Musings about another world.

There are many things that I like to remember. Other than date or month or year. I even lose count of them once in a while. What I do remember are characters. From movies, books ,comics. Even authors some time become the prey of my somewhat weird working memory. I started to understand how I do keep in pace with the characters eventually. What I do is relate the character to me. By that way I gradually make them a part of my life. I have this world of mine where all these characters are important. Where they speak about their world. Their genuine emotions. They empathize with me. They grant me their words. I try to imitate their actions. By default they live with me.
No Strings attached.
Characters from movies have influenced me the most. I still remember how Mohanlal in the movie Aaram Thamburan sits on the chair and asks his friend Nandakumar to buy him back his ancestral home. He also adds with a wise smile not to register the home in his name. When his friend asks why the character Jagan(played by Mohanlal) does not want the house to be registered in his name, Jagan says “ I would love to live this life as guest in the world. I want no strings attached to me. I must end like that.” Do not ask me why, but I would not forget this sentence. It happens at times Jagan appears whenever I make a commitment. Whenever I wish I had something of my own. I must be because I too want to be a guest in this world.
It happens so, whenever somebody poses me with the heavy question ‘Do you believe in God?’ that scene in the movie Country Teacher creeps up in my mind. There is a scene where the woman in the village asks the newly arrived teacher ‘Do you believe in God?’ The country teacher looks at the distant church seen in the backdrop a beautiful sky and answers ‘I want to believe in god. But I do not know how to.’ Wonder it seems I answer the same every time somebody asks me the question.
Drive Safe
Fictional characters in books are more kind than the movie heroes. They just linger around. They pass me their habits, looks, attitude. Their fear, agony, depression. Their love, compassion. Like the hero in the novel ‘The New Life’ by Orhan Pamukh. The hero in the book travels a lot. He travels a lot by bus in Turkey. He gradually acquires this fascination for accidents while travelling. He finds it very amusing. He even says that after an accident happens for a temporary period of time a gateway opens. In the dust that raises after the accident a gateway opens to the other world. I found this very fascinating. From then on that character passed on its fascination for road accidents to me. Every time I travel by bus these days I carry with me the same unexplainable and intense feeling.
I always wanted to visit the places that I have read about. May it be Mojave desert or Bombay. Haridwar is one of those places. I read about Haridwar, in the book ‘’ Haridwaril Manikal Muzhangunu’’ ( The Bells That Toll in Haridwar). In that book the character Ravi talks about a minster that he encounters in the streets of Haridwar. He depicts a cow as the monster. He says that the cow that has been garlanded and coloured red is a monste. Carrying the sins of all the humans, who wash it away in the Ganges. Ravi is not afraid not happy in meeting this cow. I had visited Haridwar recently. I was alone. I walked all around Haridwar in search of that sin bearing monster. I loved my journey even though I knew there is no such cow nor is there Ravi.
Remembering Neruda.
Preserve characters. Odd dialogues, emotional outrages, undesired fears. Everything you can carry with you about them, please do carry. They would come before you. As Neruda said ‘ as dew comes onto leaves’.