Story of a Ship

There is a story that begins with a character, lets call our character Eva. Eva lives her life and her life has a few events which are of interest to others. The events form a story. Invariably, these events sum up into something that we call an end. An end, that brings about a closure. We mostly believe that all stories should end. And why shouldn’t we expect that? The end gives the sense of purpose to Eva’s story. Why did it happen? What was the result? How did it sum up? Ah, well! Lets read the story backwards, from end to start. No, I am not giving you a Benjamin Button nor Eva’s life story. I am simply thinking about a film that I watched just recently. It was a twisted tale of four people.

To begin with, a man dies! Just before he dies, he decides his life could be a lot worthy post his death. So, he donates his various organs to the people who may need it while they serve their tenure of mortality. After all, much is said about life and the ways in which it can be made worthy of living. Now is the right time to ponder on what is the benchmark of a worthy life? This is a question so often and so frequently pondered upon by many of us, that it has almost lost its sheen and reputation in the common day conversation. But despite that, the question is very pertinent to our film, and sometimes life too. For many of us, standing up for others, humans and animals could be something worth living for. For many others, achieving excellence in their work could be a worthy life. And yes, there is huge brigade of nihilists who would proclaim that living for oneself is the best thing one could do. So with different benchmarks and philosophies that we believe in, we deconstruct our realities. And often our happiness and satisfaction go hand in hand with how we break the reality into pieces for ourselves.

So maybe someone, who has received a kidney transplant, wants to think that his donor was not tricked into donating a kidney. Else, that makes him uneasy and unhappy. For another person, he would love to believe that his disease and suffering is miniscule compared to the lab animals on which the cure for the disease is tested. If not, he is unhappy. A person may think that her being blind has never been a deterrent to her photographic profession as she had been an acclaimed photographer even with her handicap. And if her work changes because of her becoming able, she becomes sad. Yes my friend, happiness, in the context of one’s benchmarks of a worthy life seems to be the purpose of life.

And this reminds me that happiness is but a state of mind. So are sadness and life worth and reality. But we all are born with it. It starts the moment we are born .And it keeps being born. It starts the moment we decide to become a stockbroker, a philosopher, a photographer, a cave discoverer. It begins every instant. The pursuit of happiness takes different forms. And as they say, ‘You do not step into the same river twice’, you are a part of a cycle that changes but without a closure.

Get married, because you know......

When are you getting married?’, asks the literally rounded aunty draped in a saree that shines 10 times that of Iron Man’s body suit. And while I try to calculate the reflection coefficient of her dress, an involuntary smile flashes across my face while my eyes try to scan the mithai (sweet) box kept on the table. She is in no mood to let me go. She speaks as if her voice just took a dip in a bottle of mango juice (alphanso, mind it) and her tone grows silky soft as the best skin crème available. I dread this.

While I try to save myself and use my smartphone as a shield to escape her Heath Ledger smile, she snatches it and asks me to show the pictures I have. She calls my mom, sarcastically announcing that the next half an hour should be spent by all the elders in the family scrolling through the pictures of my phone, because 'you know, kids these days!’ And I ask myself, ‘Who in the world invented sarcasm?’ He would be cringing in his grave, because right now all my family surrounds me for the announced show. I mumble to myself ‘Showtime, baby!’ and remark loudly ‘Lets get a projector too. That would enable easy viewing’. And again I ask myself, ‘ Who in the world invented sarcasm?’ because my over enthusiastic uncle gets one in fifteen minutes. I pray for the soul of the sarcasm inventor.

While I am not sure if my prayers are being heard, in order to raise the happiness index of the gathering, a happily-married-friend-who-is-a-mother- of-a-two-year-old-kid turns up. Her happiness seeps to the faces of all the aunts and they sound in unison ‘for a girl, the amount of happiness that comes after marriage is beyond measurement.’ I wish the inventor of kilogram scale had thought of such intangibles too. Now while the projector has been set up and I have gotten a narrow escape from the milieu by playing their favorite Bollywood songs on Youtube, and I have already silently thanked Yash Chopra (?) and Steve Chen, I stealthily move out of the room. And there I am intercepted by another happily married friend. I ask myself ‘Who in the world came up with the idea of family gatherings?’ In our country, family gatherings are like a village feast. And this married friend gives me the good advice of finding a good groom at the right age because, ‘you know, its so tough these days!’ My central and lateral incisors request me to put off their incessant showcasing as a response to all of these questions but there is no respite for them.

Suddenly there are more people in the house. There is more food and more music but there are no more girls of marriageable age. And while everyone is suggesting names of good successful prospective grooms to my mom and dad, I concentrate on the laddoos. After everyone has had their food and I have dropped two scores down on the favoritism index of my aunt whose proposal to marry an IT programmer has met with an outright rejection from me, I get up to take their leave. My mother does her classic angry eyes at me for my act. At this moment if I focused her eyesight through a magnifying glass, it could have burnt down anything placed beneath it. My mother soothes my aunt by thanking her profusely and saying,’you know, girls these days!’ Thankfully, the wedding song playlist gets over and everyone gets up for goodbyes.

And yes everyone promises me to make it to my wedding come what may, because, ‘you know, everyone is important!’. My mother does her classic sad-mother-of-a-pesky-girl face during all the sad goodbyes and promises to invite everyone and everyone of everyone to my would-be wedding. I smile and mumble to myself, ‘Who in the world invented the idea of getting married in a public ceremony to be attended by scores of people you have never known and shall never know for all practical purposes?’.