It has been an age since I wove my words and thoughts together. Many months since I sat down to quietly ponder. Life goes by, and before you know it, you find yourself no longer doing things which once gave you pride. The onset of every new year finds me resolving to be a better writer by the end of it. Thus far, I have failed.
So, why now? Why do I suddenly find myself back here, trying to lose myself in contemplation and writing? I do not have an answer. There has been a strange quietness inside me, giving birth to sentences that clamor to go out into the world. The past weeks have been full – travel that led to new experiences, food and coffee that satisfied the soul, cinema & theater that were thought-provoking. Maybe this has steered me to re-live some of those moments and document them for posterity.
Despite having a dozen things to write about, I have an admittedly surprising and odd topic. I recently watched Jurassic World: Rebirth in the theaters. Eyebrows might rise that a run-of-the-mill, mainstream franchise-film can become the object of an essay – but, stay with me here. There is a scene in the movie that keeps coming back to me, and I find myself smiling whenever that happens.
Dr Henry Loomis (one of the protagonists) is a paleontologist who also moonlights as an advisor to an evil conglomerate. He gets roped in to lead a hunt for dinosaur DNA in the tropics. This mild mannered, bookish professor is initially hesitant to join this adventure. He firmly believes that the dinosaurs should be left alone to live peacefully in their jungles. To go hunting for their DNA in aid of profit-mongering pharmaceutical companies is an abhorrent & sinful venture. Now, the other protagonist gets him to agree to tag along with a clever hook – doesn’t the professor, whose entire life has been lovingly dedicated to the study of paleontology, want to see his precious muses in their natural environs? Not caged, not displayed for gleeful, grasping gazes – but out there, living free and gloriously undisturbed in their natural homes? Needless to say, Dr Loomis is hooked. Halfway through the movie, he gets his chance.
Amidst towering glades of grass, in swampy air where there is only green as far as the eye can see – an innocuous swish of air reveals the first glimpse of the long tail of a Titanosaurus. Before him is a not just one, but a herd, and the nearest two are gently mating. At that moment, he recognises what he is witnessing for what it truly is – an entire life’s worth of dedication leading up to this one point in time. A beautiful moment where he is inconsequential before creation and beauty. As he puts his hand to finally touch a dinosaur, he breaks down, having witnessed something that he had only read about. With John William’s/Alexandre Desplat’s magnificent “Dino Spectacle” playing in the background, I got the goosebumps too.
It is this scene that made me take up the pen, finally. When I think back on my life, I do not have grand stories to tell. In a room full of people, it will not be me telling the most hilarious of anecdotes. But every life has moments that mean the world to its owner. Small moments. Grand moments. Seemingly inconsequential moments. To recognise them as such when it is happening and to relive them after it has – this is truly human.
Sometimes, though, it goes beyond. It is possible to be part of something bigger than one’s life, a part of the proverbial in-the-grand-scheme-of-things. It is akin to standing on a cliff. You feel such gladness and awe that tears find their own path on your skin, unheeded. In those moments, the concept of self loses its meaning, your woes are forgotten, and the joy of witnessing something majestic consumes all. And what moves you might exist only for you.
I believe this was what caused Dr Loomis to break down and cry copious tears of gratitude. As I sat there, I couldn’t help but realise that I was fortunate to have gone through it too, even if for different things.
In stories. In places. In nature.
Have I not wept when Paul Kalnithi wrote to his daughter –
That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing
Have I not felt lost in the magic of Tolkien, going through the gamut he takes his readers on, helpless in admiration, reading The Lord of the Rings? I felt the despair of Gondor, and I was with Gondor too when they heaved a sigh of relief – The riders of Rohan had come at last.
Have I not felt my eyes fill with tears when I stood on the edge of the small hill beside Ellora Cave 16, just after dawn, watching the gentle sunrays lovingly caress the glorious sculptures?
Have I not sat on the sands of Lamai against the sweetly crashing waves, watching the most stunning blue sunrise in absolute silence?
When I sat eating a simple meal of roti-subzi in a small apple orchard in Shangarh, had I not been so at peace that I knew, even then, that I would be lucky if I got to re-live it someday?
Have I not felt cowed before the obscure, larger-than-life, macabre paintings of Antoine Weirtz?
Have I not wandered in the dark corridors of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, equal parts delighted and completely lost in the joy of words and books?
Have I not stood, mouth agape and a brain completely emptied of thoughts, before the Panorama in Mesdag Museum?
And more recently, have I not stood helplessly before a fully roaring Skogafoss – shivering, incredulous, puny and scared for my life – but also more alive than ever before?
In those few minutes, it was just me, the object of my gaze and the shivers that danced down my spine. The world faded, and everything else was a fugue.
In those few seconds of intense, raw pathos – do we transcend humanity by being truly in step with the world around us? Or are we more human than ever, with our sentience bowing its head in admiration when confronted with something it had no part in creating?
Some will scorn that these moments are transitory and meaningless without other humans beside me. That these moments only serve instant gratification, a random shot of endorphin that is not real life.
I can only narrate what I felt. And like Dr Loomis, be grateful that it happened to me.
Ellora caves – a true epitome of Indian architecture 
Lamai Beach – peace at sunrise 
The captivating hills of Shangarh in its monsoon glory 
The deep, dark annals of printing history at the Plantin-Moretus Museum 
The silencing, disturbing paintings at the Weirtz Museum 
A small snippet of the enchanting Panorama at The Hague 
Skogafoss – scary, daunting, breathtaking
The Ramblings of A Most Ordinary Mind 
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