War, fiction and time

There’s a scene in the first 15 minutes of Dunkirk where a large gathering of British soldiers, awaiting their return journey home from the shore of Dunkirk, hear the sounds of German bomber airplanes and hurriedly cower on the shoreline, covering their heads under their arms. Bombs begin raining down from the sky and as they explode one after another, we see sand and arms and legs and heads getting scattered.

For a moment, I imagined myself lying on the shoreline, amidst the bombings. 

Would I have been patriotic then? Would I have still stuck to my atheistic opinions? Would I have agonized over my life possibly ending because of the fight between egotistical men in power? Would I have wished that my end happened in a flash? Would I have died of the sheer anticipation of a bomb that would blow my body to pieces?

The chaos continued on screen as a different chaos erupted in my head.

I asked myself if I would enlist to serve the army, if a war broke out. The response was a feeble ‘No’. 

Am I a coward for wanting to be by the side of my loved ones as the end approached, instead of being on a foreign battlefield? Am I a coward for wanting to be beside groups of children, wanting to stop the theft of their childhood by war, instead of being beside men who are forced to let go of the humanity in them? Am I a coward for wanting to record the horrendous happenings common people are subjected to, thanks to them being born within this border or that, and wanting to let the records out for the future generations to learn the extent of man’s insanity? Am I a coward for wanting to live?

There is a scene in Dunkirk where the characters of Tommy and Gibson use a wounded soldier to their benefit, trying to gain access to a ship by pretending to be medical men. Though their actions put a weak smile on my face, deep down I realized the cost of survival.

****

Victor Frankl writes in his severely haunting Man’s Search for Meaning,
“It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future – subspecie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.”

In Dunkirk, more than once, it is referred that the British soldiers could practically see their home from the shoreline. I wonder if the soldiers would have gotten the will to survive the deadly onslaughts one after the other, if they had not had their home within their sight. I wonder if an alternate outcome would have resulted had this happened in a shore thousands of miles from the British mainland.

Neitzsche also comes to mind – “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

A happier home. A lasting love. A pleasurable pursuit of a passion. 
Thinking about a man’s why shows man’s fondness for fiction. What is a man’s future if not fiction?

As Yuval Noah Harari points out in his TED talk, man would have been unable to rule planet Earth if not for his belief in fiction.
The fiction of religions. The fiction of nations. The fiction of wars. The fiction of money. The fiction of time.

Is there another filmmaker today who is as obsessed with the concept of time as Christopher Nolan is?

Memento dealt with a man’s quest for revenge, revolving around his time-bound memory disorder. The Prestige dealt with the rivalry between two magicians, but deceived the audience by crisscrossing timelines. Inception had its final act structured around a multi-layered dream sequence, heightened in its intensity by the time differences across each layer. Interstellar had a father-daughter relationship being shaken at its roots by the time differences owing to space travel. And in Dunkirk, we literally feel the dread of every passing second, thanks to its background score and crisscrossed timelines.

What does Nolan find fascinating about the concept of time? 

Our never-ending fight against it? The varying storylines that pop out of alternated timelines? The changing cycles of cause and effect?

Whatever Nolan’s reason(s) might be, when one begins to consider the cause and effect of war, one cannot help but feel sorry for mankind.

Where there is no way...

Whenever I stepped into the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus on Sunday nights, the heart would get heavy for two reasons.

• The feeling of leaving behind a home and a Metropolitan that get closer in 2 days than a flat and a city that stay together for 28 days 
• The sight of countless old, destitute men and women 

In the 20 minute spare time that I would always gift myself with, before my bus ride to Bangalore, I would seat myself by a corner and look around the terminus. People would rush with their baggage and babies to board buses scheduled to leave 10 minutes earlier. People would rush with their baggage and babies, having deboarded from buses that were scheduled to arrive an hour earlier. And amidst this wave of incoming and outgoing people, who would always have a destination to reach, one that would be different from the one in their hearts, seated or sleeping would be a large group of men and women with no destination to travel and reside. These people also possess their own baggage, but more on their minds than the ones below their heads and beside their bodies.

Strangely or perhaps not, a line from the Tamil song 'Vidai kodu engal naadae' comes to mind.
"Thalaiyil konjam, nenjil athigam, sumaigal sumanthu pogindrom."
A line used to describe the Sri Lankan Tamils, many of whom were forced to become refugees, seems appropriate even for the men and women who carry no bus tickets inside the terminus.

