Carpe Diem – The Story Behind Zigarthanda

There is always a story behind new beginnings. Here’s my story behind starting this blog. To give you a brief, it all began back in 2017 when a man whispered ‘Carpe Diem’ in my ears via laptop screens and I began a dead poet forever.

It was around the end of 2017. I was in the final year of my engineering degree. Similar to the large number of engineering students back then, I spent the precious days of my life as a college student with so much fun and bare minimum studies. And my major share of fun was to explore various movies that I have missed in my mother tongue (Tamil) and I was slowly stepping into that zone of watching English and Hindi movies with the help of subtitles. And one fine afternoon, I happened to watch THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVIE OF MY LIFE for the first time ever.

DEAD POETS SOCIETY

Yes, DEAD POETS SOCIETY, it is. It just started as a standard ‘a student friendly teacher doing things differently’ trope and it transcended various levels within the two hours odd runtime. When Robin Williams as Mr. Keating whispered, ‘Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary‘, I was already feeling something special in this movie. When Mr. Keating told us that ‘only in our dreams we can really be free’ and he is not creating artists rather free-thinkers, was all the but new wave of thoughts to this boy in his early 20s. I was learning my barbaric yawp via his virtual classroom lectures and by the time his students stood upon the desks to bid farewell to their captain, I was already in tears. I was not the same guy after that movie was over. I changed. I knew. I began to follow ‘Carpe Diem’.

I started to openly express my thoughts more often. I let go of that shyness to share what I feel about movies that touched me, actions that made me happy or sad or even how some people taught lessons via their life. But that was not enough. Spamming my small contacts list with the content I wanted to say never felt like speaking to the right audience.

And so, one fine day, ‘zigarthanda‘ was born in Instagram and I was learning the ways of the writing world via small small steps. Once I got the flow, the words were never enough and Instagram word limit was limiting the flood of thoughts at times. And so, this blog was born. For a long time, it was just existent for namesake and I got busy elsewhere. But now, I feel it’s the time for a rejuvenation and I hope I can maintain this blog in an active manner that I would like and be occupied with content I wish and want to speak about.

Coming to basics, there is only one man whom ‘zigarthanda’ is dedicated to. It’s none other than My Captain, Mr. Keating aka Robin Williams. He changed my life unknowingly from the other corner of the world. I will always be thankful for what he did via his various movies especially Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting and will always write whatever I want to or I wish to, knowing that he will be smiling at ‘zigarthanda’ from wherever he is.

Thank You, Robin. ‘zigarthanda’ is for you, always!