Shankar's I movie

The main thing about this movie is its grandeur and opulence. Rich sets, locales, make up, stunts, choreography, visuals, cinematography, music, costumes.

The story is all about how one’s desire to do things out of reach can gain enemies and in the process spoil the original objective itself. Vikram’s desire to become a super model driven by the love for Amy earns him enemies and eventually spoils his only asset which is his physique and face. How he gets out of it and gets back his lady love in the process taking revenge on people who spoilt him is the story in brief.

I will try the onion-peel approach to de-construct or reverse engineer to reach the kernel of this magnum opus of Shankar.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE.

The stunts and songs are extravagant and meant to please a section of the audience. So let us ignore it no matter how high octane and beautiful they are. I will not harp on the fact that they are unrealistic etc. I can assume that for example the roof top stunt with bi-cycles in China in reality could be something like the crew which is doing the ad shoot is able to call the police or public rushes to help Vikram and he escapes unhurt. So the artistic liberty taken by directors can be easily admired and crossed over without dwelling on it and wasting time as to it being illogical etc.

If you like rich visuals, gravity defying stunt sequences, then you can watch the movie only for that. It is so rich and colourful and it definitely brings a section of audience to watch the movie.


OK, with the songs and stunts behind our back, let us look at the comedy scenes. Santhanam has a similar role played by Vivek in Anniyan, that being the friend of Vikram. Not just cracking jokes some of which makes you laugh but beyond that helping the hunch back Vikram to come out of his depression and start to take revenge on his tormentors. So, he moves Vikram around inside a cart as an ice cream seller. So if you feel the comedy is a misfit to look at the kernel of what the story is, Santhanam serves as the side kick giving the necessary logistics support or filling the gaps for the hero to carry on his job either in the initial days when he is going after Amy Jackson or when he is into modelling assignments and in later part when he is after his enemies.

Now we see two big threads. One is the characters and their interactions. Other is the plot on which the characters travel. There is a question as to whether the characters make the plot or the plot is independent of the characters. We will try to figure this out as we move on.

Vikram’s character is fairly well sketched. He is the typical north madras lower middle class resident , innocent , running a gym and has two broad objectives. One to become Mr. Tamilnadu and the other slightly lesser interest following Amy as a model in all the ads she appears. It is not love. It is a sort of admiration or being a fan of a celebrity. He eats, sleeps and drinks Amy when he is not pumping iron. A chance meeting with Amy happens which is the story part that helps Amy to rope in Vikram for a modelling assignment in China due to a problem that Amy faces. So this is all going reasonably OK. No big issues in terms of the way the story moves or the characters tying into the story.

Amy is kind of the single parent brought up kid as only the mother is shown. She is more pampered and beautiful and grows up to do modelling assignments out of her choice. She likes her profession and is sincere in giving it her 100%. She is not doing it for the sake of money as she does not fall for Upen who is a co-actor in the modelling she does. She has her morals in spite of being in a industry where slipping is easy.

Upen’s advances and her refusal to fall for him moves the story into a position where she is kept out of modelling assignments due to the influence wielded by Upen on the modelling company executives and owner. She finds Vikram with the help of her mentor Suresh Gopi. Suresh is a family doctor of Amy and a friend as well since her child hood. Suresh also goes to the Gym run by Vikram and he sort of helps Amy to rope in Vikram for the modelling assignment as he knows both. He has influence on Vikram by sponsoring his Mr.Tamilnadu competition entry.

The story now moves into a path of establishing real love between Amy and Vikram while in China. The character of Vikram slowly changes from being an admirer or a fan to a lover and Amy from seeing Vikram as a junior brought up by her in the field to her lover with turn of events.  These are shown very gradually and convincingly.

There are 4 enemies created in the process of transformation of Vikram from a body builder to a super model. Upen who wants Amy is jealous of Amy moving around with Vikram as well as his own modelling going for a toss because Vikram - Amy combination becomes a big hit. Vikram’s make up man-woman who has a crush on Vikram also becomes jealous of him moving with Amy. This is a bit unbelievable, but it is a very small part of the story.

Vikram also shoots down a cola modelling assignment as it has pesticides apart from openly talking about it in the media which results in a big let down for that product and this irks the big boss of the modelling company. His earlier Mr.Tamilnadu contestant who loses to Vikram becomes a enemy.

