A Glimpse of Ghibli World!

Have you ever watched those quaint picturesque Ghibli movies? A world of Hayao Miyazaki? Movies of pleasant memories, of moonlit/sunlit backgrounds and shades of green, of flowers and birds and of creatures of amazing brilliance, depicting what’s lost with such subtleness which many of us thought only in our imaginations! Of a world of tenderness and kindness, of a world of miracles and destinies, of a world of dreams and a will to follow it, defying all those odds. A world where human emotions ain’t just to dismiss in the orderliness of things, but to cherish in its ordinariness. A world where hopes reconcile and biases disappear. But does it only remind us of the world we left behind or which we can’t have? Perhaps not!  

Have a look ! Peep a little in depth! See the colour of water or the morning sun in ‘Yesterday only’. Watch the boundless imaginations fly in ‘spirited away’. While the ‘Secret World of Arrietty’ will create a new longing and desire to be close to nature,  ‘Whispers of the heart’ will tinker the bells creating new rhythms and before you know it you are dancing in ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’. You will rejoice at the thought of living ‘Up on a Poppy Hill’ with those flags in hope of finding your love! It creates magic in ‘Princess Mononoke’ surfing around the beach with cute little ‘Ponyo’. And how can you miss out the squishy, stuffy, flurry ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ catching the innocence and fragility of childhood like no other!? Each scene is different, each character specific and yet it is so familiar that it reminds one of oneself and the hidden dreams and hopes we carry reminiscing the very idea of it. It is a marvel of creativity indeed! A fresh dose of storytelling going beyond the sleazy plots.

But most importantly nowhere does it let us miss the melancholy of everydayness. How? By reminding us the connection we seem to have lost with our surroundings, our environment, and our nature. It will dominate your thinking throughout the end and linger for days or months to come, yearning for more of Ghibli creations. You would want to get your backpack and travel to woods or to mountains or to a beach or simply to a nearby village to get away from your concrete jungles - not in a touristy sort of way (to hang out and take selfies way or even to be a monk who wishes to sell his Ferrari way! :P) but to understand what it is to be humane, more aligned and perhaps also sensitive. It will make you less greedy by simply cutting the whole idea of competition we tend to imbibe before we even are born! It will plant that smile on your face in its sheer pleasantness. It nurtures sustainability and inclusiveness which our political leaders on international platform have been trying to define for past few decades. Most importantly it lets the inherent goodness shine through its characters which are super ordinary, shattering our ideas of good and evil, bright and dark, redefining the very definitions of what we perceive. It widens scope for introspection and subsequent change of heart which results out of it. It makes us believe beyond the realities and far fetched worlds in a much reinforced ways. 

It sounds a little surreal when one talks of morality and ethics, discussing conscious behaviour! Because hey! Isn’t it too subjective to evolve that as an objective concept? However we have well passed those debates. What remains now is the final showdown. A possible solution to our selfish order of things lead by a desperate and obsessive idea of growth which hardly respected the dignity of individuals and life forms on this beautiful planet in diverse forms until very recently where efforts have been made to undo the damage. The point one is trying to make is how effective and genuine are these efforts for the loss is too huge to mitigate with limited efforts? If yes then do we see the change as we imagine it to be or if no then why and where are we lacking? And that’s why the idea of conscious and ethical behaviour becomes all the more important to the mind boggling destruction we all have been equal participants to! 

A fellow human once told me “we humans ultimately find solutions to survive. We will devise ways to live in harsh climatic changes, may make Mars liveable and so the idea goes on.” But my friend, will it satiate the longing and yearning Ghibli kindles in us? Will it be fair to those to whom this blue planet belongs equally? Where will they go? The mass extinction  is not just theoretical. Think through next time you step out to buy a carton of milk and ask for a plastic bag! You might as well find some answers as inquisitive Shizuku does in ‘Whispers of the Heart’. While Arrietty managed to find a new home, we may possibly not!