This is a question which I should have asked much earlier, but there is no limit for the time required for realization, I would say. I had the opportunity to watch the movie Divergent based on Veronica Roth’s debut novel with the same name. Yes, Shailene Woodley is a dashing young actress playing Beatrice Prior, but that is not the central thing about it, even as nobody can deny the fact that it helped to make sure that the movie was not missed. The comparisons to Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games is also relevant, but I would rather get into the main points now.
The divergence of Tris: So Beatrice a.k.a Tris is a divergent, not able to be grouped into any of the factions of the post-apocalyptic Chicago because she doesn’t possess the attributes for them. She was different from the others, but if the others were to realize the same, she would have no future of her own. Each person had to blend in somewhere and go on working with the faction, and her ability to be different was a case of panic. The world was set, and everyone had to fit in. The divergents were to be feared by the government for their brilliance and those ideas which could change the system.
Shailene Woodley as Beatrice Prior (photo from Divergent FB Page)
The present scenario: There is no real option to be a divergent in our world. There are people who start groups and try to make people agree to their new found rights or abuse people to get acceptance. No, I am not talking about any of them. I am talking about being different by one’s own, being someone else by thoughts and action and not joining just another group to become of a member of another team which itself ruins the idea of being divergent, further creating more and more divergence forming more factions.
A person can’t be grouped into a category. There is more than one skill that a person can exhibit and there is always more than one kind of thought that he or she can have. A person is beyond all divisions as an individual. He can’t act like someone else just because he is part of that society. You can’t expect a person to paint his house in the same colour just because someone else has that colour or most people choose that particular shade. You can’t tell someone to follow a behaviour, no people shouldn’t be predicted, as they are not playing game, they are living lives.
We have been plagued, almost all of us in this part of the world has been chosen to study Engineering or Medicine, and was there really a choice until the recession came up and suppressed the latter up-to an extent? Can people always conduct a marriage in a simple manner without showing the vanity and spend the rest of the money feeding the poor? Can we Catholics marry without taking that terrible compulsary pre-marital course which has absolutely no use for the life post-marital life as long as we can’t figure out love by ourselves? Do we need to stand on a stage, grinning for the video camera till the wedding function ends?
These should have been easy things to do, but considering the current scenario and the attitude of the people, I would think that it is more difficult than the crow flying upside down or having a beautiful world of goodness. Our chance at divergence is pretty low unless our parents give support or our relatives are that damn good. But usually there are no real choices, we either agree to get rid of our divergence or rather choose to live our life hiding it or taking it out to bring the omnipresence of the people around us.
Always be prepared to fight for divergence (photo from Divergent FB Page)
People will always ask what we are doing and why are we not doing a job. People will ask why we are not getting married. They are nice questions and thanks for asking. But we are divergents, and the elixir of divergence that runs through our veins might ask some question to you which you might not want to hear or answer. In Divergent, our heroine could see through the fake visages, and may be we will see through your questions and it certainly won’t do any good for you. So, better leave us divergents alone and keep yourself away from the list for the abhorrent.
TeNy
The Tea Cerebrations 