Defining Moment

Dr. Mann while making a point that he is doing the right thing, says '...This is not about my life, or Cooper's life, it's about all mankind. There is a moment...' and then gets blown away by the explosion.

All of us atleast a few times must have felt we are facing a defining moment. A moment that will choose a specific path for us. We feel like we would look back at this moment with a historical importance not attached to regular times. We feel this is the moment we have to push harder and rise above the constraints of human possibilities.

For some, there is a desparate search for these moments to define ourselves.

The reason to search for defining moments is based on our common reading of history. We define history in terms of a sequence of defining moments. Battle of Stalingrad defined the course of world war 2. French revolution defined the course of modern human organisation. Newton's theory of gravity defined the course of scientific revolution.

While it's true that we cannot ignore the importance of specific events in history, we should see them as a the culmination of processes and ideas long before them. Battle of Stalingrad is the culmination of Hitler's decade old fight to alter status quo and the world's resistance to it. Newton said he is standing on the shoulders of giants while proposing his theory of gravity. French revolution is the culmination of the inherent conflict of the old ideas of political organisation with the spread of literature and freedom of expression to the masses.

With our own life too, it is the daily routine over a long time that defines the path ahead. There are no defining moments. Every moment defines us. We are what we think and do all the time. We are not how we act in some moments. That way, waiting for defining moments is an exercise of futility expressing our own inability to correct our daily routine.

Train

"The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw."

Train is strolling across this single track amid absolute silence outside and murmurs of snores inside. The speed is neither too slow not too fast, may be a kilometre in a minute, the "economy" speed even for this snake across the plains.

The tracks are elevated may be 5m above the ground. Hence they cut the world into two. One has to cross the metal to move from one to the other world. Plants build their colonies on both sides in a remarkable similarity give their sad separation. The tracks are essentially a long check dam, a long barrier for water, stopping it from washing the sins of earth in these dry lands.

There are lights now along the tracks. Some lower class houses probably. They made their choice, to live with the buzzing noise of the train for a roof to live under.

There is a road too now, along the tracks. The two travellers met for a short time before they diverge again to chart their own paths in blissfully ignorance.

There are more villages, some far some closer. May the children saw the train early in their life. What did they think about the train when they saw. Were they amazed? Were they scared? Were they find it natural? Only the children of the villages know.

There is a station which this holy train does not care to acknowledge. It passes at the same speed as if it cannot see the lowly station.

Now all the lights have gone by. I don't see a single light as far as I can see. What a wonderful sight in this overcrowded land.

The tracks are still electrified. I am shocked. The guard room at the crossing is more colourful than the surrounding land.

There is a small hill close by. Maybe a heap of soil. Maybe withered remains of a once formidable hill. Or may be mountains.

This land has seen billions of years. While I come and go in less than a century.

Who am I?

I am a minuscule change.

Summer

Summer day is the most distinct thing I can remember from my childhood. I grew up in a village with lot of trees and some wilderness. In summer, only a few trees like neem or tamarind would be alive enough to give enough shade under them. Rest shed all their leaves to survive the summer. It's a bright day with white painted on all sides. I always had a pair of chappals that I rarely lost, unlike my other friends who would loose their chappals once every few months. Without the chappals the earth burns like firepit. Yet I could find the enthusiasm to run on burning earth to nearby houses. One of the things I never did in those summer afternoons was sleeping. Everyone would sleep under some tree's shade. Except me. I always had something to do. Something more interesting than sleeping. It could be making toys from branches or digging earth for water or making compose pits for my urine. Occassionally there would be an aeroplane overhead and I would run behind it with no thoughts on who uses it or why it exists. Aeroplane flying into the sun may have inspired many souls, but not me. For me it was of no consequence. It may be because my mind was always onto something else. Something else more interesting.

I miss the summer noon's heat. I miss the hot winds. I miss the burning feet. They unfreeze the body and activates senses with energy.

I know time is a one way path and I can never go back to my childhood. But I hope one day I roam under the summer heat without sparing any thoughts on the aeroplane overhead.