How war movies helped me with stress
The Pandemic in 2020 has surely left us in a state of bizarre hopelessness where we are bound at home with very little variety of chores to be done without seeking fresh air from the outside. This has led to suicides, anxiety, and boredom, and people around the world have either become more creative or lazy.
Due to the Pandemic and work from home culture, I work up to 12 hours a day. Weekdays, Weekends, they don’t differ much. The mundane work, eat, sleep routine has kept me dead inside out, so much that I have started sleep talking, I end up waking in my sleep, talking about my work.
I did not realize how stressed I was until I started sleep talking about codes and logic that I use in my program. There was nothing except work for me and I would be least interested to do anything when I did get off work, I would end up thinking about work, even when I am eating or doing some chores. Stress can be invisible easily. It can show up in forms like these, where we feel like we have lost our purpose when we are not working. This is Bad.
My hobbies seemed so boring and I felt so lifeless. That’s when I thought to myself, ‘Hey I feel shitty, why don’t I see the worst of worse!’. I don’t like violence much but War shows you some real hardships and impacts you a lot.
This impact was what I needed to take a break from work.
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I started with ‘The forgotten army’. This movie speaks about the Indian National Army led by Netaji, which returned to India after WW2 to attack the British regime and this marked the beginning of the oppression in India in the early 1940s.
War movies show you what is Physical pain, Hunger, Thirst, Labour and Genocide, people dying in masses, and in large numbers. They show the peak of Helplessness faced by victims, where you work for your oppressor in his army against your people. Can there be anything crueler?
No, It did not stress me out more to see so much pain. It gave me a more positive outlook on the pandemic “hardship” we are facing now. Back when my working hours ran continuously into the day in and day out, I used to feel like the most helpless person in this whole world and that I am not able to make effective use of lockdown, Home felt like Hostel where I didn’t know if my own family had dinner or not. It felt so secluded, just me on my laptop in my room. I thought it was raining shit on me and it was endless.
Maybe this could be (or is a) subject of psychology where we witness less fortunate people than us and we feel grateful or better that we are not in such a bad situation yet. That’s what kept me going. This is why Kings in Ancient India, were supposed to travel throughout the country for years before their coronation and witness the various culture, kingdoms, hardships, live in it, live in a forest, live as a nomad, a cook, etc
“To endure hardship is to learn.”
This opened a new interest in me for history and world leaders, who pressed upon so much power and devastation in a small time. This curiosity made me realize that we are way better off now, even if we are in a vulnerable position by a neighbouring country, we are at least locked down with food and family.
And no, Pandemic is not the worst thing world has seen. Imagine being separated from your families, not knowing if they are alive or not, Not knowing what you have to do to protect them, not knowing whether to steal food or clothing, Forced out of your own homes, losing everything and returning after a long while to find your house empty after the war, and then you think to yourself, what was the point of surviving after all?
This comparison might seem unfair, but in the 21st century, the war is more with the economy, education, and health than with physical violence in contrast to people made to work on fields and labour camps and not being given food, and in the end, dying.
Since then I have watched movies like ‘The Pianist’, ‘First they killed my Father’ and many Docuseries on WW2(Netflix). I hail from a very average family that hardly has practised violence in the past, Hence, I find it astonishing how one leader can take the power to shed so many lives. This is what keeps me on the edge. This is the only thing I am left with.
PS: Somebody asked me where all this is coming from. I said, that’s my ‘Rooh’ talking!
(in Urdu, Rooh means soul and I personally find this word very embracing)
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