Grey. Is it real?
By: Payal Shah
Tags: World War II, Homosexuality, Hollywood, Movie Review

No black or white. Grey.



It’s been a while that something has inspired me to write. I’m rarely the one to appreciate those Oscar nominations; always thought I just wasn’t able to see what others could appreciate about them. But ‘The Imitation Game’ really affected me.



The world, the way we know it, the way we have always known it, strives on custom. For something to become a ‘custom’, it takes years and years of taking one step at a time towards having it accepted by more and more people, and finally by enough people for it to become acceptable by society. The more I think about this movie, the more I believe that our world today progresses the way it does only on this cardinal rule; that it takes time, and that it is a gradual process that needs to be eased in. Any sudden change or anything out of the ordinary, is feared, and almost never immediately accepted. The human brain’s consciousness is wired to decipher the pros and cons of each action, to weigh each action on the brain’s own scale of right or wrong, which in turn is largely dependant on what the society accepts to be ok — customary.



This is exactly what the entire story is about.



World War II.



It went on for 4 years. Alan Turing built Christopher within 2 years. So for the remaining 2 years, they figured out a way to ‘ease the win in’. Was it really a strategy to shorten the war and, as historians proclaim, save ’14 million’ lives? Was there really no other way of conquering the Germans? Did the British intelligence really have to decide who to save and who to sacrifice in ‘the bigger picture’?



Maybe the odds were ever in their favour. Maybe probability was on their side. But could they have predicted with absolute certainty, or as they say in Risk Management terms, with 95% confidence level that the war would have gone on for atleast another 2 years? I honestly doubt anyone can say that. So then, was it really right or wrong on their part, to keep the decoding of Enigma, this big a secret? Did they really save as many lives as they claim? Was keeping it a secret the lesser of two evils (the other being Germans recoding Enigma)? Maybe the war would have ended sooner, just not in favour of the British. Maybe the Germans would have grown so powerful that they would have destroyed Britain and its Allies completely, much sooner that 2 years. I can’t stop but think, that at the end, it was fear that made them act the way they did. Fear of living in a Britain that they wouldn’t recognise. Fear of losing the war. Fear of being ruled over by the Nazis. Then again, those in power are no differently wired. They fear change; which is why they had to make sure they won.



That takes me to a bigger thought process. What is really the truth? How much do we really know about anything? It took almost 75 years for the laurels of Alan Turings work to be declassified. The people who were really affected by it, died long back (and are probably at the end of their next life…if thats a thing). Does it really matter now, whether what they did back then, was right or wrong? There will always be two sides to the coin.



Just yesterday I was talking to a friend who was asked a very simple question. Do you know your great great grandfather’s name? To which his answer was No. The response to this was so simple, yet nothing has made more sense. 100 years from now, your great grandkids aren’t really going to know anything about you, and if you get lucky they might just remember your name. So why do you care so much? Just live.



Homosexuality.



The society as they knew it in the World War II era, could not accept it. Could not be open to the idea of there being any other sexual orientation other than the one they were accustomed to see. Despite the fact that the concept wasn’t really alien; and it had been known for atleast 500 years prior to today (yes I am referring to Leonardo Da Vinci). Hundreds of thousands of people have suffered, been burtally tortured, sentenced to prison, hanged, and have had to bear unnamable inhumanities, for what? Just so that society can take its own time to change its custom? Just so that we can embrace the difference? Its still not custom. Its still not acceptable. Even today, the LGBT community has had to suffer to make itself heard. The majority of the world still looks at it as taboo.



Is the way of a straight person really the right way? Only because that leads to reproduction? Today we have figured out loads of ways of producing a baby, other than the natural act of sex, which may be the reason why we are really ok with people having sex with a person of any gender. Maybe earlier we feared not being able reproduce. Maybe we feared that if everyone turned gay, humans would cease to exist. And unless we had something else to hold onto, we fought the very thought of there being any other way. Again, isn’t it just fear that is providing all this resistence in our logical minds, towards this age old truth. Ideally, a custom takes about 100 years to be formed. Then, why has this taken more than 500 years for humans to accept?



Grey.



No one can be blamed. No thought can be right or wrong. Its survival at the end of the day. Survival of Britain wanting to remain in power; against survival of the truth about Enigma being conquered. Survival of the humans wanting to pass on their genes; against the survival of love having no barrier, and the freedom to express love without any external forces against it, irrespective of whom it maybe for.



Its always grey at the end of the day. Just a matter of how much black or white is required to make that grey. Then again, which is white and which is black, is just an illusion. So then…back to my question…what is real? What is the truth?