At times, as I would survey this group of men and women, certain people would grab my attention. Like a 50-60 year old man, who I noticed during 3 of my visits, constantly reading a newspaper. Like a happy old couple lost in conversation and time. Like a very old woman with a smile glued to her face.
I would wonder about the cause for their destination being the terminus.
Death of the last remaining family member? Ignorance of every remaining family member? Lack of a proper financial planning for their old age when they were young? Globalization? Urbanization?

An article that I came across some time ago explained the adverse effects that globalization, through its creation of nuclear families, was projecting on the older Indian population. Which made me ponder upon the plight of numerous old fathers and mothers, who suffered not from lack of money but from lack of care. With sons and daughters working in faraway cities, with ambitious loans resting comfortably at their backyards, with brothers and sisters scattered owing to corporate convenience, these fathers and mothers do not seem to lack a destination but just a proper home, unlike the earlier group who have neither.

I wonder why the destitute men and women choose a bus terminus as their home. Maybe for the easy access to food and washrooms. Maybe in wait of the day when they would get a destination to board a bus to. Maybe to serve as reminders for the sons and daughters, who travel to their hometowns once/twice/thrice a month, of the state of a lonely parent.

As these thoughts flood my mind, I silently walk to the bedroom where my mother is sound asleep. I had felt happy that I had made my mother shift from my native city to my work city in just 2 years since I started working. But with these thoughts, the 2 years make me experience a sense of guilt. I just whisper 'Sorry' and exit the bedroom, realizing that it would never suffice, neither for the 2 years nor for the countless old, destitute men and women at the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus.

Contact

It is 1987

I cry and cry, rolling inside the cradle

My father understands that I want to communicate

He peeps in and offers me a tiny smile

Slowly, he leans forward and whispers something

I pause my crying

I understand his love though not his language

He had understood my want though not my language

I stare at him blankly for a few seconds before smiling

He whispers something again, and I begin laughing

We continue our conversation for sometime

Language is left languishing over the bedroom attic...

 

It is 1998

I hold his letter in my hands and I can feel his wrinkles

The paper is stiff yet the written words start trembling

The ink soaked in the paper competes with the warmth soaked in my heart

I smile looking at the two dots at the end of each sentence

"I never like using periods in my letters to you" my grandfather would say

"Why not use commas or semicolons?" I would retort

"Life needs those tiny pauses" he would explain

No wonder he loves the French and Italian films

He also loves Tom Clancy and Robin Cook

Which shows itself in his writing

Every paragraph leads to a breathtaking revelation

I love the smell of the words - the Parachute hair oil dripped words

And the smell of the wooden table that the letter had rested upon

I often get scolded by my school teachers

For using a black ink pen for the entire answer sheet in examinations

"Black ink is only for highlighting important words" they say

I refuse to change to blue ink

At least till my grandfather does...

 

It is 2007

I am on a phone call and my mother is on the other side

The eardrums reach beyond the reception levels

The brainwaves strengthen the weak network signals

My mother always speaks softly

Like how courage whispers to a bird on the brink of its maiden flight

Like how passion whispers to a man lost in a mundane existence

Like how childhood whispers to a mother arranging her daughter's scattered toys

But her silences are my precious treasures

They reach me sooner than language

They describe me her crowded train ride, her spicy lunch

And the half kilo carrots that had accompanied her home

"Then?" she would always ask

I would want to share the million happenings I had hidden from her

Inside my maturity locker

A broken tooth had been a three-day headline 15 years back

And a broken heart seems an unnecessary triviality now

"Then?" she would always ask

"Nothing more" I would reply and wait for my mother to end the call

Her silences are my precious treasures...

 

It is 2017

The WhatsApp icon lights up my dark mobile screen and my heart

185 seconds had elapsed since my previous text message

What would she have replied?

I spend another 185 seconds creating a list of possible replies

Another 185 seconds in affirming that she would have sent the most ideal reply

Another 185 seconds in fear that she would have sent the worst reply

There is a pleasure in these anticipations

Pleasure that delays clicking a button and ending the mystery in a second

Pleasure like when you have added the single missing semicolon in a 500 line code

And happily wait with a God's pride before executing it

Pleasure like when you chance upon a lovely sight

And cherish it before pulling out the camera

I believe I love texting her

More for my anticipations than for her replies

The unopened message where I love the idea of her

And the opened message where I love her...