Now by themselves all these four would have been quite harmless and mostly be fuming within themselves. It is actually the fifth person Suresh who is portrayed as a family friend and doctor who also has an eye for Amy since her child hood becomes the main catalyst to the whole group making them go for the kill. Sorry not killing per se, but they want something more than that (in Tamil Adhukum mela). They want to disfigure him. They inject a virus into him and Vikram thus turns into a hunchback with a ugly face and body.

Thus the plot is quite linear so far. The characters are fairly well essayed and the interconnections between the characters and the way the plot moves are straight and believable as well.

The other big thread of the movie involves the hunchback character of Vikram who goes through depression, keeps away from Amy, in fact goes to the extent of proving he is dead by a fake accident and then learns how Suresh has duped him for getting Amy along with the others and conspired to disfigure him. Thus the hunchback’s only purpose is to disfigure badly all the 5 villains and goes about it clinically. The layer of how each of the five get disfigured is an extra detail and can be imagined in different ways. This takes a lot of cue from Anniyan’s Garuda puranam episodes.

The key point is that the story revolves around people, their desire, lust and the vengeance they wreck on each other. Also another layer of story revolves around the concept of ‘true love’. True love is not physical only. It transcends beyond physical into the soul. This happens to Amy who asks Vikram what he would have done had she been disfigured. It is a very defining moment of the whole story. I feel this is the pivot around which everything else is constructed. This is the main theme. This is the kernel of this movie. If you see a story as a pure love story then it is very normal. A lot has been done in movies around it. Now if you add a layer of platonic love transcending physical aspects, then the hunchback with the ugly face comes in. If you ask how he came to become a hunchback, then the rest of the plot falls in.

Overall, it is a clean story telling tying all the knots starting from a very simple outline. With the imagination pulling this basic kernel of a story into different directions, it becomes a magnum opus. This is the magic you can do on a big screen with the technology and Shankar has spared nothing to see its maximum potential.

Short story - What is in a name?

He was annoyed by the happenings. Reading a newspaper in the morning made him heavy. It is no longer the cursory glance at the happenings around. So many wrongs were reported. Of different kinds. May be that people were more diligent in reporting things than ever before. But still it worried him a lot. Robbery, Corruption, Terror, Accidents, Rape, Bigotry and countless such things, you name it , it is there. Or are all these different names for one common thing called ‘Bad’?. Not that it is there once in a while, it is there every day. Only the names, places and time have to be replaced.

“Where are we headed?” he was stuck internally with that question.

“Appa, I brushed my teeth myself today” his 5 year old kid came towards him.

It took a while for him to register the change in context. He switched to look at his son.

“Wow, its so nice” he beamed at his son and moved forward to hug him.

He could feel the morning warmth of his son. His thoughts flashed for a moment “What kind of place are we creating for this kid?”.

For the next half hour both were running around the house. He was chasing his son and vice-versa.

Another hour went in Yoga and meditation.

Mind calmed down. He almost forgot the thoughts he started the day with.

“Today I have to get those bugs fixed and see that working” he thought about yesterday night’s work and his mind now wandered deep into work.

Sita called him for breakfast and he had it. It was tasting good. “Without some sort of exercise in the morning, I will be doomed” he thought to himself.

“We need to get that compliance certificate for our site” Sita reminded him.

Compliance certificate was a way to correct the original non-compliance by the Government which issued approvals to purchase agricultural land for building houses. He got this site from the housing society of his company which had paid a tidy sum to get that land earlier. The new Government found the treasury empty and decided to regularise the non-compliance by asking all house owners to get it regularised. The company’s housing society no longer existed.

“The Government always wins. And people form Governments. So it is always the people who win, no matter what, Yes I win” he was loud.

Sita looked at him a little puzzled. “What? why don’t you get the documents” She said and went ahead to finish her work without waiting for him to respond. 

“Oops..I completely missed that one” he said and went on to get the documents needed.

He was not feeling comfortable with the thought of meeting this Officer in the Sub-registrar office. He was sure he had to dole out some cash to get things done. It was not something pleasant. He was tossing with the idea of ‘to comply or not to comply’ inside.

***********

The Sub-registrar office was flooded with people. Peons, brokers, officers, clerks all walked up and down the multi-storeyed building. Overall it looked jaded and dirty. Walls had pan streaks while walking up the stairs.

“Hello", the officer looked up.

He handed over the documents.

