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.

Of Being Kids and Adults

A few weeks back the consultant called A called me up. Somehow, his brain cells had been short circuited and he wanted to revisit his childhood days. So he teamed up with another of his breed called V to plan out a trip to Essel World. And they decided to give a time of around 9:00 am to the women. Now V with his immense knowledge on Tam Bram Women (unlike other Vs in my life with negligible knowledge)and A with all his knowledge on women forgot one important thing. There is no way a woman is going to get ready at 9:00 am to go to Essel World whether she stays at Borivili or Marine Drive or somewhere in between. So we waited like Gandhiji’s monkeys in front of Borivili station waiting for the lovely ladies to turn up. M of course knew his ways with women. So he gallantly escorted the 6 lovely ladies to the three of us furiously chewing away at our gums.

Cutting the long tale of our trials short, a large gang of well educated over 25 somethings with a combined intelligence slightly lesser than Einstein landed up in Essel World on a fine Saturday morning. Now normally with consultants and bankers around I seldom speak. I sell soaps while they buy and sell companies. While I make sales reports, they make pitch reports to CEOs. So while everyone was consulting about maximizing their return on the investment I really really wanted to go up on the rides. So as I waited itching to go up on the roller coaster, everyone came up with a Plan of Action that was accepted without any form of unison (as expected of MBA grads) and like most well thought out of plan, it had one minor flaw. We went to the water rides first, ensuring that the next few rides were in a completely drenched state. But then what mattered was whether we were behaving like kids and that we were; without a doubt. I’m sure many of my friends that day had their first candy floss after ages. It was good to go back to childhood.

At the end of the day, we were tired beyond measure, the stalls in Essel World were slowly shutting down and we still were trying to figure out which ride we had missed. Sometimes, when you know something you treasure is slipping away, you grasp at it with all your might, only to realize how feeble your efforts are in reality. On that day I guess we were trying to grasp really hard at our childhoods -a time, when we did not pay heed to the possible safety hazards in a ride. We thought leaving our hands and shouting as the skies came down to meet us was the smartest thing to do. A time when we believed we could fly.

On the 13^th, a very dear friend had her birthday. She is like this glue that keeps a lot of us together. She ensures that we meet up. She wants us to meet up regularly and when she is really excited, she plans the get-togethers.

So I had been ordered to leave office early, which I did around 9, the earliest in that week and picked up another friend on the way. As we chatted, I realized that this is perhaps the first time in almost 4 months that I am going out with a crowd where I do not know everyone. Somewhere, life was losing itself. So as I gyrated the night away, (laugh all you want) I suddenly realized that within the last couple of weeks I had lived the extremes of life. From being a kid, to being an adult, all within the course of a few days.

I walked out of Hawaiian Shack to see the world outside, still pouring into the small disco at 12 in the night. Everyone was dressed to kill, or maybe most of them were just trying to hide the dark circles beneath their eyes. When you were a kid, you waited for Sunday. You waited for Doordarshan to show you Ramayana and Mahabharata. Today as an adult you wait for the Friday evening and if you are like me, you probably dread the Sunday evening.

So there I was experiencing the two extreme ages of my life and as I looked back, everything in my life seemed to have happened in fast forward with the time slipping away from my hands, whether I tried to grasp it or not.

Slipping away, just like my generation’s wasted efforts in controlling their receding hairlines and expanding waistlines.

There’ll Always be A Place

When I was young, or let’s say when I was a lot more innocent than what I am today, I lived an enchanted life. And I mean it. I had a vivid imagination. I guess every child has, but what I remember tonight is that I could visualize almost everything. I used to mix Goblins from my Blyton books with the Khokkoshes from Thakurmar Jhuli. I used to stand on the terrace of our house, break a twig from the Neem tree and use it as my sword against all kinds of monsters to save the kingdom. I was the undisputed king, the knight in shining armour. When my grand mom gifted me my first illustrated Russian Fairy Tales, I would often encounter Baba-Yaga and the corner of the terrace would become her hut, spinning endlessly on its chicken legs. No one knew that this fantasy land existed. Not my family, nor my best friends in school.

When I was much much younger and went to Durgapur, I would roam around the gardens of everyone in the neighbourhood and pretend that I was lost in the dense dark forest. In my mind sunlight would turn into a misty darkness where I could not see beyond the next tree trunk. I had a dog that used to live nearby and whenever I was out he would come from nowhere and accompany me. Often in the afternoons when the koel was tired of its incessant singing and there was no one who would bother if a little kid had tiptoed away from his bed, I would turn into the mighty He-Man and Bhola would be my Battle Cat. I have missed Bhola, every day since I have left Durgapur. He or She was my first pet, my first friend and I have never let anyone take Bhola’s place.

I still remember my disappointment when no one ever gifted me the He-Man sword and I was too egoistic to ever ask for it, even at that age. Times came when I could afford it myself, but those were times when I would settle for an audio cassette that I had been tracking for ages. I was growing up.

The Sagars and the Chopras of this country rendered a great service to the Indian kids of my age. Suddenly mythology was no longer stories you had heard. You saw them everyday and you enacted them. I was always terrible at Arts and Crafts. Really terrible. And yet I made bows and arrows by myself. It’s another matter that the arrows would never fly to slay the might demons but that did not stop me from being Karna. At that point of time, I remember I used to run out of books to read very often. So I would pick up old textbooks of my dad or mom or sis and read them. Somewhere I had come across the interpretation of Ramayana by a hugely talented and forgotten poet called Michael Madhusudan Dutta. And there I met my first Anti-hero. In place of Lord Rama, my heart was with the human Indrajeet. It’s perhaps then that I first realized the power of the pen. A story which millions considered holy was turned upside down by a poet who impressed upon the child who was reading it, the importance of upholding national pride and honour even when faced with the question of right or wrong. And therefore as much I have read and re-read the Ramayana, and celebrated the triumph of good over evil and appreciated that sacrifices need to be made for the greater good, I have never been able to accept Bibhisana.

When I grew up a little bit, I remember that I sometimes fought the British. Sometimes I was an Indian Revolutionary, sometimes the German Paratrooper of World War II. I was yet to devour World War II history (that would come ages later) but when you are a kid who’s right and who’s wrong doesn’t matter. You decide which side you want to be on and you just belong there. I had a pretty neat collection of guns. Leo used to have a variety of them and almost every other Chandmama issue would have a double page spread of the latest toys and guns from Leo. I loved guns as a child. I still do. There’s seldom a balloon shooter shop which I pass by without aiming for the most difficult target.

Slowly and slowly Blyton’s goblins were replaced by Famous Five, the Epics were read to find deeper meanings and Russian folk tales were replaced by her modern authors. And then one day, I realized I could no longer imagine. I did not know anymore how a fairy looked. I did not have the courage anymore to pick up a twig and fight a troll. I had grown up.

whatever may come, whenever you're lost remember there always be a place for us

castles we build crumbles to dust - don't worry there

always be a place for us

(A post dedicated to a Star Movies Screening of Bridge to Terabithia which suddenly opened floodgates of memories locked up somewhere deep down)