My mobile ring tone is a symphony from the movie Godfather even I have Godfather written all over my bike!!!
Many people have asked me why? I myself have wondered why? I know it is not only to do with the movie. No doubt, being the most favorite movie of the world it must have something that has grabbed us all. But, when someone asks me to name one favorite scene from the movie, I fail to come up with that in an instant. I have to dig deep to come up with an answer. I am consistently inconsistent in this answer though. Seeing all this, I introspected my own obsession; The Godfather. Some interesting things came up all along this study.
Firstly, I am not obsessed with Godfather but the concept behind that. Godfather is a term used for a person who promises to take care of a child during Baptism and help bring up the child in a Christian manner. That is what the dictionary says. The key words in this definition for the case in point are, “promise” and “take care”. A person promises to take care of a child even though it is not his. He is an additional father for that child. God forbid if anything happens to the father, the child is not an orphan. He has his Godfather!!!
But, that is not exactly the concept that the term Godfather now points to. When you say Godfather you talk about Mafia. The Mafia or the Cosa Nostra… which means “Our Thing” in sicily a part of Italy from where this concept of Godfather which I am referring to comes up.
One definition of the Mafia that I liked the most was given by Sicilian ethnographer, Giuseppe Pitre, at the end of the 19th century:
Mafia is the consciousness of one's own worth, the exaggerated concept of individual force as the sole arbiter of every conflict, of every clash of interests or ideas.
This is the concept that I fell in love with. A sole arbiter, one person who is representative of power, of control, of respect!!!! A narcissist!!!
Many people hate this, this narcissism. I have discussed this with many of my elite friends and acquaintances. One statement of a particular discussion I would like to quote,
“Narcissism is good… A narcissist is a person who loves himself and knows what he is capable of. He is neither afraid nor intimidated by anyone. He never suffers from inferiority complex. Hence, he can appreciate whole heartedly good things in a person. He has no room for jealously and hence can non-egoistically appreciate what is good. He feels no fear when doing so”
This statement was made by another narcissist friend of mine, who is in IIM-A now. The concept behind godfather is also similar. He is supreme. If you listen to the music in the movie also, you feel that power. I might be exaggerating according to you, but it is true as far my mindset goes. There is one particular scene in the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo, where the old dying counselor of the Don, asks him to order God not to take him. The counselor thinks at that moment that the Don, his Godfather is supreme than God himself. Only the Don knows better. And as if, the counselor was waiting for an order to die, he dies only when the Don tells him his work on earth is over and he may leave now.
This concept of power is what made me fall in love with the idea of Godfather. There is an interesting irony in all this, the man of power is soft spoken, he reasons before taking any action and is never harsh with words be it anyone even his enemy.
This quiescence, this Mystique and this Grandeur associated with the concept of Godfather is what made it my obsession!!!
