Getting lost


Getting lost.. www.nihindia.org Poets have waxed eloquence, authors have scribbled fantabulous prose describing the romanticism of getting lost in life, on roads, in woods, in seas, amongst hills, in nature and in thoughts too. The lyrical tones of these people convey that it's a desirable thing to happen in ones lifetime and those who have not experienced it are philosophical have-nots. Getting lost sets the vision right, facilitates revelation and doing it successfully is akin to reaching the end of your life’s mission. I ask myself-is it? I ask my readers too the same thing. Have you ever got lost? For example, have you taken a car, entered an unknown territory without a map dead at night where the darkness is so deep that you cannot make out your left palm from the right and there is no help for miles around. Or did you have a lapse of memory, and the lanes that you knew so well became unfamiliar territory and there were throngs of people who were passing you speaking gibberish. I would actively ask the poets and the prose writers to keep their romanticism to themselves because they might get disembowelled if they venture into lyricism with these lost ones. I had one such hapless experience. I had learnt driving only recently and had been driving to and from work, a path that I knew like the back of my hand. Friends and colleagues at work place kept mocking me of being a wimp and not venturing to drive in relatively unfamiliar territory or driving at night, reiterating ad-nausea, how important was for me to learn “being lost”. Indeed, unless I try, how was it going to happen. Such banter would follow with a nervous laugh from me and a comment that everything will happen at a propitious time. This would deceive no one, and of course, I was scared. Fear of getting lost would gnaw my vitals. The leap had to be taken but “how soon?” was the question. I decided to do it one weekend evening when even if something like getting lost or causing an accident happened, I would have plenty of time to recover and put a nonchalant front to the part of the world that knew me. Weekdays would have invariably caused delay in reaching my work and my colleagues would have hounded me unsubtly and cruelly in the event of a mishap. The odyssey was to go to a nearby cinema hall, watch a movie and come back late in the evening. The path involved going through moderately circuitous routes under dusk and dark conditions. The movie was “The Day After Tomorrow”; though randomly selected it had an ominous foreboding twang to it. I would have preferred “The Girl next door” but she was far away, not even for her I wouldn’t risk that distance! I drove with reasonable confidence and kept gaining strength as miles fell by and milestones passed by. Kerouac’s “On the road” kept bleating in my ears and I started fantasizing about how would I be a road gypsy, a Bedouin wandering, pathetically and listlessly through dusty, grimy roads living and leading a useless, poetic existence. I put on the “I want to to break Free” music, and hummed to myself. The theatre came soon enough and my heart by now had broken from a hum to a rock-n’roll and I entered for the movie lisping “Part Time lover” audibly. The movie came, the disaster struck on the world, the world got frozen, hundreds and millions of lives were lost but nothing dampened my spirits. Today I would have withstood annihilation of the mankind with steady nerves and wise smile. I was dead confident of the onward journey…it was like an elastic cord pulled, you reached the same spot that you started with. A confident hand inserted the car keys, a confident leg pressed the gas pedal and a confident man emerged out of the parking lot, ready to face the world and its inhabitants. A mischievous smile played on my lips. I hit the road and kept moving into the fast lane, more and more to the left, and as an upright citizen and a conscientious driver, keeping a keen eye on the signals. Visibility was low. And I saw the No-Right turn just a bit too late and had to turn left. “Bother not, it's only a minor hiccup,” told my mind’s inner eye. I just need to go straight, make a U-turn, come back and make another left and I will be back on track. A mere botheration, like an allergy to peanuts. The first minor cloud was when I saw the notice telling that there is no U-turn and that I needed to go straight. After about half-a-mile or so, I reached a signal that threw me an opportunity to make, a left and go straight. Again if heaven intervenes, I would find a U-turn, march straight up, make a left, another left and then I should reach where I started from. However the elusive U-turn never turned up. I kept going straight; reaching traffic signals, making lefts, marching straight back. I told myself, the world is round you are bound to reach the same spot again. My inner mind told me the world is round but not the roads; they are made by humans. I sighed deeply. We and our crooked minds cannot think in straight lines and simple circles! Then my real eye fell on the gas tank. The indicator showed 1/4^th full. A whole dread crawled on my bones; it would indeed make a pretty sight having a car stopped right in the middle of the road. To compound the confusion, I reached a signal that gave the option of turning right, or left or go straight. If one wants to get lost, which way is better? I slammed the brakes for few seconds in my utter confusion; not to be outdone a bevy of horns and obscenities that I don’t care to repeat, floated from the mouths of startled drivers and reached my ears. I passed the gas pedal with added zest, making the car jump. I started talking to myself- listen! You should calm down; no need to panic, you know English, you can stop at a shop and ask for directions. That’s what you are going to do- be sensible, take a deep breathe, think how happy will you be when you reach home. Artificially buoyed by my own thoughts, I drove another mile or two and reached a shopping complex. It wore a deserted look and by reflex I looked at my watch; holy crap! It was already 10:30. The insensitivity of the mankind to their fellow-beings-its disgusting. I anyway decided to approach; if need be I was going to pretend my English was bad, probably that would make the appeal more pathetic. There was this gentleman smoking a cigarette probably after his 5^th mug of beer. He seemed to be swaying; it might be music in his mind, I suspected alcohol and inebriation. But beggars could not be choosers.A teetotaller without sense of directions was a worse prospect. I approached him.He eyed me distastefully as if one would eye an unattractive, insistent hustler. I flinched at my own morbidity. I explained my situation as politely as I could, with a tinge of genuine panic in my voice. He had unkind deceptive eyes but he responded to me as best as he could. “Don’t worry, the world is round” came his relaxed comment. It sent a shiver down my spines. With my gas tank sans gas, I would have preferred the world to be a very small straight line. I thanked him profusely and embarked upon my journey home. Now I know what compelled Homer to compose Iliad. It would have been the sight of seeing his apartment at the other end of the world. I resolved that if I find my apartment again I will stop being atheist, become superstitious, worship all the Hindu gods that my mom keeps worshipping and be kind to my parents and fiends, I mean friends. I reached the end of road whose name I was familiar with. But it said East and mine was West. Which way would be west? I looked up in the sky for the Pole Star but it was a cloudy night. I started debating. The gas level was awfully low and presently, I was as directionless as a newly released sperm (?). The road was bereft of people. Everyone was sitting in their cosy couches, enjoying their mug of tea, coffee or alcohol, and here I was floating around like an ill-tempered, dyspeptic wraith. I decided to take the Stone-Age approach. If I parked the car somewhere, start walking in straight line from the point which said east, I would either reach far east, or far west. Either way it would tell me where I would be. Even if I was wrong, I wanted to be sure. And so my heels literally hit the road. After about an eternity, I discovered that I had reached Far East. I knew Providence was having its pound of flesh for being apathetic to him all these days. So after about half an hour I reached where it said East, took my car and sped away all the way to Far West. The happiness that I felt on seeing the familiar road, the filthy and infrequently cleaned garbage dump in my apartment complex, is something that I cannot describe by words. As Helen Keller said, “No senses are adequate enough to describe human emotions. At the end they all fall woefully inadequate.” I opened the door of my house, entered the living room and collapsed on the couch. It was 12:30 mid-night. The movie was over at 9-30. I could have seen two more movies. But then here I was safe, warm, un-mugged and un-assaulted. I heated a glass of milk poured three spoons of honey in it and started sipping it, the milk providing much need warmth and energy, the honey kind of lubricating my aching ankles and muscles. Tomorrow I shall face the world, be brave and hypocritical. Today I wanted to be happy and content. Moloy Goswami goswamim@mail.nih.gov

