September 18, 2010

I want to Believe

Agent Mulder wanted to believe in what he thought was true, rather believed was true. Once upon a time, I believed too, in sorcerers and goblins, in princes and knights. Then someday in the mad rush of believing “Impossible is Nothing” I began to lose my power to believe. My stories no longer had my dragons; my quest was for Market Share than for the Legend of the 13 Crystal Skulls.

But the other day I spelt Djinn with a D and I felt nice. I felt I was back to the days of the Arabian Nights where only men and djinns were allowed free will by Allah. But the Hindu philosophy strangely complicated matter. If I am God myself, I must have Free Will, yet then it undermines the doctrine of Karma. And if there was Free Will then Kayanaat would have conspired to give anyone anything they wanted.

Bruce Almighty did not have Free Will. And if he didn’t who would?

But I digress. Free Will is too big a concept for me to grasp yet. But the point I was trying to make is that when your day goes in fighting corporate battles, your mind often fails to fight the Fenrirr as you used to do when you were The Great Odin yourself.

All my life I have believed in symbols. But somehow even the signs were not coming through. In moments of despair, I lacked words to describe what I felt. And then an old friend’s blog told me exactly what was wrong - Sometimes I miss my non recurring dreams.

In a very forgettable adaptation of a classic Asimov, the protagonist was told, “Detective you must ask the right questions.” I did. And the answer came in the form of a little known movie, The Fall. And in my mind as I watched, it gave Pan’s Labyrinth a tough competition. The last 15 minute were extraordinary where I fought with the characters on screen to begin believing once again on our imagination, on the world we create.

For in all our fairy tales, we ensure that there is a happily ever after.

Tonight as I post this, I notice the Unicorn outside my hotel window heading towards my sisters’ homes to see if my nieces and nephews have slept.

Their childhood will start with the likes of Ben 10, but it doesn’t matter who you imagine your foes to be - Demons, aliens or Dragons. What matters is if you believe in them and believe that you can beat them.

Tonight, with them I again shall start to believe.


3 comments:

Ojas said...

:)

Sharad said...

Nice post... the "happily ever after" does indeed get lost as we attempt so hard to "grow up" (ironically..). And as for Karma and free will, everything we do (or that gets done to us), is always a combination of Karma and Free Will. Always.

Madhurjya (Banjo) Banerjee said...

Thanks :) I guess The Buddha therefore identified the Middle Path