“Can we walk outside. It is too noisy here” the Officer stood up and moved outside his desk.

He followed the Officer.

Outside they came under a tree. Lots of people moving in various directions. It was like the way gas molecules move in a container randomly. Sita who waited outside joined him.

The Officer looked at him and said “You see, there are a lot of issues in your case”.

He kind of knew what was coming. So he looked at him without much reaction.

“The land has a history of disputes. Everything earlier has been settled with money by your company. Unless you pay ‘X’ it will be very difficult to move the papers”.

He told “See, we just bought it from our housing society. I was handed over the site. There was nothing beyond that. Asking me for money now is not correct”.

“OK, then you make a decision to wait for years to get it regularised. Your choice” the Officer said and started to move away.

***********

He stood there. “I was born into this mess. It was not my choice. I am a minority here to stay clean” he was mumbling to himself.

“What are you thinking so much?” Sita asked.

“Am not going to pay him money” he said.

“Then are we going to suffer without water and sanitary connections” Sita was looking at him helplessly.

"Yes. if that is what we need to pay for staying clean”.

************

As the Officer entered the building, his boss saw him. “Ram, did you talk to that fellow …who was supposed to meet you today?”

“Yes. he is not the type. He will not budge”. Ram told his boss.

“What was his name?” the boss asked.

“Ah..his name ?..Ravan” Ram told.

Short story - Sky is not the limit

He was frantic. ‘How do I get it shipped ? It is going to be a tall order.’

Outside, there were still cars on the road. Most of them going back home. ‘I have to forget going back home tonight’.

Just as he thought of home, Sita came on the phone. ‘Ram, its already 9’O clock. How long?’ , ‘Sita, don’t wait for me, have your dinner and sleep, I am going to be late. Not sure when’ Ram answered without waiting for her to complete.

‘How late?’

‘Not sure could be past midnight or early morning’

‘Then don’t drive in the middle of the night, stay there and come by morning’.

‘OK’ Ram was already on the messages in his inbox. Sita knows that and she ended her call with a ‘OK bye’.

Ram was in deep shit.

He committed for delivering a piece of software with his small team in Bangalore.

The sponsor of that in the US was travelling to France to demonstrate that software in front of a customer the next day.

Everything was ready and people were at ease till evening. When Ram asked his team lead to demo it to him, he found some fundamental mismatch in the understanding. He had all along talking about it to his sponsor as ‘X’ and it is ‘Y’ as per what his team had done.

Now he had no choice but to get ‘X’. It was not impossible, but there is a lot of housekeeping changes after the main change is done.

He was looking at the messages from his sponsor who was sitting in the airport in Houston.

Let me focus on this. He was now deep into the code. His team mates barring Shyam had left. He just needed Shyam who had done the main piece. Shyam was trying to do a part of it in his cube.

Time went on. Outside the traffic was almost dead. It was a cold Bangalore winter. Christmas was not far off. Ram had planned to do a trip to NewZealand with Sita.

‘Why am I going through all this?’ The saintly corner of Ram was asking this question constantly.

‘What if I dropped this all now and simply walked off?’

These thoughts are not new to Ram. It occurs whenever he finds himself in situations that were forced on him. And it has been that way many a time.

Ram reasoned out that these are just some of the tricks his brain conjures up in defence of his situations. You look at a diametrically opposite possibility than the one you are undergoing. Sometimes it helps you to show the futility of what you are up to and help you drop things that landed on you somehow.

He was finding it hard to focus on the problem at hand. Somewhere the code was going into a spin. The recursion was not ending properly.

Coding should never be done under pressure. It is not anything different from the way you write novels or do a painting. It has to be constructed patiently line by line. Until everything small stacks up in its innumerable ways to show its grandeur.

His sponsor was on chat by now. He was a good man. He was feeling sorry for the pressure and making Ram staying up late. However, he had no choice either. The company they belonged had built a solid line of defence five levels up to keep the pressure distributed.

The sponsor was excited to be meeting the customer on the other hand. ‘All our efforts would be paid this year if we land up with this contract’. He said.

Ram acknowledged sleepily. He was thinking to himself. ‘These words no longer excite me’.

After several iterations of proving murphy’s law, several compilations, stupid coding mistakes and some changes Ram started to see the output he wanted to see.

It was 3:32AM.

He went up to Shyam and asked him to join for a stroll outside. ‘Some tea shops would be open at least. Lets have a lemon tea’.

