Ich bitte euch, rattet mir was besser ist, reden oder sterben?

I haven’t posted anything for so long, almost 4 months! And the reason? Not going out and I have nothing to do so I had nothing to write. Then, I was having my regular sleepless episodes when I opened Netflix and started watching the film “Call Me By Your Name”.

A friend of mine had referred this beautiful movie and I know why! The film captures the beautiful Italy in its graceful nakedness, without a hint of the modern, colourful makeup that we get to see in movies today!

While I’m deeply in love with the place and the lifestyle shown in film, this one scene captured my heart…

German: “Ich bitte euch, rattet mir was besser ist, reden oder sterben?”

Translation: “I bid you, tell me what is better: to speak or to die?”

Here’s how the scene unfolds –

It’s a cosy afternoon, Elio and his parents snuggle on the couch while Annella (his mother) reads them a story from the Heptaméron. She’s translating from German. It is the story of a young knight and a princess. Both of them are in love. “Despite the friendship that blossoms between them,” Annella translates, “or perhaps because of that friendship, the young man is afraid to speak up.”

“Is it better to speak or die?” the knight asks. “It’s better to speak,” the princess tells him, in the story.

This question kept me thinking. It took me back the days when I thought it wasn’t always good to express your feelings. People might appreciate ones’ feelings for sometime but then, they start taking you for granted… that’s how I justified it. Its not just romantic interests, friends and family do that too…

But now, well I vote for “It’s better to speak”

So what changed? Well, a lot of it changed! Earlier I thought we love a person because of their goodness. I thought we were drawn to people because of their special powers but growing up, I realized that we love someone because we our capable of the love. Loving a person, he or she, is because of your own greatness!

You stick to them through good and bad, you try to look for the good in their actions and so who is the real hero?

So speaking up about your love is your damn choice and the decision about it is theirs’. Movies and novels may have tried to romanticize the opposite, but its time we realise that

“you don’t love someone because he/she is great, you love someone because you are capable of loving; and there’s no shame speaking about it.”

Ok Tata