"Dada, the old man from Jurassic Park died", my son Desmond casually informed me one day last week.
"What?!" To reduce the greatness of Richard Attenborough to his role in just one movie was an insult to the man. "Haven't you heard of the movie Gandhi?", I asked Desmond. Turned out he had not. And my wife Beatrice had heard of it but not seen it. Bah! More than thirty years back I had seen it in Alankar Theatre in Mapusa and I remember it as being a splendid movie. Interestingly I was studying 12th Arts at Xavier's at the time and was bunking my History lecture to see the movie. My lecturer, Rita Ferrao from Aldona, saw me walking down the staircase when I should be sitting in her class. "I hope you're going for Gandhi?", she asked me. "Yes. ma,am!" "Ok. No problem. I expect you to make a 10 minute presentation about the movie tomorrow to the class." "Sure ma,am!" Mrs. Ferrao was the best History teacher I have ever encountered. Most unconventional in her approach,she would be enthusiastically bouncing all over the classroom enthralling us with her descriptions and opinions which went way beyond the boring textbooks. And she also encouraged students to bring in History related stuff to class - like my presentation. Anyway, yesterday I download Gandhi and we watched it together as a family. It was equally engrossing after more than three decades. Beatrice majored in history and found revelations there too. Desmond was of course fascinated and keeps asking me questions about the Freedom Movement and Partition etc, which I don't struggle to answer - thanks to Wikpaedia! Although he has studied about Gandhi and Independence in school this movie has really got Desmond very interested in Indian history again. Since we are all amateur history buffs in the family, and historical movies, Indian and International, can act as a educational tool I have decided to download a few movies - mainly for Desmond but for us too. Below is the list. Please feel free to suggest additions or subtractions depending on suitability. Lincoln (2012) Alexander (2004) Marie Antoinette (2006) Downfall (2004) Gladiator (2000) Schindler's List (1993) Ben-Hur (1959) The Patriot (2000) Mississippi Burning (1988) Spartacus (1960) Elizabeth (1998) Lagaan (2001) Water (2005) Ashoka the Great (2001) Jodhaa Akbar (2008) The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey (2005) The Legend of Bhagat Singh (2002) Sardar (1993) Veer Savarkar (2001) Gautama Buddha (2007) Asoka (2001) Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story (2005) Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero (2005) Rang de Basanti (2006) =========