 

It is 2027

I stand at my balcony, in my Indian flat

My partner is resting on his couch, in his Spanish home

My thoughts pause themselves as his come flooding to me

Each of his thoughts begin to get mapped to their rightful node in my network

My network expands like a floating jellyfish

As our thoughts come together, I see the big picture and also the solution

"This is great" my partner thinks

"I thought so too" I respond

No common server platform, no whiteboards, no discussions

A faulty algorithm has been debugged and solved with just our thoughts

Happily, I rub the tiny circular device attached below my ear lobe

The thousand thought networks inside my head glow in a gentle light

"I wish you guys were with me in Paris" My sister's thought reaches me

"She's lying! She's totally enjoying her vacation there" my brother's thought rushes in, bumping her thought

"Why should we be there? I am enjoying Paris as much as you" I respond,

Letting my sister's Paris-thought network in my head lighten up

"Still..." she lets float an unfinished thought

Thoughts of love and family begin to race forward and recede like waves

I pull out the circular device from below my ear

And begin talking to myself

A strange new world this is

Communication happening through thoughts and introspection happening through words...

A Separation

There is a beautiful scene in Asghar Farhadi's A Separation in which the daughter Termeh, looks silently through a window, at her mother who is about to leave the house. Termeh's parents are on the brink of a divorce. 
Having collected her stuff and grabbing a hold of her baggage, Termeh's mother throws a final glance at Termeh, then at Termeh's father and steps out the doorway. As soon as her mother steps out, Termeh turns to look at her father. She does not utter a word. She does not cry or let out a wail. She looks at her father in a state of helplessness. 

I was reminded of this scene two days ago when I came across the following incident on my way to office. 
A family of three was standing outside an apartment. The mother was attired in formal outfit with a handbag garlanding her shoulder. The father was in a casual outfit, carrying a little, excited girl in his arms who would have been around 3 years of age. The girl was playing with her mother and the father was a silent and happy spectator. Very soon, a Tempo traveler approached the family and the mother waved goodbye to the father and the daughter. I could notice the daughter's face slowly changing and as her eyes closed and her nose shrunk, I readied myself for a wail. And a moment later, it happened. 
For a few moments, the mother stood frozen between her daughter and the Tempo traveler. But the father convinced her to go ahead and walked inside the apartment, trying to console his uncontrollably crying daughter. 

I could not get the little girl's wail out of my head for sometime. Not because it was haunting but simply because it was unadulterated love. 
The little girl could not bear the separation from her mother for a mere 9-10 hours. 
I smiled thinking about this innocent possessiveness. But I also felt sad because of the realization that with age, our tolerable duration of separation increases. 
Days. Months. Years. Death.

I tried imagining how it would be if I had turned the 3-year-old girl during all the separations in my life. 
Maybe a few departures would not have happened. Maybe a few people would have stayed behind, preferring love over purpose. 
Would that make me a selfish person? Probably yes.
But I ask myself the question - Would I want to stay an understanding, selfless person storing a reservoir of longing or would I want to be a selfish, possessive person securing the physical proximity of my loved ones?
The answer is not clear.

I feel that as adults, we tune ourselves to let go of people easily. 

Maybe we need to put up a few more fights. Maybe we need to let out a few more wails.

Would that be wrong? Probably yes.

When you ask a 3-year-old girl what is wrong and what is right, she would say that lying is wrong and praying is right. But life would show you that she is right in a sense and wrong in another. 

So, why not be a 3-year-old girl for the rightful sense?!

As I think about this, I also recall a beautiful quote of Kahlil Gibran's.

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

I would agree because I realized how much my mother meant to me only during the mornings and meals she was not beside me rather than on the days she was nearby. I realized how much a friend meant only during the evenings I was accompanying him in my memories rather than on the days we spent together in the present. 

Then, is separation necessary? Are we well off being empathetic 30-year-olds than being yearning 3-year-olds?

The answer is not clear.

Maybe that is why Termeh looked at her father in a state of helplessness. Maybe that is why she did not utter a word or let out a wail. Maybe she was torn between selfless love and a childish craving for closeness.

