Watched the movie Drishyam. The mother of a boy, who was murdered, wants to take revenge. The father of a girl who was sexually abused wants to protect his wife, who killed the boy in self-defence. The rest of the story follows the manipulation of evidence and the planting of a story everyone believes to be true.

After watching the movie, I wondered whether it is possible to distinguish between story and reality. The advocate for the accused, as well as the judge, believes the accused’s story of innocence. All of us believe in numerous stories. Human beings are the most evolved beings on this Earth. We are the only living beings in this entire cosmos. We are making great developments by building cities. When we fall ill, we feel safe in doctors’ hands. We believe in the story of family, love, our own people, and our own community. Almost all of us have believed the story of religion for centuries. The story about the heavens and souls. What if all these are just stories believed by the majority? How do we gather evidence to testify to these stories?

The logic that prima facie seems like a wonderful tool for examination may itself be a story. If not, why does the same logic give so different interpretations? Why do we have so many different belief systems? There should be only one, held universally by everyone. But if we try to test the reality behind all the stories we believe in, based on which we set the targets for our lives that provide us motivation to do the hard work, probably we will just go mad. The whole fun of life will vanish. So isn’t it better to keep living in those stories than to try to know the truth behind them? It’s better to keep believing in the reality of heaven than to know the reality and be disappointed. Who would like to come out of the matrix just to be lost?

On the other hand, we can look at the entire ecosystem in a very different way. Every reality is subjective. Earth is flat is a reality when we look at the road, the building where we live, and when we travel by train. Earth being a sphere is a reality when we look at it from a distance. Earth is stable, and that’s how it feels to live on it. From a distance, Earth is rotating as well as revolving. The same person may be very generous and cunning with different people. The same person may show very different shades of personality. The same place may have very different weather. Human life may be better than animals’ when it comes to comfort. But human beings may have far more psychological fear than animals. When we form an opinion about anybody or anything, it’s not absolute.

The moment we learn to put everything in context, we do not fall into the trap. If we instil this quality in our kids from childhood, it will save them from many troubles later. When the child comes and says, “Daddy, I love you.”, we just need to ask, “What does that mean?” What does love mean in this context? Does the child like that the father takes care of him? Does he feel safe in his father’s company? Does he feel like sharing? There may be many different contexts, and knowing the right context helps us come closer to reality. When we form a hypothesis, the assumptions matter, and as we test it further, we need to revisit each one. Similarly, we have many belief systems, and they drive our entire lives. The problem is that these belief systems rest on certain assumptions, and we never challenge them. That’s why most people have tons of regrets as they lie on their deathbeds. Because in the ICU in hospital, those belief systems do not work, and the pain is real. Death is a reality that no story can prevent. The mother of a dead boy may keep believing that some witch has taken away the life of her son, but the fact may be that it was a simple bacterium that could have been cured with a two-rupee tablet. We may waste our lives crying and playing the victim card, believing that somebody has cheated or spoiled our lives, but the fact of the matter may be that we just refused to look at the possibilities that life was always offering us with open hands by remaining fixated on that story of being a victim.