Getting lost.. www.nihindia.org

Poets have waxed eloquence, authors have scribbled fantabulous prose describing the romanticism of getting lost in life, on roads, in woods, in seas, amongst hills, in nature and in thoughts too. The lyrical tones of these people convey that it's a desirable thing to happen in ones lifetime and those who have not experienced it are philosophical have-nots. Getting lost sets the vision right, facilitates revelation and doing it successfully is akin to reaching the end of your life’s mission. I ask myself-is it? I ask my readers too the same thing.

Have you ever got lost? For example, have you taken a car, entered an unknown territory without a map dead at night where the darkness is so deep that you cannot make out your left palm from the right and there is no help for miles around. Or did you have a lapse of memory, and the lanes that you knew so well became unfamiliar territory and there were throngs of people who were passing you speaking gibberish. I would actively ask the poets and the prose writers to keep their romanticism to themselves because they might get disembowelled if they venture into lyricism with these lost ones.

I had one such hapless experience. I had learnt driving only recently and had been driving to and from work, a path that I knew like the back of my hand. Friends and colleagues at work place kept mocking me of being a wimp and not venturing to drive in relatively unfamiliar territory or driving at night, reiterating ad-nausea, how important was for me to learn “being lost”. Indeed, unless I try, how was it going to happen. Such banter would follow with a nervous laugh from me and a comment that everything will happen at a propitious time. This would deceive no one, and of course, I was scared. Fear of getting lost would gnaw my vitals. The leap had to be taken but “how soon?” was the question. I decided to do it one weekend evening when even if something like getting lost or causing an accident happened, I would have plenty of time to recover and put a nonchalant front to the part of the world that knew me. Weekdays would have invariably caused delay in reaching my work and my colleagues would have hounded me unsubtly and cruelly in the event of a mishap.

The odyssey was to go to a nearby cinema hall, watch a movie and come back late in the evening. The path involved going through moderately circuitous routes under dusk and dark conditions. The movie was “The Day After Tomorrow”; though randomly selected it had an ominous foreboding twang to it. I would have preferred “The Girl next door” but she was far away, not even for her I wouldn’t risk that distance! I drove with reasonable confidence and kept gaining strength as miles fell by and milestones passed by. Kerouac’s “On the road” kept bleating in my ears and I started fantasizing about how would I be a road gypsy, a Bedouin wandering, pathetically and listlessly through dusty, grimy roads living and leading a useless, poetic existence. I put on the “I want to to break Free” music, and hummed to myself. The theatre came soon enough and my heart by now had broken from a hum to a rock-n’roll and I entered for the movie lisping “Part Time lover” audibly. The movie came, the disaster struck on the world, the world got frozen, hundreds and millions of lives were lost but nothing dampened my spirits. Today I would have withstood annihilation of the mankind with steady nerves and wise smile. I was dead confident of the onward journey…it was like an elastic cord pulled, you reached the same spot that you started with.

