Well, I thought of writing a lot on today's experience... but lets see how far I can achieve expressing those innate feelings... those wonderful memories... mixed feelings... and many more..
all being evoked by one great cinema I watched today called “ World's fastest Indian”
when I saw the title, I thought its some documentary about Narain kartikeyan.. but then came the titles further that said Anthony Hopkins.. now since he is one of my very favourite actors, I could not change the channel. So on Z Studio, I watched this movy.. which is about one Mr. Burt Munro ( Not Monroe as in Marlyn Monroe ) who is New Zea Land Down Under.. and he uses this phrase every time when he introduces himself. This guy is an obesessed biker and is preparing and waiting for the day for some 25 years to ride his bike which is a 1920 “Indian“ well Indian is the model of the bike on the race track of Bonneville in Utah where they conduct speed races.
He by the time of one particular speed week sometime in 1960s, is like about may be some 70+ years I dont know but this man is hell determined to travel all the way from Newzealand to this west coast town of the United States.
That never die attitude and his engineering mind and the way he explains why there should be some weight behind the center of gravity of the bike so that it wouldnt fickle like a fish tail to his co participants is just awesome. I men he takes a Cigar and pokes in a tooth pik at two different points and blows it and shows the way the stability of the cigar is better when he blows it with that tooth pik pokes in right behind the center of gravity of Cigar.
All the while, I just remembered my grand father .. my dad's dad who was a civil engineer who was incolved in a lots of projects such as tungabhadra dam and others... basically a guy from the then Noizam with urdu handwriting which looks like a print rather than handwriting... the most striking resemblance with Burt Munro being never give up attitude and I dont care what others think of me attitude and what on earth... “this is my ruddy life“ attitude.
Never ending enthusiasm that energy that wonderful sense of humor... Oh boy... I am proud to have lived with a walking encyclopaedia called my grand father for 20 years of my life until he passed away right in front of my eyes... i remember that last day when I held his hand in the hospital in Hyderabad and told him.. that he will get well real soon and I assured of his resilience. He is one man who was never dependant on anybody inspite of his about 95% blindness. Well, his mathematics and engineering mind helped him a lot.. beyond that his attitude “IAM DOING GREAT“ will never fail to inspire me when ever I go through the tough times of lower self confidence and lower self esteem. Can you beat that he used to count the number of steps to the bath room, to the porch, to his bed.. he knows how many steps it takes to go to god damn any place in my home... at this stage of his life, this HOME was sold because, we had no money and because my father had to marry 3 daughters... well.. another long story in iteself... but irrelavent to the current train of thought... anyways.. backing off from this... to grand pa... at this stage of his life, we “uprooted“ ourselves from this “Home“ to my aunty's home. well we rented it. those dark ages of our lives reached pinnacle in the year 2003. 3rd quarter 2003, we moved to our aunt's house to the ground floor. and This wonderful man though very wounded in heart.. NEVER GAVE UP... he started counting steps afresh in this new place... cheering everyone most importantly me because, I spent a lot of time just before my new job with my granpa.. how much I miss that ever after.
Inspite of blindness, illness - physical, emotional .. financial... yet my grand father.... by all means GRAND FATHER... continues his new spell of his life.... only that I did not realise its the end of his innings...so finally when he was in that hospital .... when he called me and when I held his hand... he said...““Vani...nah dont worry I am alright ““
Oh comeon...I thought I was reassuring him... but then it was the other way round...
Finally mid December 2003, my grand father left for better place than this world...and who is always watching my every step .. from UP ABOVE... rather than DOWN UNDER the way Burt Munro says...and blessing me... and wishing me the best... But then I hope he is listening to me now and I want to tell him.... All I want in this life is BE LIKE YOU....I LOVE YOU.... I must thank Burt Munro and also the makers of this great movie World's fastest Indian ... I suddenly got inundated with memories... and I had to open the flood gates and let go off the pressure and rush of these memories through the dam of my blog...
May God Bless you..taatagaaru..where ever you are...
Cheers
Vani :)
