I remember reading a book once (and by now you know
that most of my memories begin like this). It was a G.I. Joe book, and you
played a character in it – started off as Hawk and then became Beach Head and
so on. As the story moved forward, you changed characters and were required to make
decisions at the end of every chapter which changed how the story panned out (quite
a few decisions resulted in getting stuck in a falling helicopter and the
poison gas being released). But you made the choices always knowing that you
could go back to the previous chapter, knowing that there was a right way and
the choices could be undone and you could finally save the city (and maybe get
the girl? That’s not a G.I. Joe story then, but whatever).
Quite similarly, but in a very different fashion, you get
to make choices quite a few times in your life. The stakes are usually not so high
(at least for the world) and I would argue that, let’s say, an Einstein would
find his way to being Einstein, but there are often choices and the ones we
make give form and narrative to the story of our lives. And sometimes you can’t
help but wonder how it would have all played out if you had chosen differently
in the things you had choice over – in terms of education and a career - arts
instead of the sciences, engineering instead of physics, a Ph.D, instead of an
MBA or even working in a manufacturing setup instead of a bank, decisions taken
at various stages of life. Choosing not to break some promises, speaking my
mind earlier, choices made and unmade. Who knows what I’d be doing right now? I
kind of hope that I’d still be writing, if a little less iterant, a little more
creative, maybe a different medium and perhaps a different language. Maybe I
would have other inspirations and more hopeless muses. Maybe I would be living
in a different city, a different life in all possible ways. Maybe I would not even
be alive right now (a true engineer practices a dangerous trade after all). All
I can be is thankful to have had the opportunity to make my own mistakes,
knowing that often the choices are made for us and I would rather have the chaos
of choice rather than live under a hollow illusion of certainty and no choice. An
ordinary you can’t influence the bigger things anyway, an individual with the
shadow of a grain of sand. So, you might as well be happy instead, making
mistakes, crossing fingers, falling in love and welling up at unhappy endings.
And a life lived and all those unlived, a tangle of
wishes and memories, pocket
universes that recycle constantly, each time with a different outcome. All
stories waiting to be written, creator made universes, willed into existing,
each with a happy ending.
That’s it for
today. I travelled a bit, Goa and then a
week in the mothership. The quality of life that people overseas take for
granted is a serious lure. But for now, India is home. Watched a couple of
Oscar winners (well they were nominees when I watched them) – Darkest Hour (not a great
cinematic achievement, but Gary Oldman and his make-up
artist really deserved their Oscars – you are actually watching one guy act
his ass off for a couple of hours and it talks to the quality of the performance
that you don’t wish for it to stop) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,
Missouri (a less accessible film perhaps in that it doesn’t offer a normal
antagonist or indeed a proper resolution, but again Frances McDormand and Sam
Rockwell both were superlative – Rockwell perhaps owing his award to the fact
that Woody Harrelson’s surprisingly restrained and frankly terrific performance
doesn’t last the entire film). Apart from that I did watch Black Panther and it was good
but I will admit that the trailers had put the expectations so high that they
were barely met – the acting was good, the CGI was barely passable though and I
don’t think the action spectacles were indeed that spectacular. Some definite
strong beats though, including the museum heist and the Bangkok (?) car chase.
A couple of songs to end. Jazz again.
1. Dave Brubeck - Take Five. A song of whimsy with plaintive and curious notes. Makes me think of a black and white movie somehow.
2. John Coltrane -Blue Train. A classic, almost a stripped down solo. Again quite melancholic :)
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So long, lonesome.
P.S. Shubho noboborsho...
