Spiky Reviews

I sat there—motionless and blank, half-lying, half-awake. I’ve no idea how long I’ve been here; it’s hard to say when every passing moment feels like a lifetime. When a man reaches this point, there’s nowhere to go from here, nothing to do to make a change, and surely nothing to hope for—except the ‘End’.

How did I get here? I can’t really track my memories back to when I lost my sight and that first lane where I took the wrong turn. A couple of blind moves, and then Life takes over you. In all her bitter brutality, she throws you into a dungeon; one like those that you had seen and mocked with utter conceit in your days of ignorance. Sitting in a dark corner of this dungeon, I guess, I’ve started to realize what humility is and why the good-old-books put so much stress on it.

This place stinks. Like a python, it constricts your lungs further with every breath you take. The only way to keep the breath alive is to stop breathing itself; but alas, if I had the courage to do that…I won’t have been here in the first place.

The good-old-books also say that one has the power to overcome every situation and get out of it. But I’ve been incapacitated to even do that. I was shot right in my heart—it must have been Life who did that. There’s no one else here in this dungeon. It has to be Life herself, because she created this dungeon exclusively for me; this dungeon won’t be a dungeon if you could share it with someone. She shot me and left me bleeding here in the dark.

In the middle of all the thoughts, I looked down at my chest. There it was…a small black hole burnt in my skin. Every few seconds I feel a rush of blood building within and the blood sputters out in short bursts. The bullet is still in the heart; I can feel its presence. The heart grows heavy with every passing moment, but the ‘End’ is far. I feel like a soldier wounded and lying on the enemy grounds; he who is incapable to move and incapable to speak, he who waits for an enemy soldier to come and pour the final shower of bullets and bathe him in his own blood; he who wishes for a tombstone instead of lying as wasted corpse and dead meat for ants.

I look up again into the darkness around and a realization dawns. As if all this cruelty wasn’t enough, before she left, Life had also given me back my sight, the one I lost before taking that ‘first’ wrong lane. And with this sight, she left me to look back and regret and think…”Kaash…”

I wanted to smoke again. I had smoked one some fifteen minutes back. I heard Sanjog telling me “Get a hold of yourself man.” Déjà vu, I have heard someone say that before. A face crawls out of the thick layers of muck covering my brain; it’s the face of Almasy from “The English Patient”. He asked his friend once what the hollow below a woman’s throat is called. His friend answered, “Get a hold of yourself man”. I can see the pain in Almasy’s eyes. I can see the pity in his friend’s eyes. It’s crystal clear to me. I know how it feels.

I lost a girl, after eight months of friendship and alcheringa, pushing me to the limits and encouraging me to fall deeper and deeper, today she thinks she loves another guy more than me. The point here is not who or what is right or wrong. The point here is what I feel. There’s a crab holding at my throat, constricting it. And there’s a huge blob of puke stuck just below it, trying to come out. My heart is throwing up. I can feel the pressure of the puke and the intolerable weight of my heart. My eyes are still dry, no signs of tears but there’s something below the skin of my face that’s telling me of a tide building up. I am feeling the pain.

Almasy had to carry the dying body of his love, Katherine through a desert of desperation and helplessness. There was nothing he could do to get her any medical help sooner. Katherine chose this moment to let him know the depths of her love, I can see him cry, I can see the tears rolling from his eyes, his face is twisted now, and if he could, he would have tore the sky apart and asked that one above—WHY? I can see why man invented God.

I wonder whose pain is greater, Almasy’s or mine. His pain is borne from the knowledge of losing someone and not being able to do anything about that; my pain is borne from the knowledge that … I wasn’t loved at all; all the love I received was fake.

Katherine was calm, she had stated the truth. She was smiling. Dying people should always smile—it makes things easier for the living ones. But didn’t she condemn Almasy to a lifetime of pain and living death?

Almasy at one point in the movie believed what I believe now, that the love he received was fake. Would it have been better if he lived the rest of his life under that impression rather than knowing that she loved him and he could do nothing to save her? Which pain is greater, his or mine?

I’m not sure, but a voice within me says—no pain is greater or smaller, pain is just…pain.

A long pending post. About 2 months back when I watched Rang De Basanti, it gave rise to the stir that I want to de-stir here.

After Sanjog watched it, he said I would not like the movie; I was never a very emotional type—not for people, not for country, not for anything. I am a tin box. Still I went for it; I think it was because a girl asked me out.

I watched the whole movie mechanically. Though Sanjog was quite correct in his assessment about what I would say when I stepped out of the theatre, there was a spikiness I could feel inside me; and I knew I would write about it someday. And today the day has arrived. Just went through the contents of the site http://www.youth4equality.org/. I can see it happening – a generation awakens.

I remember the day Pamela had commented on Rang De Basanti—"It's an impractical movie. What Amir Khan and his friends did was an emotional fit."

What are we doing now? Are we being practical? Though I agree being practical is an important part of achieving any goal, the practicality itself needs to be driven by the impracticality of heart, the heart that can dare to dream and dare to look for 'practical' solutions in 'impractical' circumstances.

I'm in love these days—with a Chinese girl. She's a total kid...sings and shouts and laughs all the time. She can't come with me to India, she just won't fit in the society back home; and she's not a compromising sort. I have a choice now...be practical or be impractical. I will leave Beijing in 2 months. I can go and find a girl to sleep with for the rest of my stay here. No one gets hurt. Or I can go ahead and watch myself falling head over heels for her despite the fact that there's no future. I can feel it's going to hurt like hell once I am back in India. I talked to Sanjog. He's the white matter of my mind. I myself am the grey matter. And for once we both agreed to go by heart—sometimes pampering the heart is worth a fatal heart attack.

And I remember what I answered to Pamela's comment—I would have done the same if it was my best friend who had died in Rang De Basanti. Sometimes pampering the heart is worth a fatal heart attack.