Asghar Farhadi is truly a genius.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

I looked at my left hand. My middle finger was missing. 
Strangely, I felt no pain. That night made me realize my anger's might.

I looked around. Four of my men stood covering me, firing hopelessly at the charging enemy troop.
The strength of the enemy troop was 43. We were 5 in number.

We had been 7 when we had set out from our camp. Two of my men now lay dead at my feet. As I looked at their bodies, my anger amplified. "Why did you have to follow my order?" I cried out, in my head. 
A bullet whizzed past me.
Bullets. Blood. Darkness. Death.
Standing there, I could hear my mother's lullaby. I could hear my lover's laughter and my enemy's hatred. I could hear my conscience shouting that I had wronged my men. 

We were not supposed to be surrounded by the enemy troop at that time. That had not been the plan. But who respects plans?
We, at our camp, would occasionally prepare false plans in order to mislead the enemies. Of late, I had started wondering if many of our plans had begun misleading even us. 
The two beautiful souls at my feet were a result of one such erroneous plan.

My commander had called me to his tent two hours earlier. 11:02 PM. 
"There has been a new development", he had started, "We have received orders from the high command to capture the enemy camp at RM before midnight."
I had remained silent.
"As per reliable sources, the strength of the enemy troop stationed there is 10 men. It should be a walk in the park for you and your team", he had added.
Silence.
"Assemble your men in the next 10 minutes", he had ended.
Silence.

What could I have said? That my men had had a long day? That my men deserved some rest? That my men were just men?
"For the country", my commander would have replied. 
We had all enlisted ourselves for the same reason during the start of the war - For the country. But we had all reached a point when we no longer understood if we loved it or hated it. 
We had fought and killed so much that in some days, we had lost the need for a reason to it all. We had reached a point wherein every morning, we arose, lifted our rifles, ran into the battlefield, shot down our enemies, and returned to our camp, wounded and exhausted. We had become so accustomed to the killing routine that most of us no longer remembered the dreams we had carried before we had enlisted ourselves. 

I had left my commander's tent without a reply and had walked into the resting unit of my team. 3 of my men had been fast asleep and 3 had been on the verge of it. I had clapped my hands loud enough to get all of them on their feet in the next minute. I had briefed them about the mission and they had immediately begun dressing up, without a hint of a refusal. Watching them ready themselves up for a senseless mission, I had realized my mistake of having narrated them story after story of the victorious senseless missions I had been a part of. Their respect for me had extended to their want of following a similar path as mine. 
Ten minutes later, my men and I had walked out of the camp, obediently following orders and secretly wishing that our lives would one day matter as much as the country's pride.

A bullet whizzed past me.
Bullets. Blood. Darkness. Death.
Standing there, I could hear my mother's lullaby. I could hear my lover's laughter and my enemy's hatred. I could hear my conscience shouting that I had wronged my men. 
"Stop firing!" I ordered. My men lowered their rifles and turned towards me. 
"I am sorry", I admitted. A faint smile spread across each of their faces as the enemy's bullets blasted through their flesh and bones. One by one, they all fell beside me. 
I stood there with six beautiful souls resting at my feet. "If only I had not followed my commander's orders and if only they had not followed my orders", I repented. But if it had not been for my men and I, it would have been some other team under some other leader. 
When would this end? Why did man have to bring upon himself this destruction?
A bullet hit my forehead, ending my questions and my anger and my struggle. I fell slowly upon my men to crown a heap of bleeding and lifeless bodies, our heap serving as a symbol of man's stupidity.

Boom!
I snapped out of my imagination and returned to the present, at office.
Two of my teammates were ruthlessly keying in commands on their laptops. My laptop screen was blinking with a message from my onsite. "How much longer before you deliver the ad hocs?" was his question. I repeated the same to my teammates. "15 minutes", came one answer. "20 minutes", came another. I sent him the reply and I checked the time. 01:37 AM.
I rose from my chair and walked to the washroom to freshen up. I closed my eyes and splashed water on my face. As I opened my eyes, I noticed the sink turning red. 
And then I heard it - A feeble gunfire growing louder by the minute. 

