Searching for the illusive Rainbow

Monsoon has officially arrived in Bangalore and with it we have started hearing stories of roads filled with water, jams, lakes overflowing, flight delays. But wait, there is an illusive rainbow somewhere out there. Is it ?

13th June 22

The first showers brought me down with fever, cold and sore throat - with my regular doses of medicines followed the delirium phase where you are in and out of sleep, senseless but trying to make sense of things around, numb but trying to feel, half asleep but trying to listen, eating but not tasting anything, mind is a continuous mirage of things which happened, can happen or may happen. 

But I cannot give up the will to get up and move because life is cyclical, bad will follow good will follow bad. No one can escape because that is the nature of life. The Illusive rainbow can be seen - one has to look for it. 

More than seeing I think one has to believe in it and you would have seen it in your mind. Our subconscious mind triggers all kinds of thoughts in our brain - we have to guide it towards the rainbow. Sometimes it’s very difficult like my current stretch of illness and adjustment with so many people at home that most of the time you feel claustrophobic, watchful of what you're saying and the reaction it would evoke. 

But, then you see the rainbow on the days when the entire family gathers together to celebrate an occasion. The ripple of happiness and abundance can be seen on such rare occasions. We remember rainbows because of the rain. 

Without rain there will be no rainbow & after pain joy will follow.

It’s not an illusion.

Before the Coffee gets cold - A Japanese Book

Time Travel often involves complicated science because the director wants to give an authentic experience for the viewers to believe that there is a faint chance this is possible. I remember reading about Interstellar in Times that Christopher Nolan had scientists & physicists on board to give a true picture. 

Unlike the complexity of the movies or other science fiction books like The 3 body problem for example, this book has a simple premise - If you could go back, who would you want to meet ?

Here time travel is more of an emotional travel to connect or forgive or understand a relationship. It’s set up in a cafe where there is a unique chair where you have to sit and there are rules for you to travel in time. I will not go into specifics as it will spoil the fun of someone who is reading it, but the set up is really interesting as there are rules which one has to follow if they are travelling. 

The characters, like all of us, are flawed and have done something which they feel can correct or find out by travelling back in time, knowing very well that whatever they do ‘the present cannot be changed’. The characters are all very simple middle class folks like you and me and the authors sketch them out beautifully. 

I am very fond of Japanese novels and read many of them and one of the common traits I find is that they are very simple and have very simple lifestyles, they are very hard working, have very strong ethics and family values. The same is true here. 

There are 4 short stories but the characters in all 4 stories are the same - which you do not realise in the start but the author is able to generate a feeling that these stories are happening between a few close friends. It’s like a few friends are getting together after a long time and sharing stories. I liked it a lot.

Back to Future is one movie which is my favourite & I had seen it growing up & I still loved Michel J Fox in that. 

Whom would I want to meet or be at an incident if I could go back.

I would like to meet Maa, my MOM who died in 2012 quite suddenly. Since I moved out of Delhi in 2006, our interactions were only when we went to meet her or she and baba came over to meet us. She spent the last year or two of her life in loneliness, as she became more and more immobile because of multiple fractures in her hand and differences with baba which took a very negative turn. She kept away from most of her friends and spent her last 1 or 2 years in loneliness. I was busy shaping my life with 2 small children, a new job & a new city and never saw this coming. She loved celebrating birthdays and maybe I would like to visit her on her birthday and talk to her for a whole day. 

The only thing I have to do is find the cafe now which allows for time travel :)

Call me Chihiro - A Japanese movie

I read the review and found it to be a kind of slow and emotional movie which I would like. Although I am one of those who follow lists and see only those movies and read only those books which I want to see, I make these random choices which most of the time turns out well. 

I saw the movie over 1 week since I was managing home and then hospital with Papa and then both kids were coming home - so the viewing was in phases.

The theme running through the movie was that of loneliness. In some sense we are all lonely and we are also connected. But in between our travel, office, home and running errands there is this space where one just finds oneself a bit alone - it need not be a continuous thing, it can be a stab of pain or miss someone or an incident reminds you of your college. 

Chihiro is a former sex worker who now works in a small bento shop. She has no inhibitions of her past work and is a carefree girl who is happy and always helping people around her with her warmth and care - whether it’s a homeless old man whom she gets home, gives her a bath and food and continues to do so for some time, or it’s a boy whose mom is not able to care about her because of her schedule - she builds bonds with them and genuinely cares about them. It’s not like a deep relationship but a relationship which has genuine warmth and caring. 

She keeps visiting a blind old lady as a caregiver and takes a puzzle with her because she loves solving puzzles. She carries one unique puzzle with her everytime she visits and that is the challenge her patient waits for. One of the poignant moments is when she takes her in her car to a place where she can hear the rain and smell the earth - because she cannot see it. 

It's a slow movie and slightly over 2 hrs so it will appeal to those who are looking for a slow unwind with the movie, maybe with a glass of wine with someone you love.