Is Anybody There?

Last Sunday I watched this movie “Is Anybody There?”.  Awesome performance by Bill Milner and Michael Caine. The movie is about the friendship which grows between a retired magician and a 10 year old boy whose parents run an old age home. The boy is obsessed with ghosts and life after death. He is also unhappy that his house is filled with old people. But his parents explain to him that because of their financial problems, they have no other go other than running this home.  An old retired magician by the name Clarence comes to their old age home reluctantly. He has lost his wife and grieves for her, every single minute of his life. Initially, the boy, Edward is very angry that this old man has taken over his room and they do not get along. Slowly the antagonism between them turns in to friendship. Clarence teaches the kid, some magic tricks, asks him to socialise with living beings rather than being interested in dead people. At the same time, the kid helps Clarence to achieve peace with his past.

It is amazing how our mind plays tricks on us. When we are kids, we have a wonderful imagination, life of fantasies and dreams. As we grow old, we start to realise that these are just in our imagination. Real life very much different. And may be when we are at the dusk of our life, we are either bitter or boring.  When we are young, we don’t understand what old people are going through. So many years of hardship has made them what they are now. But funny thing is we forget that one day we will be that old. One day we may also turn grumpy. At the same time, when people grow old, they forget that they were kids once. Sometimes, looking at situations with a curious eye and a simple mind like a kid helps to solve lot of complex problems.

There is a child in every old man and an old man is growing in every child...