m a n u s c r y p t s

I started reading a Pico Iyer book a few days back “Video night in Kathmandu”. I was hooked on from the first page because he started off with an icon from my childhood – Rambo Pico Iyer writes about how in the mid 80s Rambo took over Asia – China, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, India lording over cinemas, inspiring local versions and becoming what the author calls (then) America’s single biggest export, and the most powerful force in Asia that autumn.

I could identify totally with this. I still remember the trips to Guruvayur, the famous temple town in Kerala. No, I haven’t totally lost it. You see, the rest of the family went to Guruvayur with spirituality in mind, but for me, it was mostly materialistic, the kind of simple joy that a typical 7 year old finds in staying in a hotel for a few days, having ‘non home’ food three times a day, and most importantly, after convincing everyone on how intact his spiritual outlook is, manages to charm his way into getting himself a few toys. The strange thing was, the toy shops that abounded around the temple had some excellent collection of superhero stickers, labels for notebooks and various knick knacks that I could never find in Cochin. So I always made it a point to devote a lot of time to checking out the stuff on display before I made a purchase.

[Aside: I also remember buying my first and only guitar there - a plastic contraption with Rishi Kapoor and Karz on the packaging]

And that’s how I found a toy set that enthralled me for (I think) at least a year. It was a Rambo kit! And in the days that followed, several citizens of a certain university campus in Cochin claimed to see a creature that suddenly sprang out of the bushes and from behind the acacia trees, dressed in (what were formerly decent) t shirts and trousers, with dark green crayon marks on them, similar to the ones on the face, with a cloth around his head and carrying plastic bows, and arrows that stuck to conducive walls using vacuum, and with a plastic gun and a sheathed plastic knife inserted into the trouser loops. The outdoor covert operations lasted only a few days, since, after scaring an old woman, the creature was captured, hauled (bawling) to his mom’s presence and subjected to severe interrogation, and mild physical punishment which resulted in more bawling, and confiscation of weapons. The weapons were returned the next day, but the theatre of overt operations was restricted to indoors. More than a couple of decades later, these memories came storming back when I read the book, and as though the cosmos was conspiring, I got to know that Rambo (Part 4) was premiering that night on television.

But though he had conquered enemies in Vietnam and Afghanistan, Rambo was yet to face an Asian force, that having been born in the late 70s, would prove a formidable opponent to the aged warrior – D, no, not the one with the shades and company, but my wife. Yes, you could  argue that she has shady company too, but I shall ignore that for now. And that was how Rambo lost his first battle, as D refused to  even entertain the thought of watching the movie, and an agitated fan helplessly watched Cloverfield on another channel. D had drawn first blood!! Maybe I should practice my bawling.

until next time, marital laws!!

Sometime back, I got an email forward – A Violinist in the Metro, about the world famous musician Joshua Bell, who, in 45 minutes, played 6 Bach pieces, with a violin worth $3.5 million, at a metro station in Washington, and collected $32 for the effort. A couple of days back, he had sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats had averaged $100. The incident was a social experiment by Washington Post to check out whether we perceive beauty in a commonplace environment and whether we stop to appreciate it. The findings are a testament of the fast paced life we live, and the things we miss out on.

But a few other facts in this incident interested me. For one, the crowd segment that paid the most attention to the musician were children. Their parents had to forcibly tug them away. Even if we are cynical and claim that its just curiosity, and not an appreciation of music, I still wonder about our life graph, and the part where we lose our innate curiosity. And its not just curiosity, its innocence, its a lot of other things that we lose on the way.

When I meet friends from school or college, I sense they’ve changed, and so have I. Attitudes,mindsets, behaviour, all transforming themselves according to the experiences that life throws at us. And because of this, I am not able to relate to them the way I used to at an earlier point in time. A part of me that is perhaps lost forever. Even if I tried to re create it, it would be resisted by the current me.

The other portion in the incident that interested me was that after the performance, there was no applause or recognition. People just moved on, oblivious to the phenomenon they didn’t perceive. I wonder if Joshua Bell was disappointed. Perhaps, if you’re a musician of that caliber, you would have passed the stage where you needed a stamp of approval. Or is he just like me? An unconfident performer of life, who looks around apologetically if he has upset any balance. Perhaps if i could perform like a carefree child, I could get back the curiosity and the other things that I’ve lost.

This stream of consciousness reminded me of something I’d read about in the novel Space – a space shuttle’s flight. As it ascends into space, at different levels it discards different parts, parts that were useful to get it to that point, but useless after they’ve served this utility. And after completing the mission that it was sent for, it blazes a path back through the atmosphere, burning all except its core. It lands in a place far away from the place of its origin, and time has passed while all this is happening. In a strange way, it reminded me of the way lives are lived – at massive speeds, too fast to notice the beauty of the vast expanses of space around, to achieve something which is relevant only in a very small context, burning up with the hope that all that is being done is worthwhile, and perhaps in a lost, melancholic way, deciding that since anyway the life is to be lived, might as well live it with a mission, however inadequate it seems.

until next time, touchdown