Somewhere around 15 years ago…
It was a lazy evening. Baba and I were half-lying, half-sitting on the sofa watching old Hindi songs. Because of my parents, I have always had a special fondness for old Hindi songs. As we sat there watching one of those black and white melodies, out of nowhere Baba said- there is something about these black and white movies. Color movies are not just the same. Too many colors on the screen are confusing. Sometimes overwhelming.
For my under construction mind back then (I was only in 6th standard), it was too much to grasp. The fault was not really mine. Baba was being quite absurd. Baba grew up watching color movies. If my grandfather had said something like that, I could have understood. Blaming it on his age would have been easy. But what about Baba?
I remember I had asked- what do you mean by that.
Baba, still lost in his thoughts, tried explaining but no luck. Finally, he had settled for- leave it. I can't explain. You will understand someday.
The present…
Let’s just say… the only absurd thing that can surpass that incident is the fact that I still remember it for some inexplicable reason. Or it could be the fact that I have genuinely waited to understand what he meant.
Well, I am not going to be the Kung Fu Panda all of a sudden and say that I have finally understood the meaning behind it all and ‘there is no secret ingredient'.
No, I am not going to say that.
But I am definitely at that stage of life, where I wish I lived in a world of barcodes.
A world of absolutes you know… Dark blue ink on a white paper, black letters on my white laptop screen, a barcode… And when my scanner scans it, it will have only one meaning and that meaning will be the truth. No hidden meaning. No looking beyond words, colors, shades. No scope for interpretation.
Too many colors on the screen are confusing. Sometimes overwhelming.
To say our lives are full of colors painted in millions of shades would be an understatement. Ohh how I wish my world was full of barcodes and I didn’t have to second guess every action, every conversation, every emotion, every visual, every gesture, every touch, every rule…
Yet I am glad I do. Second guess, overthink, analyze that is. It is not necessarily a happy feeling but it is liberating. Every color, every shade is an expression and the world full of expressions is chaotic, with no absolutes.
Baba was right. It is overwhelming. But what a pleasure it is…
To hear, think, understand
To touch, feel, dwell
To observe, imagine, create
To analyze, challenge, act
To inquire, believe, embrace
It IS overwhelming and confusing but not complicated. I may not get served the absolute truth on a silver platter but trading it for the privilege of expression and power to interpret is a relatively simple decision.
Don’t get me wrong.
On some tired, lazy evenings, I still wish my world was full of barcodes (Maybe it was one of those days for Baba). Yet every moment of every day, I am grateful for the scratched-off corner of the skin of the barcode or a sky blue smudge of dissolved ink on the white paper.