The city lights had sufficiently polluted the night sky. It was not possible to see any stars. The Moon was visible. ‘What a life, can’t even watch the sky’ Ram told Shyam.

Shyam was feeling better with the chill breeze crossing his face. He said ‘ Yes, I suddenly went back to my engineering college campus, walking around with friends in the night’.

Shyam continued. ‘We used to go out after spending a long time in the computer lab to a shop outside the campus. Hot omelettes and coffee in the middle of the night. And a nice walk talking all sort of crazy things’.

Ram said ‘yes, I did not stay in the hostel. I used to stay with my Grand parents in a village not far from the college. It used to be so quiet after 6 PM and you can get a full view of the night sky , sometimes even the milky way galaxy in its splendour’

‘You seem to be quite interested in the skies, is it?’.

‘Yes, always, ever since we came here. Though it has been a long time and we have figured out how to live here, my mind has not left the time since our ancestors left earth. I have read a lot of the first trip to Mars and the way they established colonies here later’

Shyam said ‘Yeah, its a long time since then. It is so great that we do not miss any of the earth out here and we could create the exact same things with technology'

‘Yes, the space is different, the time is different, but we are ...’ Ram did not complete.

The lemon tea was ordered and the shopkeeper handed them two glasses.

Ram’s phone buzzed. There was a message from his sponsor. ‘Terror alert in Houston airport. All flights cancelled. Will touch base once I reach home’.

Ram sighed and had a good go at the lemon tea while staring at the Martian sky.

Short story - Degauss

'You know where most of our time get wasted?' Ram asked his wife Sita.

She was not immediately answering. She was trying to catch up with him as they were walking around the lake.

‘What?’ she asked

‘I was asking about where we waste most of our time in life?’, Ram is used to repeating things to people around.

Ram knows that every one is lost in their world of thoughts these days. You need to convey something that brings them back from their sleep. So obviously the first thing when they wake up is a ‘What?’.

Sita was not answering immediately. It is one of those ‘too generic’ type of questions that Ram asks.

Ram continued ‘ You know what.. it is the time we spend meeting useless people, talking useless things and thinking useless stuff. In fact all these are inter-related’.

Sita interjected and said ‘How do you say something is useless?’

Ram said ‘Not that you can find it before striking a conversation. While you are going through it, you get that feeling that this does not relate to me at all. It is just noise in my otherwise noisy mind. Then you know you are meeting this useless person and having a useless conversation’.

Sita was at heart more empathetic to people than Ram. She normally views Ram’s statements from this prism. So she did not acknowledge this line of thought.

She said ‘You cannot always see things from a utilitarian or commerce point of view. You need to be mindful that we are humans and not computers or machines. It is fine if you find a useless person. Just move on. Do not be going deep into it and frame everything around you as useless’.

Ram did not leave it. He retorted back ‘Sita, whats wrong with a utilitarian point of view? Isn’t the sweatshirt you are wearing, the phone you hold not come from people who have spent their time usefully? I am just trying to maximise the time we spend usefully doing something. That does not mean I am up against every situation that renders me helpless. Its obvious that life always throws strange things at you and you cannot be productive about all of those. It is a way of gauging something like a meter and trying to have a way of moving out of it’.

There was a bit of silence. It usually happens after a conversation reaches its crescendo. Normally the topic changes at this point.

Ram suddenly shouted in a excited tone. “What if I had a magic wand that can make people’s heads align to me like the iron filings getting aligned to a magnet. You see in the MIB movie where he shows a baton to sort of degauss the folks to forget what they saw about the aliens floating in their midst”.

Sita was smiling. She knew Ram won’t leave it from this point.

True to her belief, Ram built a magic wand.

He was walking on a day when Sita did not accompany him around the lakeside. He was immersed in his thoughts as usual.

He heard a voice behind “Hi Ram, Good morning, long time since we met”. It was Shyam.

Ram had met him during one of the morning walks when they kind of bumped into each other. Initially Ram felt they had lot of common topics like politics, Gods and so on. Soon it dawned on Ram that it comes in the way of his thought stream as he walks and started avoiding Shyam.

Now there is no way. Shyam continued “Time is sucked by Facebook. You do not know when you enter it and when you exit. I love these walks which give me more satisfaction than sitting and posting messages and liking some strange photos shown by your relative’.

