Monday, May 18, 2009
weekend special
spock said: space, the final frontier, these are the voyagers.
indians elected manmohan singh back to pmji.
i am 12 again, no almost 50 really, but the feeling at these two apparently distant points in my life are exactly the same. excitement, anything can happen, impossibly big hope. take me with you, please.
it's interesting getting older. everything, however commonplace, or not, has reference, context, layers of meaning and memory making every encounter more than the sum of its parts.
i was around 12 when i saw colour tv for the first time, in good old london, the city of our conquerors and how in awe i was of the big white world's ways. there in technicolor (the word pops up) my brothers and i met the vulcan and his captain friend for the first time. oh the adventure, the finding of new worlds, the face to face with our bizarre and ugly friends in the universe - if i remember correctly, handsome young kirk was prone to getting moony eyed over the true ughlies - the signature tune, the shot of the starship approaching and arcing across the screen. spock. logical, pointy eared, half human, all vulcan, utterly nimoy. fascinating.
beam me up, i say, scottie.
and he beams me to age 20 something. calcutta, the old house with the tall green doors, six movable shutters to a door, the leaks in the fraying ceiling, the musty, go slow atmosphere, the corner room that was once a part of a long continuous verandah skirting a temple dedicated by the most successful member of a family to his guru. now the less successful lot had put up tacky walls and turned a grand plan into a grunge of a home. ah memories, such clingons.
there i lie in that room in my father's family home, prone on the bed, staring at a green shutter, dust on the edges. my mother is saying i should, no, i must go to vote. vote? never! this democracy is mine, but who has the time or interest to actually vote. no ma, no. ma goes and votes.
spock says: i was always your friend.
leonard nimoy again, after all these years. goosebumps gather and grow up my shin toward my knees. i can hear the passage of time in his voice. it comes right out of the screen and touches me, nice.
i put an arm around my 8 eight year old daughter and hug her close as she shivers in the cinema hall chill. it's sunday and i'm happy in a can't stop grinning way. forget the sunday nap, let's catch a movie. a movie? daughter is mystified. mother is known more for lying prone (no matter what people say, some things about people just don't change) through sunday afternoons. but not today. manmohan singh has been elected again. let's go watch star trek.
but is nimoy playing spock? asks my brother on sms from calcutta. yes, i say adding colour to truth.
the truth. isn't it how we choose to see it? for me there will always be new worlds to discover or bumble into. and ancient places held sacred in my self.
the only time i could vote, because all the papers were in place and the stars had truly aligned (without that no indian can vote, honest), i didn't want to trek the uncharted frontiers of democracy.
this time i so wanted to press the button and say "i choose," but there was no way i could. no papers, not the right home (non grungy, but not in any constituency, far away in another land, another galaxy), manmohan would have to do without me. or would he?
i send a powerful thought across.
that was last month. saturday as i settle into lunch with favourite aunt and uncle, sms from the other brother: jai ho.
huh?
upa is set to win the elections.
wow, didn't many wise people write in long and articulate articles and opined on serious looking tv programmes that we would not have any clear majority in the parliament? all the parties will emerge weaker, and much horsetrading or whatever it's called will be required before we get anywhere near having a government. which at best will be a weak government.
what happened? a thought went? perhaps captain kirk found it wafting confused, heading straight for a black hole and quickly assigned scottie to save it and send it to the right place? perhaps.
but more, it felt like people: ordinary, everyday people, young people, poor people, chose. with thought. without fanfare. they said: this is democracy, i am people. goosebumps. almost as exciting as going where no man has gone before.
my daughter said after the movie: did you see the way he said (she made a spock face)... fascinating.
if you go to watch the new star trek, i hope it brings you the thrill it brought me. indi out.
indians elected manmohan singh back to pmji.
i am 12 again, no almost 50 really, but the feeling at these two apparently distant points in my life are exactly the same. excitement, anything can happen, impossibly big hope. take me with you, please.
it's interesting getting older. everything, however commonplace, or not, has reference, context, layers of meaning and memory making every encounter more than the sum of its parts.
i was around 12 when i saw colour tv for the first time, in good old london, the city of our conquerors and how in awe i was of the big white world's ways. there in technicolor (the word pops up) my brothers and i met the vulcan and his captain friend for the first time. oh the adventure, the finding of new worlds, the face to face with our bizarre and ugly friends in the universe - if i remember correctly, handsome young kirk was prone to getting moony eyed over the true ughlies - the signature tune, the shot of the starship approaching and arcing across the screen. spock. logical, pointy eared, half human, all vulcan, utterly nimoy. fascinating.
beam me up, i say, scottie.
and he beams me to age 20 something. calcutta, the old house with the tall green doors, six movable shutters to a door, the leaks in the fraying ceiling, the musty, go slow atmosphere, the corner room that was once a part of a long continuous verandah skirting a temple dedicated by the most successful member of a family to his guru. now the less successful lot had put up tacky walls and turned a grand plan into a grunge of a home. ah memories, such clingons.
there i lie in that room in my father's family home, prone on the bed, staring at a green shutter, dust on the edges. my mother is saying i should, no, i must go to vote. vote? never! this democracy is mine, but who has the time or interest to actually vote. no ma, no. ma goes and votes.
spock says: i was always your friend.
leonard nimoy again, after all these years. goosebumps gather and grow up my shin toward my knees. i can hear the passage of time in his voice. it comes right out of the screen and touches me, nice.
i put an arm around my 8 eight year old daughter and hug her close as she shivers in the cinema hall chill. it's sunday and i'm happy in a can't stop grinning way. forget the sunday nap, let's catch a movie. a movie? daughter is mystified. mother is known more for lying prone (no matter what people say, some things about people just don't change) through sunday afternoons. but not today. manmohan singh has been elected again. let's go watch star trek.
but is nimoy playing spock? asks my brother on sms from calcutta. yes, i say adding colour to truth.
the truth. isn't it how we choose to see it? for me there will always be new worlds to discover or bumble into. and ancient places held sacred in my self.
the only time i could vote, because all the papers were in place and the stars had truly aligned (without that no indian can vote, honest), i didn't want to trek the uncharted frontiers of democracy.
this time i so wanted to press the button and say "i choose," but there was no way i could. no papers, not the right home (non grungy, but not in any constituency, far away in another land, another galaxy), manmohan would have to do without me. or would he?
i send a powerful thought across.
that was last month. saturday as i settle into lunch with favourite aunt and uncle, sms from the other brother: jai ho.
huh?
upa is set to win the elections.
wow, didn't many wise people write in long and articulate articles and opined on serious looking tv programmes that we would not have any clear majority in the parliament? all the parties will emerge weaker, and much horsetrading or whatever it's called will be required before we get anywhere near having a government. which at best will be a weak government.
what happened? a thought went? perhaps captain kirk found it wafting confused, heading straight for a black hole and quickly assigned scottie to save it and send it to the right place? perhaps.
but more, it felt like people: ordinary, everyday people, young people, poor people, chose. with thought. without fanfare. they said: this is democracy, i am people. goosebumps. almost as exciting as going where no man has gone before.
my daughter said after the movie: did you see the way he said (she made a spock face)... fascinating.
if you go to watch the new star trek, i hope it brings you the thrill it brought me. indi out.
