An Idea Whose Time Never Comes?

Last night, I saw the new movie Jodha Akbar. A story about a marriage of political convenience that became a true partnership of love. It was a sort of fictionalised history with considerable poetic license. A slow film that somehow could not get the audience involved in two larger-than-life historical figures. I got the feeling that the makers of the film were trying to set a romantic story against a background in which political passions ran high, but not the romantic passion. A little confused perhaps.

There is another movie, Cheeni Kum, which has been on my mind recently -- the story of an older man and a much younger woman falling in love, and the complications of getting people around them -- friends, family, social circles -- to accept that perhaps such a love was possible, and that it could succeed to be in the face of almost insurmountable odds. Love can be so hard.

I find it a little strange that recent surveys of workplace relationships evoke surprising degree of blase-ness (I couldn't find the appropriate word!); respondents to the survey said that relationships -- even 'forbidden' ones like extra-marital affairs -- in the workplace were all right as long as they were not disruptive to the work environment. Have we become ready to accept reality, and not ignore it hoping it will go away?

But here's what I cannot understand. Why is it then that a relationship between an much older man and a young woman faces such opposition? For a people who are never tired of the greatest love stories and are moved so much by them, even dream of having such a love in our own lives, why won't we give it a chance when it happens?

Why should something so good, so wonderful, so rare, be so resisted? Don't we trust true love when it comes? Or is it that we believe, that like everything else, love has a season, a season of youth, but not for middle age? Why do we bullshit ourselves with ideas that age is a state of mind, but trot out pragmatic solutions and theories about why such an idea is dangerous?

I see two possibilities: one, the ideas are wrong, but we are all knowingly self-delusional and pretend they are right. Or else, the ideas are right: we'd rather be self-delusional about our capacity for love and just refuse to accept it. Which means we lack the courage of our convictions.

Taxi Driver - Robert de Niro Redux?

Time it was when barbers used to be the class of service people that talked the most. You got movie reviews, tidbits about celebrities and general funda from them. Today it's also the taxi drivers ( A friend tells me using the taxi driver as a narrative prop is the new cliche). Mine have a lot of opinions. But they can also be observant folks. And one of my regulars has other ambitions.

He wants to work in an office, has even taken courses in spoken English to equip himself for his aspirations. But he's also a realist. His idea is now to work in an office where he gets to go out and be a delivery man - a sort of courier. That way, he says, he will have to be of better service and less servile.

It's not unconnected to his frustrations with being a cab driver. He hates the traffic, and the stress. His temper gets frayed, and he is more likely than not to get into an argument over a minor infraction. Come summer, it'll only get worse, because of the heat. So he's using this time, when things are calmer, to try and get a job, so he asks his fares - like me.

The other day, I watched on TV a landlord, after a run-in with the police over a small argument near his property, get into his car. And as he was leaving, he accelerated and ran down one of the people he was having an argument with: right in front of the same policemen!

Which brings up my cab driver's concern: is road rage on the rise?

What am I doing here?

There is this temptation to set the context for this blog. Would be easy, if I knew what that was. Besides, it will probably sound like a lot of self-justification. So let's skip that. And dive in headfirst..

I live in a state of confusion. There are some things that are crystal clear, there is lots that isn't. After living in a cocoon for years, you begin to think that there's only so much more that life can give you. Yeah, you can tell yourself that life is is one long learning process, but frankly you don't believe it. It is a convenient crutch though. It cements those convictions you hold dear, and gives you the comfort of something to hold on to in the maelstorms that you are thrown into.

I go through life preparing for all the blind corners. But nothing prepares you for some things or some people who seem to be waiting around the next corner. They just jump at you and turn your life upside down. Now, it's happened to me. Coming back to India has been wonderful. The joy of rediscovery is immense. Reams have been written about its vitality, its new life, its energy in the middle of poverty. But then, I have always loved contradictions.

This is a personal journey, a personal quest, personal discovery (God, that sounds so pretentious!). This is a travel diary.