Ram did not have much choice. He was not the avid FB user. Still he had to do more than just smile and nod his head.

He said ‘Yeah, these guys when they meet, they rarely talk. But they keep doing these likes for even something stupid. Such is the emptiness in our lives and FB is a perfect sucker of that life’s vacuum’.

The talk went on. Ram suddenly became aware that the conversation is no more connecting with him. Shyam was still ranting something.

Ram stealthily took out the baton. It was a metal rod like thing. Shining, but not so big.

He had tried it in the lab and measured the field with a magnetometer.

He was swift. He waved it along the side of Shyam.

Shyam collapsed.

 
Another funny ending for this story (based on inputs from my friend)

The talk went on. Ram suddenly became aware that the conversation is no more connecting with him. Shyam was still ranting something. 

Ram stealthily took out the baton. It was a metal rod like thing. Shining, but not so big.  He had tried it in the lab and measured the field with a magnetometer.

He was swift. He waved it along the side of Shyam.

Shyam felt something by his side and turned back to look at Ram. He had by now moved a little ahead. He saw this steel like shining baton that Ram was carrying.

‘Hey whats that? Something to scare the dogs away?”,  he was now a bit curious.

Ram still not very clear from his earlier act, tried to get himself back into the conversational mode. He just tried to mumble ‘Oh that's nothing…my son had brought it from somewhere and he had left it in this jacket I guess..I was trying to know from where this came….and by the way, how right your observations are about Facebook. I am absolutely aligned to your thoughts on it’.

‘Wow, this is going places’ Shyam thought to himself, feeling the golden colour shining baton inside his jacket. 'It is getting people aligned to me more than ever’.

Why I cannot let go this life without achieving something?

Many a time I have been questioned as to why I quit my job at HP after spending a substantial amount of time, close to 12 years. Like everything else you get attached to in life, this was not easy. But still I let go.

Though I would not say that I had a very clear cut answer when I did that except that I wanted to make good use of the remaining time of my life doing something I like and earning my living out of that, I can tell with confidence several years after I made that decision and spending all my time in the last 6 months working on the product I wanted to give life to.

It is not about the product. There is nothing about it. Not that I do not like it nor it is not fantastic in my view. It is great and I have never done something like this. It is going to be different and I am sure people will appreciate the value that it brings. There is a even better reason which has cemented in me over years now as to why I want to do all of this.

I desperately want to give some purpose to this existence.

There was a time when I used to constantly question this. Why are we here? What is our purpose? I have spent a lot of time pondering over this, debating with friends, reading a lot of philosophy (which by the way is available in plenty if you are in India). I have even appeared more spiritual or philosophical to many of my friends because of all these. I have even thought that being like this is the end result of some one raising such questions (why are we here? what is our purpose?).

But over time I realized that the question is wrong. You cannot ask this question and find a meaningful answer. You will never find. Instead I realized I should be desperate to make this life purposeful and meaningful for me. This is the only way you can laugh at life rather than life laughing at you when you die.

Make every bit of it meaningful. Never do something that makes no sense to you. Try your best. Try hard at it. Go for it. If you have not thought about this, do this now. There is no better time. Do not settle for anything less. Go for the ultimate you can accomplish. It could be that you had a passion for running. Then go all out on that. Even if you think you are burdened by your finances, burdened by relations or others. Never compromise on what you wanted to do. You may look like you are winning when you compromise and settle for something interim. But in the end you will be a loser. Life would have won over you. You will be one of those speck that visited this planet briefly.

If you feel this is all extreme, then you better change your outlook my friend. You have to be extreme when it comes to living. You cannot be docile and think that you would have solved this problem called life. Be aware, fully live, Do something that will truly excite you, Keep doing and going beyond what you can see today. When you leave this planet, leave it with a sense of achievement.

My Car

I bought this Hyundai Accent GLS in 2001 December. Roughly 13 years now. That is a reasonably long time to keep a car. Yesterday when I took it out in the morning to go to a nearby lakeside for my usual morning walk and parked it outside my house, my wife about to get in screamed.

“What ?” I asked lowering the windows.

“Petrol is leaking SO much" , she hollered.

I just got out thinking that it should be another one of my wife’s proverbial high decibel alarms she gives out when she finds a dead rat, a live cobra, monkeys around the house and so on. Wait, did I say rat? I will get back to this point soon. But the smell of petrol can’t be ignored. It was all around and flowing under the car and coming out from the back on the tar road.

