The Shawshank Redemption!!

I happened to see The Shawshank Redemption last night and it made me awake all the night. Okay... that’s a bit exaggeration. Not for all night but it certainly evoked some emotions from some part of my cerebrum for some time.

It’s a story of two jail inmates turned friends, their perceptions of hope. A story of qualities such persistence, strength of mind. Every character from the film teaches us something.

The hero Andy (Tim Robbins) gets convicted for murdering his wife whom he catches with her lover in bed. He then is sent to Shawshank jail where he meets the character Red. Andy decides to open-up a library in a jail. However since the funds are not sufficient he sends letter to authorities for sanctioning the funds for the books. His friends suggest him that it’s all in vain as the letters would not be getting any response.

Since Andy is a die-hard optimist, he decides to send the letter to the authorities every week. Surprise-surprise, one day he receives response to his letters which he has been sending since 6 years. The jail grants funds of $200 and some old books, not respecting Andy’s requests but to bar him from sending the letters again.

What any other inmate would have done after receiving the funds and response?

Quite predictably they would stop sending letters. However Andy sends 2 letters a week from now on till the jail decides to grant $500.

Through such many situations the director has shown Andy’s perception about hope although his friend Red believes that “Hope is a dangerous thing”.

Andy always hopes that he would be freed from the jail some day and would go to some place near Pacific Ocean opening up a small hotel by the sea-shore on some wooden boat where his close friends would come to meet him.

However small but his ardent hope makes him sail through all the darkness and makes him meet his dreams. I won’t be ending-up here describing what Andy does in the climax which certainly is a thing to watch on the screen.

Cheers to Andy and his never-say-die spirit!!