Eyes on the year ahead

Today, I watched 'The Motorcycle Diaries'- 2 medical students, one 23 year old, and another 29, decide to travel across Latin America on their rickety motorcycle, for adventure. Their journey brings them closer to Life, and its grim realities that were hidden from them in their cocoon of privileged existence, one of them becomes a revolutionary, Che Guevera.

I liked their idea of such a travel. I hope for a similar 'awakening' too, in the coming one year- my year of Adventure.

I am aware of how remote and sequestered an existence I am leading right now, just busy with a life of hedonism and self-indulgence. I have no knowledge, no opinion about most of what goes on.

There have always been some people around me whose encyclopedic knowledge wowed me. The first and the most profound influence has been Papa. Since childhood, I now realize, I have subconsciously modelled myself on him- his love for books, for newspapers, for libraries, for treks, for our culture, language, for intelligence- I think I've picked these traits up in my quest to be his perfect daughter. But, one thing that he has, and I don't, is the ability to discuss knowledgeably on a vast range of topics. I just sit mum and listen most of the times. He remembers the facts, as I have discovered so many people do, but, and that is a crippling handicap, I don't.

I don't remember facts. Most of the times, I will recall vaguely, "Yes, I had read something about that....something like this...." and so on, and what I produce from memory is an oversimplified version of the actual story, and it makes me feel 'dumb'.

The day before yesterday, I was reading a collection of Arundhati Roy's interviews. I did not like her sharp, high-pitched voice that I could almost hear shouting through the pages, but she had a voice. A powerful voice that made you hear it. The confidence in her words, in her thoughts, reminded me of Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead.' For the duration of my reading, she too had had me under her sway.

It is this confident voice that I lack. I like to see myself as a 'thinking individual', perhaps again, because Papa is one. But right now, I don't deserve that description. I am a very ordinary girl, who doesn't know most of what goes around her.

I hope to change that.