Oops..

I immediately got in and started the car, reversed it and took it back into my parking area inside my compound. I was hearing my wife screaming yet again, this time saying the leak is so much, it is kind of pouring down. I was for a moment thinking “Am I doing the right thing here?”

I had no clue. It is petrol down below the bonnet. What if some spark or something happens? I felt jittery for a moment. But nothing was happening so far. So must be alright I thought.

My father came out of his room. He was visibly worried smelling petrol. I opened the bonnet, peered in. Nothing I could make out. I thought we should collect the petrol in a vessel.

I turned back and asked my wife to get a vessel. She brought some plastic bins after a while. I put them under the car below the bonnet lying low on the ground, wherever I could find the dripping.

Now the petrol smell was all over.

I found that when I turned off the car, the leaking had stopped. “Thank God”.

Reached out to the 24x7 on road assistance, customer service, nearby service centres, hotline help and finally my recent local garage person who services it. He said he will send a mechanic.

The day passed with calm. Towards evening the mechanic came. He saw the tubes and showed the main tube carrying petrol going into the engine had a hole mostly bitten by a rat. He took some photos and sent it over WhatsApp. He said he has to get the part and will fix it the next day. I asked him how dangerous it was to rid a car leaking petrol. He told, if it catches fire by any spark, the roof of my portico would blow up. I was mentally going back to the jitter I felt when I parked the car.

I turned back and told my wife “You know what, if a rat can take my life so easily and cause a 180 degree change in yours as well, just think how vulnerable we are”.

I recollect as I type this Douglas Adams - The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" where the mice would try to find the answer to the ultimate question using earth as a computer or some such thing. There is nothing that you can hold onto in front of death. Everything is washed away, your morals, your beliefs, your hangovers of any sort.

I was thinking what can be done to stop rats from roaming freely inside my compound. Got those rat killer biscuits and placed them in four corners of the house.

When I woke up in the morning, I went around to see if any of them got eaten up by the rat. One was missing. The one near the car.

When I walked back from the lakeside area after my morning walk, found a dead rat almost half a kilometre away.

I showed my wife. She exclaimed “This must be that thing”.

Somehow, in my head with that thing going off, my thirteen year old car also had finally given way telling me to look for a new one.

This car is not a piece of metal. It is a significant chunk of my life on the road in many places at different times loaded with memories. But so what? Look forward to my new Car :-)

Of climbing mountains, purpose of life and finding me

Actually, there is always this quest for knowing the purpose of this life.

IMO having a purpose gives you that vigour needed to wake up and do things better every day.

Till some point the purpose was not questioned as it is sort of the default mode living in this society that one goes through.

Of making money, building a house, marry, kids , foreign trips etc.

But after a point when these are fulfilled unless you are a Kamal Haasan or a AR Rahman who seem to have got that passion in whatever they do,

for normal middle class fellows who have sailed with the above as purpose in their head suddenly find that they have another 40+ years in existence.

What to do now? So far,  I never had this thought that I would ever be exhausted of the excitement brought in by life.

All of a sudden, I see a vast plain before my eyes , a huge desert with no end after climbing several mountains and hills.

How do I take this up ? Now I realize I am not what I thought I was.  I am not that fellow who was madly going after the above things.

I am not that proud employee of that MNC, I am not that owner of that posh mansion, I am not the lover who showered unconditional love on my wife or my kid and so on...

Well, you may be oblivious to these type of thinking and be blissful in continuing the way you are. No big worries. Life goes.

But what if you are the kind who feels that the mountain you were climbing is now well behind you and you see no mountains?

I believe this is were you have to start seeing some mountains on your own to climb. It can be photography, writing novels, becoming a musician, or building a product

and so on... It can be any type of mountain which earlier you could not climb because there were other mountains placed before you to climb by people near and dear.

So before and now the situation is same. You are climbing mountains. But this time, you decide the mountain to climb rather than others. Since you decide, you may

find a high enough one, a really tough one to climb and one that you climb with passion which you did not experience in all your previous climbs.

Realize one thing. The mountains were always imaginary. They were never there. Earlier you did not know. Now you know. You still do it , but with this knowing.

So you are no longer the person you were before. Qualitatively you are much different.

There will be a time, when climbing mountains or staying in plains will look the same. Then YOU disappear. You are no longer there.

Till that time, happy climbing!