THE BIG YEAR
THE BIG YEAR
That is the name of the movie that I saw during my Air India
flight to Kozhikode (formerly Calicut) from Delhi. It is truly a hopping flight:
two stops over at Mumbai and Coimbatore (the Tamils still have not changed its
name, or if they have, I am not aware) and in the process takes 6 hours to
reach from Delhi to Kozhikode; in the same time you may reach at least a few
destinations in Europe, and all in the destinations in Gulf area as well as all
over Asia. Normally I avoid seeing movies on plane; one, that the screen is too
small and too close for my comfort, secondly, most of the times, these are
highly abridged, and third, not less important, the hearing phone plugs do not
fit my ears. I am seriously thinking of buying good quality external earphones,
which you don’t have to insert inside your ears. However, I keep the screen
alive to see what is happening, or sometimes I steal a glance over other
passengers’ screens to know what are their choices. For example, when we were
flying to Zurich very recently, the young boy sitting diagonally opposite, was
watching some kind of a horror movie, the story of which seemed to have been
lifted straight from ancient Indian and Arabian stories. The demon in some far
flung area has an extra head on his shoulder, can penetrate wall of any
thickness, and is at ease whether running, flying or swimming deep under the
ocean. And he is indestructible by any weapon. Only fire could annihilate him
in the end set up by the young hero. And what was hero’s reward? No prize in
guessing; of course, the young beautiful princess.
Well, on my flight to Kozhikode, I resumed reading ‘Paths to
Glory’ by Jeffery Archer, the book I started on my flight to Zurich. If you do
not know about this book, I will tell you some other day.
When breakfast came, I switched on my inflight entertainment
programme, just to watch visuals, without the bother of listening to dialogues.
I stopped at one channel when I saw Steve Martin shooting birds, what else, but
with a camera. I had thought I would just enjoy his comical acting while having
my breakfast, but then, the birds caught my attention, and I decided to watch
the movie with all audio and visuals. The movie was about 3 people, who are
birdies: the passionate bird watchers. Steve is a successful business tycoon
who started from his garage, but now controls an empire, and is fiercely
competitive; Harris is a young man who at 36 is divorced, and does not have a
steady job; Baustik is another young and successful guy who is happily married
to a beautiful and devoted wife, and the couple is keen to have a child, for
which wife is under treatment at an Infertility clinic. They are unknown to one
another, and had decide to take a year off, the ‘big year’ from their
respective work. During this year, they and many other bird watchers would
travel all over the US to spot, sight, and photograph as many birds as possible,
and to achieve satisfaction of being a winner.
Each wants to be a winner, because winning would bring them some glory
and recognition. Doing ‘Big Year’ is not just following a hobby for them any
more. What was just a passion becomes another nerve wrecking competition.
Steve and Baustik have no problem with funds, but when Harris
goes to his parents for a loan of $ 5000/-, his retired father retorts about
him not doing any worthwhile job, and wanting to erode their old age savings to
pursue his useless hobby of bird watching, and giving a fancy name ‘The Big
Year’ to his vacation. His mother comes to rescue at the last minute, and
drives recklessly to the JFK for him to catch his flight to a bird sanctuary
about to receive migratory birds. These three meet in the sanctuary, but would
not tell one another that they all have taken this as their ‘Big Year’, though
all suspect each other, and a fierce, but un-spelt competition sets among them.
The story is about how they try to stay ahead of the other, how they handle
their own demons and relationships, and how they learn some important lessons
of life.
In between the year, Steve’s office begs him to come to
office from his vacation to clinch a deal with a tough client; he resists
initially but returns to NY just for 4 hrs. But then, misses his chartered
flight to Alaska, and there is none for another week. So he lags behind in his
number game, and feeling very frustrated, decides to give up on completing his
Big Year. Then his wife reminds him that bird watching was his hobby, why he is
taking it as another business deal or rivalry. He should complete his ‘big
year’ enjoying watching and photographing birds, not just counting them. Harris
comes close second, but he ends up getting a girl friend, and more importantly
he learns the importance of relationship in life, when he abandons a field trip
to return to look upon his ailing father in the hospital. His father
understands his son’s passion, and gifts him funds to complete his year.
Baustik comes up as the winner, but in the process loses his wife; she finally
decides to leave him because he misses all the important dates at the clinic,
and she realizes that she is only at a second place in his life, and how much
he himself abhors the idea of coming to second place in the ‘Big Year’. After
losing his wife, the value of relationship dawns on him when sitting alone in a
park he sees a young couple walking with a child.
Sudhir
Kozhikode, 20/07/2013
