Viewing this film is one thing, Seeing it is another!

If you happen to watch a certain film, are in your seat for a couple of hours, it still doesn't mean that you have witnessed the spectacle or followed it. Nor that you are willing to vouch for the accuracy or verifiability of what you believe you saw. Still, this may not have to do with your vision or eyesight. It's not an ophthalmology/optometry matter at all!

Thus, the power of belief and your willingness to involve yourself have everything to do with what you "see". Every day in the news, you read accounts of crimes in various spheres - malpractice and rackets in hospitals, frauds by estate builders, corruption and illegal interference by police personnel across ranks, politicians who help and participate in all the preceding.

So you do catch glimpses, are dimly aware of the deterioration of the environment - not only for the trees and the birds but social safety itself.  The circulation of weapons, dangerous substances, disregard for laws... you are successful in minimising the amount of your attention these things get.

In your neighbourhood and in your workplace, you try to avoid seeing it. Spurious claims being made. Falsification of data. Irresponsible ambition. The brazenness of the "influential".

You may or may not wear dark glasses to help show you have taken no notice whatsoever. Look, everyone wants to be as neutral and show as much neutrality as possible. We don't want any part of the trouble, okay?  Leave me out of it - saw nothin', heard nothin', will say nothin'.

This being favoured and recommended practice - prudent, safe, even sensible - there's still a limit to how far you can carry your unseeing. Now every specialist (and we all want to call ourselves that, in our own spheres of work) knows that focus is the secret to excellence - so you are a stockbroker, a fashion designer, a CAD/CAM developer, a systems integrator, a nephrologist, a beautician, an astrologer, or an archaeologist who needs to give their  best to their vocation.

You are not directly responsible for the hundreds of things that people in your city do or neglect to do. So that puts hundreds of us in this condition of partial vision, where we see traces of deception and evil but very seldom take enough notice or do anything about it. We have our respective trades to mind, our professions to pursue, our goals to conquer. Only a vigilante would show the kind of social vigilance required today to check the erosion of values.

You live in a society apartment perhaps or in what is called a colony - there are watchmen on duty and you expect they are doing their job well enough. They could be fatigued, underpaid, demotivated - you'd never know. You look only at your watch or mobile for the next appointment or message. Your neighbours know too little about your visitors, just as you don't about theirs. It's an accepted part of metro living.

Now if you read what I just wrote above, and find yourself agreeing that such indeed is the case, perhaps you can weave a slick script around it and approach a movie producer. Throw in frequent plot twists - bring in lurid subjects like organ harvesting, some tasteful piano jazz, an utterly ruthless and unhinged but ageing starlet, some Bollywood nostalgia, and the street life of a familiar city - and you could well produce a quite successful thriller.

Entirely depends on how you look at it - or don't!