It’s been a while since I said something.
The truth is I didn’t have anything to say.
I’ve been listening.
I’ve been thinking.
I’ve been chilling.
I’ve been editing.
I’ve been putting extra hours at work.
And extra hours at sleep as well.
Leading a pretty regular normal life.
It’s been a really weird fortnight, chasing deadlines.
About ten days ago, an unexpected vacation came by… a feel-good trip to Bangalore. Thanks to A who took me to a couple of super romantic spots in the pub city. A chilly evening, breeze, booze and a little drizzle just to give it a touch of perfection. God must’ve been in a good mood.
The flip side of it was that it wasn’t intended to be a vacation. I had gone there on work, on a specific mission of finding the right actors for the rest of the shoot. That quite didn’t work out.
The whole week passed in trying to fix the shoot, in between tight work and editing schedules. And there was an excuse to unwind when my office threw a party at Aqua @ The Park for the Metroplus Theatre Festival.
Last night, I chatted into the night with a friend. “It’s a pointless life. Here I am in this room thinking I make a difference to the world. Then you zoom out and see there are 10 different houses and many people like us who think they actually make a difference. Zoom out further, you see this city and then country and the world and the universe and you realise you are not even a speck on the face of the planet. We are nothing in the larger picture. Education has fooled us into believing that we mean something,” said V.
And no, neither of us were drunk. Though we wished we were. We were listening to some rocking music (Requiem for a dream, Tambourine Man, Doors, Dylan) and continuing our debate.
“There is a point,” I said, trying my best to brush up my feel-good rhetoric that had been gathering dust over the past fortnight. “And we define what we mean and who we want to be. Are you happy being inside in this room or do you want to make yourself heard in this colony, in this city, in this country… Do you want to be seen even when someone zooms out of this country? Or are you happy sitting in a corner and complaining about how insignificant we really are? We all come into this world with a purpose. We spend half a lifetime finding it. And the rest trying to accomplish it. There is a reason. And the reason is life itself, the journey of finding answers.”
He saw through all the lines influenced by half a dozen movies (including my own) and said, “It all sounds good. But in reality, we are just a mass of flesh. You could find your purpose today, become a millionaire and the very next day, you could get run over by a car. We don’t control anything.”
“We can’t control death. But we can control life. And how we are going to live it as long as we have it,” I said.
We were both probably having an argument for the heck of it, but the debate was reinforcing something very basic — We are all so similar, we just believe we are different because of our influences. V did have a point when he said education had fooled us into believing we know it all.
These influences had made us believe we are cool. Made us judge people on the basis of what we believe we know. Made us look down at some, look up towards some.
Our lives indeed centred around ourselves.
“Maybe that’s even more reason to make a difference to the world. Be selfless, like Gandhi. You’ll be remembered even after your death. Maybe someday they will put your face like they have his face imprinted on every single currency note,” I said.
“Gandhi is dead,” said V. “What difference does it make to him that we’ve put his face on the note?”
Ah! Life is pointless indeed! He he!
Let’s not take it too seriously!
MADRAS INK. 