Why are birthdays, New Years, Mothers days,Valentines days, etc celebrated? How good and fair are the popularly conceived usual suspects- 1) Excuse to be happy ? 2) The claim that these days are nothing but brilliantly marketed products of the capitalists, seizing the moment to bait us into blind and frenzied 'consumerists'? Both these two usual “suspects” are too hollow, i believe, to be completely true. But there was this one 'suspect' that trespassed my mind, when I was trying to convince myself that “I have been right all along about the stupidity of celebrating these days”. The subconscious mind craves for it and thrives on it badly but the conscious just isn’t overwhelmed to appreciate its existence.
So what made this one 'suspect' stand out, in my mind, among the crowd of distorted and aimless trespassers? Let me illustrate, with the help of an incident, by rewinding back to the year 1996. Anybody I know would tell me “1996” is the year of the Cricket world cup. “1996 cricket world cup” resonates one thing mutually among billions of cricket buffs in India - the moving frames of a weeping flashy left hander-“Kambli”, for reasons the world knows. A billion brain cells in unison chose that exact moment to be etched in them, forever, never again a different image of the year to be overwritten. The billion souls were all along looking for a 'reference' so intense and choking, that they refused to register that 1996 was also the year of revival of a game, so greatly worshipped, when one of the modern day greats- “Jayasurya” showed what a “Power” play really means, bringing ODI's to the fore of cricket. Yet disappointment was given precedence over elation, despair over jubilation, to act as the 'reference' for that year.
These 'references' acts as the accomplice to my original 'suspect'; takes care that the events are made significant, even though how insignificant or stupid they may be (very much like the triviality of a weeping Kambli) - the reason why even looking, after years, at the name board of a school you hated so much, spills poetry; creates a moving gallery of vivid insignificant (insignificant in their original activity) but significant pictures of a phase of life. Ironically, insignificance is treasured and revisited more than the significant events. The 'classic' moments (whatever that means !) are the ones that are incomplete- the moments that let “time” assume different directions to feed its purpose at a given point of time. A complete puzzle isn’t sexy enough to appeal to the aesthetics of the references. The process of piecing together the different parts of the puzzle exemplifies value and beauty more than the complete puzzle, which stimulates only the non-creative and the bored.
I am pretty convinced that it is that one suspect called “Memories” that plays the most pivotal chapter in the pages of life. Every new second pushes its previous second to history only to realize that it is pushed again too by the one following it. So ignoring the “now” to cast imprint on the “future second” is a futile exercise that leaves nothing but an empty bag of “memories”. Leave some trails of insignificant moments in the path of your life pages to follow years later; to watch it take beautiful and unexpected “imaginary” courses; to feel excited, happy, furious, hurt, (add every emotion in the book) and above all ,to keep the puzzle still alive and kicking. Let insignificance prevail !
That's one interesting thought!
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