The road to the top

Last Sunday, at around 8 AM, I was standing atop Nandi hills. The 10-member-group I had traveled with was some distance away, enjoying the aerial view. 
I was more interested with the view above my head. It made me feel closer to the universe. "Hey you! Are you somewhere out there?" I asked, looking above. I had a lengthy list of topics I wanted to talk about. I had a lengthier list of questions I wanted answers for. "I badly want to believe in you but you seem to be putting very less effort to convince me" I explained. A mild breeze blew in response.   

Before me, a lonely tree swayed. It had nothing special about it but I could sense a poignant poem dancing around its leaves. As I looked at it, I was reminded of 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' that had played during the car ride to the top. 

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

"You remind me of myself" I told the tree. It continued swaying - I took it as a smile in return. 
"Do you feel grateful for your life or do you feel it could have been better?" I asked the tree. The swaying stopped. Maybe it had not expected the question. Maybe the answer was a painful one. 

I asked myself the same question. Standing closer to the sky, surrounded by a group I loved - it seemed the right place at the right time for the question.
The journey had not been an easy one. But it had also made me meet travelers who had traversed harsher roads. "Why couldn't you have just made it easier for everyone?" I asked, looking above. This time, there was not even a breeze.
I thought about the roads I had crossed. I thought about the roads my friends had crossed. Each of our paths had been different, the starting points had been different, the fellow travelers and the unexpected shelters and the overwhelming hardships had been different. But somehow, we had all reached the same road now. 
Some of us had less baggage and some, more than one could carry. 
While I felt happy that we had all chanced upon this road, I also felt bad for not accompanying some of my fellow travelers upon their journeys. 
"You cannot accompany every traveler you meet. You have to travel your own journey. And not accompanying everyone does not also mean that you go around carrying them in your baggage. Always travel light" - I remembered a friend's advice. 

I thought about the journey that would have resulted had I taken alternate roads every time I had been presented with the option. Maybe I wouldn't have reached Nandi hills. Or maybe I would have reached Nandi hills but the group I had traveled with would have been an unknown crowd. 
I thought about the journeys that would have resulted had every member of my group taken alternate roads when he/she had been presented with the option. Maybe none of us would have reached Nandi hills. Or maybe we all would have reached the top and we all would have been strangers to one another. 
I couldn't help smiling thinking about the scenario. 
I also realized that the answer to my question lay in me wanting or not wanting the scenario to be a reality. 

Without thinking further, I walked ahead and joined my group. There was an ongoing discussion about the path to take to reach the other side of the hills. 
"Let's take that path. It seems more adventurous", shouted one friend, pointing to a steep, rocky road. "No! Let's take this route. This seems a better path to roll this guy down the hill, the next time he cracks a shitty joke", commented another friend, pointing to a route along the edge of the hill, and looking at the shitty-joke-guy standing beside him with a sheepish smile. One friend seemed more interested in selfies than in the discussion. And another friend seemed more interested in recording the beauty of the aerial view from all possible angles.
As I looked at the group, I couldn't help smiling. I had gotten my answer unlike the tree. 
I looked above and gently whispered, 'Thank you!'. 
Few seconds later, a mild breeze started. The lonely tree behind me swayed, smiling.

You and I

I recall our past and I predict our future
My imaginations are clearer than my memories
Perhaps our future resembles a sad song
Their lyrics are easier to remember than the lines of a happy song..
Who were you and I?
Who will we be?
I was a leaking fountain pen smiling at you, my half-filled ink bottle
I will be an overused toothbrush longing for you, my flattened out toothpaste
I was a half-bitten eraser caring for you, my uneven pencil stroke
I will be a broken lock looking out for you, my lost key
I was a punctured tire kissing you, my empty dead-end road
I will be an ineffective malware multiplying for you, my uninstalled antivirus
I was an unwilling raindrop falling for you, my hole-filled umbrella
I will be a damaged brain aching for you, my obsolete X-ray machine
I was a forced smile showing up for you, my silent single teardrop
I will be a friendless childhood waiting for you, my loveless adulthood
Who were you and I?
Who will we be?
We were always meant to be together
Not for our purposes, only for our affection
But we are yet to be understood
Like a comedian's pain, like a celebrity's loneliness
Let us wait for our time
Let us wait for my predicted future
I see it clearer than our past
I will become a slow suicide uniting with you, my premature birth.