Skip to main content

The Dig

Watched The Dig recently and loved it. Lot of themes come together in the story - the frailty of life, the impermanence of the the physical body with the war looming and the importance of taking chances while one still can. Passion is explored in different ways - one man's lack of it for his young wife, another's devotion to the soil of Suffolk and dedicating his life to excavating the secrets that lay buried under it. Mrs. Edith Pretty around whom the story revolves does not reveal much of her inner universe but it is awash is sadness and death is closer to her than others know. This is one of those movies where each viewer will find a different point of connection. 

For me it was the relationship between the new arrivals to the dig -Stuart and Peggy Piggot. The husband is better credentialed for the job but the wife is the one with the real love for it. She is allowed to help with the excavation only because she weighs under nine stone and could not be harmful for the fragile structure of the site. Stuart is astoundingly cold and uninterested in Peggy whom he insists on calling Margaret. The woman keeps trying to find warmth in her marriage and fails each time. Edith observes from afar and notices that Peggy is attracted to her cousin Rory who is there helping with the dig. It is with Edith's discreet encouragement that Peggy is able to leave her dead end marriage and take a chance on love. 

There is nothing more corrosive to the heart of a person than to be rejected summarily by the one they married and hoped to love for life. That rejection breeds doubt, shame and fear of inadequacy if left unaddressed could cripple the person - they would never realize that the world outside sees them very differently than their spouse. They would not know they could take a chance and seek the love and warmth they are being denied in marriage. To see Peggy break free was heart-warming to say the least

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
111 comments
Read more

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha
5 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques
6 comments
Read more