A confident hand inserted the car keys, a confident leg pressed the gas pedal and a confident man emerged out of the parking lot, ready to face the world and its inhabitants. A mischievous smile played on my lips. I hit the road and kept moving into the fast lane, more and more to the left, and as an upright citizen and a conscientious driver, keeping a keen eye on the signals. Visibility was low. And I saw the No-Right turn just a bit too late and had to turn left. “Bother not, it's only a minor hiccup,” told my mind’s inner eye. I just need to go straight, make a U-turn, come back and make another left and I will be back on track. A mere botheration, like an allergy to peanuts. The first minor cloud was when I saw the notice telling that there is no U-turn and that I needed to go straight. After about half-a-mile or so, I reached a signal that threw me an opportunity to make, a left and go straight. Again if heaven intervenes, I would find a U-turn, march straight up, make a left, another left and then I should reach where I started from. However the elusive U-turn never turned up. I kept going straight; reaching traffic signals, making lefts, marching straight back. I told myself, the world is round you are bound to reach the same spot again. My inner mind told me the world is round but not the roads; they are made by humans. I sighed deeply. We and our crooked minds cannot think in straight lines and simple circles!

Then my real eye fell on the gas tank. The indicator showed 1/4^th full. A whole dread crawled on my bones; it would indeed make a pretty sight having a car stopped right in the middle of the road. To compound the confusion, I reached a signal that gave the option of turning right, or left or go straight. If one wants to get lost, which way is better? I slammed the brakes for few seconds in my utter confusion; not to be outdone a bevy of horns and obscenities that I don’t care to repeat, floated from the mouths of startled drivers and reached my ears. I passed the gas pedal with added zest, making the car jump. I started talking to myself- listen! You should calm down; no need to panic, you know English, you can stop at a shop and ask for directions. That’s what you are going to do- be sensible, take a deep breathe, think how happy will you be when you reach home. Artificially buoyed by my own thoughts, I drove another mile or two and reached a shopping complex. It wore a deserted look and by reflex I looked at my watch; holy crap! It was already 10:30. The insensitivity of the mankind to their fellow-beings-its disgusting. I anyway decided to approach; if need be I was going to pretend my English was bad, probably that would make the appeal more pathetic. There was this gentleman smoking a cigarette probably after his 5^th mug of beer. He seemed to be swaying; it might be music in his mind, I suspected alcohol and inebriation. But beggars could not be choosers.A teetotaller without sense of directions was a worse prospect. I approached him.He eyed me distastefully as if one would eye an unattractive, insistent hustler. I flinched at my own morbidity. I explained my situation as politely as I could, with a tinge of genuine panic in my voice. He had unkind deceptive eyes but he responded to me as best as he could. “Don’t worry, the world is round” came his relaxed comment. It sent a shiver down my spines. With my gas tank sans gas, I would have preferred the world to be a very small straight line. I thanked him profusely and embarked upon my journey home. Now I know what compelled Homer to compose Iliad. It would have been the sight of seeing his apartment at the other end of the world. I resolved that if I find my apartment again I will stop being atheist, become superstitious, worship all the Hindu gods that my mom keeps worshipping and be kind to my parents and fiends, I mean friends.

I reached the end of road whose name I was familiar with. But it said East and mine was West. Which way would be west? I looked up in the sky for the Pole Star but it was a cloudy night. I started debating. The gas level was awfully low and presently, I was as directionless as a newly released sperm (?). The road was bereft of people. Everyone was sitting in their cosy couches, enjoying their mug of tea, coffee or alcohol, and here I was floating around like an ill-tempered, dyspeptic wraith. I decided to take the Stone-Age approach. If I parked the car somewhere, start walking in straight line from the point which said east, I would either reach far east, or far west. Either way it would tell me where I would be. Even if I was wrong, I wanted to be sure. And so my heels literally hit the road. After about an eternity, I discovered that I had reached Far East. I knew Providence was having its pound of flesh for being apathetic to him all these days. So after about half an hour I reached where it said East, took my car and sped away all the way to Far West. The happiness that I felt on seeing the familiar road, the filthy and infrequently cleaned garbage dump in my apartment complex, is something that I cannot describe by words. As Helen Keller said, “No senses are adequate enough to describe human emotions. At the end they all fall woefully inadequate.”

I opened the door of my house, entered the living room and collapsed on the couch. It was 12:30 mid-night. The movie was over at 9-30. I could have seen two more movies. But then here I was safe, warm, un-mugged and un-assaulted. I heated a glass of milk poured three spoons of honey in it and started sipping it, the milk providing much need warmth and energy, the honey kind of lubricating my aching ankles and muscles.

Tomorrow I shall face the world, be brave and hypocritical. Today I wanted to be happy and content.

Moloy Goswami

goswamim@mail.nih.gov