The Other Side

Recently I happened to watch the movie ‘Maleficent’ and it had an important message in it. Let me summarize the story before I begin.

We all know the story of the Sleeping beauty, where the evil witch Maleficent curses the princess to permanent sleep that can be revived only by true love’s kiss. The king sends the princess away to safety, under the care of 3 fairies who bring her up.. Yeah you guessed it right.. A prince arrives, kisses her and they live happily ever after.

But the movie Maleficent shows a very different perspective of the Sleeping Beauty story. There is a flashback where the king betrays Maleficent and burns her wings. Years later, she avenges by cursing his daughter.. And the 3 fairies are actually dumb and highly incapable of taking care of a baby. So reluctantly, Maleficent herself begins to take care of the little princess and eventually develops a maternal affection for her. And in the end, it’s not the prince’s kiss that heals her; she is actually revived when Maleficent kisses her, for she is the princess’ true love.

Of course, both the above versions are mere fairy tales. But if we think about it.. Through our childhood, we had grown up hating Maleficent because we were told the king’s version of the story.

How often does that happen in our lives? Everyday.

I once told a wise friend of mine that it’s a big coincidence that most of my friends are being dumped in their love life.. It was kind of weird that all of my friends happen to be the “dumpee” and none of them the dumper.. He told me, “That’s because you know only one side of the story.” How true is that!

We all make the mistake of judging after hearing what one person says. In most cases we do not get to hear the other’s person’s story at all, still we judge.

Not only in everyday life, but the content shown in today’s media is also one person’s viewpoint. TRP ratings seem to be the only goal for most news networks, so the context that sells is highlighted. The viewer is fed “what’s interesting” rather than “what really happened”. In most cases, all we see is the tip of the iceberg.

So the next time a colleague complains about his boss, a friend complains about her in-laws, a child complains about a teacher, lets empathize.. But let’s not judge. For everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact and everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.