PLASTINO D’COSTA
‘Good Will Hunting’ is an American Hollywood film written by newcomers at the time, and established actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Besides writing the script both gentlemen also acted in the film. The film is about Will Hunting (Matt Damon) who works as a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and happens to be a self taught mathematical genius. So when Professor Gerald Lambeau, a Fields Medal winning professor of mathematics at MIT posts a complex mathematical problem on the blackboard as a challenge to his graduate students, Will solves the problem anonymously. Later the professor posts a more challenging problem and catches Will solving the problem yet again.
Meanwhile, Will, used to taking his talent for granted, spends most of his free time drinking with his friends; one of them is his childhood friend Chuckie Sullivan (Ben Affleck), a construction worker. They pick up a fight with a gang and when the police intervene Will is charged with assaulting an officer. Meanwhile, Professor Lambeau finds out through the campus maintenance staff that Will has not reported for duty and goes in search of him only to find Will arguing his own case in the court. Professor Lambeau arranges for no jail time for Will, provided he learns math from him and attends psychotherapy sessions. In these sessions Will makes mockery of the therapist and a desperate Professor Lambeau has no choice but to contact Dr. Sean Maguire, his college roommate, with whom he has an awkward past.
Keeping the film story aside, let’s analyse Professor Lambeau’s character, here is a Fields Medal winning professor, a mathematical genius in his own right, openly admitting that Will is far more superior to him in mathematics and is prepared to take his chance to teach him. He is also willing to arrange a therapist and when every therapist gives up, he is prepared to meet Dr Maguire, his college roommate knowing full well that the meeting will begin with taunts and the conversation is definitely not going to be cordial. With so much animosity between them, it would be no surprise if Dr. Maguire refuses to take Will’s case, but he accepts it because both gentlemen realise their ego cannot come in the way of Will’s tremendous potential.
This is as far as educated people recognising Will’s talent is concerned and their willingness to go out of their way to bring him out of the mess he is in. But there is another character in the film that recognizes Will’s talent, his childhood friend Chuckie Sullivan who is just a modest construction worker. Chuckie almost daily picks Will from his home to go to work and drops him at night after drinks. So when Will tells him that he is very happy with this arrangement and works as the same janitor, Chuckie blasts at him and reminds him of his talent and that he should be moving ahead and not hanging around with him or his other friends. He also mentions to Will that he would be happiest if he would come to pick him and did not find him at home, because that would signal that Will has moved on.
Professor Lambeau, Dr Maguire and Chuckie have one thing in common, despite their different backgrounds they have all recognized Will’s immense talent and are prepared to work selflessly to resolve all issues instead of having a good laugh at his cost. Will is a difficult person to deal with and yet all the above gentlemen choose to be patient because for them his talent is paramount, rest can be handled and immaterial.
How do we handle talented people in Goa? Most of them show promise, make a good start and then fade away as quickly as they came. How many Goans are prepared to give away their positions when they find someone smarter than them? How many Goans that have achieved success are prepared to speak up and acknowledge when they spot a talent better than them? We seem to be glued to our positions and hardly make way for fresh thinking. Instead we do all that we can, to make sure our raw Goan talent is exported out of Goa as soon as
possible.
Take politicians for example, we vote for them so that they can rule us perpetually, even if some of them happen to be plain dumbos, while some make a mockery of the voters by jumping ship. It cannot be that there is no talent to take over the mantle, but the Generation Next Goan knows that the politician is not vacating his chair anytime soon, hence no interest. The fact that a politician makes himself indispensable means he has not paid enough attention in developing a robust system which should run with or without him.
Naturally Generation Next gets the message, they know their future is full of obstacles in Goa, because their talent will be suppressed and their weaknesses mocked. Today Goa’s state is such that an Amitabh Kant makes time to tweet on how Goa should handle tourism while clearly deflecting uncomfortable questions on the mess Indigo airlines has created for the country. Being on Indigo’s board does not mean members enjoy remuneration and absolve themselves from responsibility and then quietly change the subject by talking about Goa. It is possible to lecture Goans because we have suppressed our real talent and people who are supposed to defend and justify Goa’s position are either compromised or are of average intellect.
Just a few years back we had three young girls with immense potential excelling in chess, swimming and table tennis, they are nowhere to be found. Maybe they got lost in the photographs that were clicked at the time with pot bellied sports officials who would mostly sit as if sitting on thrones and keep the sportsperson standing behind like subjects.
‘Good Will Hunting’ was a film written by Matt Damon in collaboration with Ben Affleck and although it does not qualify as a true story, most of the scenes are inspired by real life events involving both. If Will Hunting existed in Goa his talent would be easily suppressed considering the issues he was facing. Today, the entire country thinks Goans have limited talent and therefore they come and lecture us on how to run our own state. Our policy of exporting our real talent by hook or by crook has come to bite us.
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(The author is a business consultant)
