Many of us, in school, started reading the newspapers in our
secondary or senior secondary. For most of us now, it has become a ritual, habit, custom
or whatever one may call it. Do i remember everything I read? No. Never. I used
to ridicule my father about his retentiveness and now I know, mine’s equally bad.
But it is a healthy habit (in my opinion) and one ends up knowing a little more
about the world than the morning before.
A person is drawn to certain parts of the paper more than
the others especially when the habit is in its budding stages. These favorite parts
clock regular reading time come what may. Over a period of time you like
certain people and some are boring. This guy was among the first set of people I
liked. He is probably five years older than me and I guess, the “connect” was
easier. Though the humour was sophomoric, he was one of those guys who first made
me think “how does he write like this”. I’m not a critic of repute and neither am
I a social commentator.Now, if you ask me who my favorite columnists are, he might
not figure in it. Maybe my tastes have changed; His tastes have changed. Both of
us have grown out of that phase.
We grew out of it together, him, maturing as a writer and me
moving on to different topics that fascinated me. This gradual shift over a
period of years established a kinship of sorts. A one way pen friend if you may.
A relationship, where you don’t want to know him more than his columns, lest,
it disturbs the mental image. He wrote, I nodded my head in agreement. The snobbery,
the ridicule and all the other snide remarks on the blogs, I had a lot of fun.
Now, I come across his movie, a good movie at that, and the
kinship kicks in. Suddenly you feel proud of this guy… the “namba payyan da”
thought creeps in and you find yourself cheering him on. You find yourself muttering:
“I knew it”, “this is awesome” and wear a stupid smile of pride. You stop
dissecting the movie; you watch it once more to find traces of the guy you liked.
You wish him the very best silently.
Surely the journey would have been hard. Everybody faces their demons;
everyone has a story to tell. I know he is as furiously proud of his first
movie as he is of this. He brushes all that aside in artificial jest, the loss,
the rejection; He has moved on, grown up and made up for all that he was found
lacking for. He would have surely done a better job of this meandering passage
too. Who cares, I’m furiously proud of my posts too…
I can’t watch every movie made by you, nor read everything written,
but I will surely cheer with all my heart whenever I see/hear your mention… go
on bro…
