be left reading and researching about the Nazi Genocide, the bloodiest event(s) in the history of world, yet again..even more than you have done earlier. The movie has won the Academy award and 7 oscars along with many other awards. But that it is not even the most important part. The reason I want each one of those who hasn't watched this movie is because it speaks to you... it makes you feel something.