Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies, released in mid-January this year, is an American zombie comedy. I have never been a zombie movie fan nor have I ever seen one (before this one). So, this was my first experience with a zombie movie. Before getting into the “deep” let’s first have a quick look at the plot. The story is about a teenage zombie boy who finds himself weird. Well, zombies are weird! But this one is weirder for he has humanly traits somewhere in him. He can think and talk (in his mind) in a humanly manner. Like a typical zombie he feeds himself on raw meet (mostly people), but feels for the humans while eating too. So this hero of ours, who does not remember his name, finds this beautiful non-zombie girl and falls in love with her on the first sight, but unknowingly eats her boyfriend’s brain. Without hurting the girl he takes her with himself and lets her live with him at his place where he spends time with her, admiring her beauty, playing tricks to keep her with him and trying to impress her with the help of her boyfriend’s memories he had acquired. The girl on the other hand finds him too humanly for a zombie and with time gets used to him. The teenage zombie, ‘R’, as the girl names him, feels like living again from the inside and unknowingly, slowly starts transforming back into his human form. The other zombies around him get affected by the love in the air and find the same tendency of ‘change’ within them too. The story finally ends with a fight between the humans and the good, changing zombies on one side and bad zombies (who had gone too far for a change) on the other. The girl and R start living together in the new world.

 The story as you have read is really simple. But the part that intrigued me was, how with just a little heartfelt effort, those zombies were able to change themselves from raw-flesh eating, emotion-less animals back into what they truly were, Humans. Human beings have this innate trait to love and to be loved. Humans live by one another’s happiness, not by one another’s misery and suffering. This theme that Warm Bodies presented in such an unconventional way was thought provoking.

With this, I was reminded of what is happening in the global scenario. Let’s start with Pakistan. To start with, hoarding, inflation and fraud at every level, then moving on to phone snatching, robbery, theft and then drone attacks in our tribal areas, bomb blasts throughout the country and target killings. The oppressive positions world superpowers have taken in the past, they continue to take in the present and plan for the future all in the name of security and war against terrorism. The constant state of suffering of the oppressed and prosperity of their oppressors. The lasting miserable state of the underprivileged and the wealth and luxury of the privileged. All these things have existed throughout the human history. But at the same time have existed the ones who stood up for the oppressed, who lived by the love of humanity, who helped the underprivileged and worked for the good of the whole of mankind. I call them the Warm Bodies.

The warm bodies, like other humans have all the power they need to act on the contrary i.e. use their efforts for personnel gain and act selfish. But the warmth inside them has overpowered their dark side.

The greatest example we can find in history of such people is our last Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). All his life the one thing that made him better than any other human, living or dead, was the kindness in his heart for all men. The selflessness he had in all his acts brought him to the peak of human mannerism. The warmness in his heart made him the best human to step on earth, ever.

Even today as we look around us, numerous examples of people can be found who have devoted whole of their lives for the goodwill of their fellow men. People like Abdul Sattar Edhi (Founder Edhi Trust) and Dr Amjad Saqib (Founder Akhuwat Organisation) are only some of the many examples that can be found in our own country.

Watching that movie I had his question in my mind: If dead zombies can grasp and cultivate this warmth and become human again, then why is it so difficult for us? We are already warm. Our heart yet beats and we can feel for others. The plus point is that we can all be Warm Bodies in our own lives! I once read a poem “Little Things” in my school book. It was about how little things have so much significance in the world around them. A part of it went something like this:

Little deeds of kindness, little acts of love can mend a broken heart

So be warm in your daily life dealings. If your ride a bike or a car let the other turn before you cross him swiftly, smile when you meet someone and greet them energetically and enthusiastically, give a penny of two if you find some poor homeless fellow, exchange gifts with your friends, thank your servants when they serve you, respect your teachers and regard them you regard your parents and most importantly live for others. After all, this is what makes us the Warm Bodies.