Ship of Theseus

 

A day before Independence Day, I was surfing the internet and came across this intellective and amusing personality ‘Anand Gandhi’. As per Wikipedia, Anand is an Indian filmmaker, entrepreneur, media producer, innovator and system researcher. He has directed few movies like- Tumbbad, An Insignificant Man, Ship of Theseus. This blog is all about the latter one.

After studying articles and checking out few interviews of Anand Gandhi, I was so amused by his persona which induced me to watch his films. I watched 2 of his films quickly and came to write my insightful experience I had with this beautifully directed thought-provoking film “Ship of Theseus”. Before I start just to let you know, this film was released in India in 2013 and won the National Film Award in 2014. Although it won many National and International Awards, it did not get the mass popularity that it deserved. One of the reasons could be that this is not a cinema to entertain a mass audience and everyone may not appreciate it. This is very different kind of thought-provoking film which lets you to sink into a deep shallow of imagination perplexed with questions facing the idea of identity.

‘Ship of Theseus’ is itself an old ‘Western Philosophical’ thought experiment that raises the question of fundamental nature of reality. The experiment goes like- Whether an object that has had all of its components replaced part-by-part with similar parts, does it remain fundamentally the same object or does it now attain a new identity?

Story-1

The film covers 3 stories in sequence which let you dive deep into each story one after the other. The first story is about a visually impaired girl ‘Aaliya’ who takes up photography as a profession after she loses her vision due to a cornea infection. Aaliya has been portrayed as a young independent girl who manages her work without any obstacles. She goes out at different places in the city and click pictures by application of all of her senses despite of being blind. Once in an interview during her photography exhibition, she was asked by the interviewer- “Do you ever feel limited by anything?” to which she replied- “No”. Interviewer surprisingly said- “that’s amazing” to which she replied- “Why is it so amazing to have limits?” This reverse question of Aaliya to interviewer has left me in a deep thought that, if a visually impaired girl considers no limitations to her work and profession, then we are very insignificant people who perceive our goals and mission by binding it with numerous materialistic limitations.

Later Aaliya gets a transplant for her eyes through which she regains her sight. Now instead of becoming a better photographer, she was rather unable to focus on her work, unable to focus on objects she wants to capture, because now she was seeing a hell lot of things happening around her through her eyes. Now she was eventually more confused and found herself lost in chaos of the city. Aaliya decided to let everything sink in herself and get through with her new vision of life.

Story-2

The second story is about a monk who lives an exceptionally simple life. Story depicts that monk fights a case against pharmaceutical industries who keep animals in their laboratories in a very inhumane conditions to test chemicals on them, and are treated completely ruthlessly violating animal rights. After a while the monk discovers that he has a Liver Cirrhosis which has reached an advanced stage, for which he is required to take a lot of medications and get a transplant. He now faces the dilemma of whether or not to take medicines manufactured by those pharma companies against whom he is fighting for animal rights. Initially monk chooses the path of his ethics that he was fighting for, and decided to accept death by not taking medications.

During his final moments when he was very ill and close to death, he is visited by his companion and aid ‘Charwaka’ who reads few lines of a book to the monk which he brought with himself. Those lines of that book felt so illuminating that I cannot resist myself to bring it here in this blog:

Charwaka reads-

”It gives me some kicks though, to know that, a part of me was a part of an animal once, a flame, a star. A part will become mineral, flow in a plant, sprout in a fruit, get pecked by a bird. Every atom of my body will be recycled by the universe. You think you are a person but you are a colony. A microcosm which has ten times more bacteria in its body than it has human cells...”

These lines brought a new ray of light in monks’ vision of 'values of life'. It convinced him to seek reality of life in different yet broader perspective and hence we see that he finally chooses to go through surgery. He realised that by not choosing to do surgery he is disregarding his own belief of respecting all the existing lives on same parameter by killing himself.

Story-3

Third story is about a young stock-broker (character name- Navin) who had just undergone a kidney transplant. In beginning we see Navin as a very practical man who minds his own business and didn’t care about the world around him. He thinks the life is all about work, money, and just. He often argues with his grandmother (who is a bold social activist) when she tells him to bring some purpose to his life, to become a worthwhile for society. Later Navin come across a poor labourer whose kidney was stolen. He was so touched by this incident that he decided to bring justice to the poor labourer which eventually led him to trace the recipient of his kidney in Stockholm. After meeting Navin, recipient fled from his place. Later he came to know that that recipient has offered hefty amount of money to poor man rather than his kidney, to which the poor man agreed. Navin was very disappointed by this act as he tried his best so that the poor guy can get his kidney back, but things didn’t work out as planned. His grandmother consoles him in the end as she says “All that happened was because you decided to do something about it. It’s as good as it gets”. This story highlights a positive lesson which we  always seek for; "You don’t get everything you wish for, but what matters that you tried your best to get it."

The movie ends with an amazing climax that connects all three stories above in a string. In the end it is revealed that all these three characters- Aaliya, the monk and Naveen, along with few other recipients, gets their organ transplant by a single donor who is now dead. This climax again pops up the Theseus paradox which perforce you to think and question about the original identity of that dead donor and all these recipients.

At last we see a short video captured by the donor in a cave where he can be seen trying to find end point of the cave, he seems fascinated by the wall and his own shadows on it. As my perception this may or may not be linked to “Plato’s allegory of the cave”. Because according to Plato’s, "the way we perceive things around us and the way we lead our lives, is actually not the truth. We human beings are leading ignorant, incomplete lives, following the paths, norms, rules, ethics set by previous generations, without questioning them. However, there will come one questioner, one philosopher, from time to time, who will critically look at himself and world around him, who will wonder why things are the way they are and then will make his own decisions regarding how things should be." If I try to connect this allegory with stories shown in this film, we notice that lead characters of each story had questioned their own set of beliefs and practices, and then they ultimately choose the path regarding how things should be.