The Shawshank Redemption - Salvation comes from within

Thoroughly bored as I was, I decided to watch a movie as I had downloaded enough of them on my computer to last me for a lifetime. I didn't really decide which one to watch until one in the morning. I finally made up my mind and thought that I'd watch 'The Shawshank redemption'.

I was glad that I did. It was amazing. We've heard about genius. This movie was genius on the highest pedestal. I am not exaggerating. This is about one prisoner in the Shawshank prison who was convicted even though he was innocent for murdering his wife and her lover. Right from day one, he started planning his way out. It was meticulous, it was fool-proof and it was unbelievable. He was ordered two life sentences back to back. He got out in 20 years. For the time that he stayed there, Andy Dufresne did a lot. He gave Shawshank the finest prison library. He once played an Italian opera on the PA system and the whole prison heard it. Music was something their weary lives seldom comprised of. Andy obviously did not get away with it.

Andy was a financial tax consultant to many of the officers. He became indispensable to them. Everyone somehow was in awe of Andy. He was tortured by the warden, raped by a gang of prison bullies called 'The Sisters' and he was made to do all the work while others took the credit. But Andy Dufresne did not give up. He still had hopes. His close friend and inmate 'Red' often told him that hope would drive him to insanity. Any man would have believed Red. He had stayed in the prison for long and he could get anybody anything reasonable inside the prison. He was an important man. But Andy wouldn't. Andy still hoped.

20 years later, with the help of a rock hammer and Rita Hayworth (Not saying how), Andy escaped from the great Shawshank prison. He went to Mexico just like he wanted. Later, when his friend Red was released on parole, he went to the place where Andy told him he'd find something. It was a letter and some cash. Then came my favourite lines in the movie. The letter said: "Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things and good things never die." With directions Red joined Andy in Mexico, later.

Whoever would have thought that after serving years in prison, one could go to the Pacific Ocean and to Mexico and could get engaged in building a fine hotel on the beach? Andy would have. And he did. When you have an dogged desire to do something, you end up doing it. No matter how long it takes and no matter what the task is. All it takes is hope, a will of steel, courage, conviction and perseverance. Maybe some lateral thinking too.

SP: It took him a rock hammer and a Rita Hayworth poster to do this.

Try figuring that out before watching the movie!