Day 2: Baggage Claim

I was the last passenger to board the flight. Heaven knows how I made it to the airport. No, I'm not blaming the traffic; I couldn't underestimate Mumbai. But I didn't wish to go. They all asked me to stay back, to make this city my little paradise instead. But how would I grow if I didn't leave my comfy nest?

Twenty minutes for takeoff and I know, I'm seeing all of it for the last time. These slums and streets, similar faces and creepy walls, fried and diet food at the same place. The overcrowded beaches and empty cafés. But it was too late to change my decision. The fee was paid and my folks were getting used to my absence. I was worried about my dad but I didn't see him break down. He was my pillar and he wouldn't let me cry when I was bidding goodbye.

Looking outside the window at the beautiful green meadows, I feel India does look the prettiest of all. That's okay. I'll get used to a new country but it won't be the same without all the people whom I left behind. I'm not sure if they'll miss me or forget me but at the same time, new place and new people sound really exciting. I won't be answerable to someone for every hour of the day but I wouldn't even be warned about the good and not-so-good people.

I used to hate khichdi when mom cooked it every week but I wonder if I could make it by myself here. Will I even remember the right process without her guidance while I cooked? It's funny how all of a sudden, I will have to talk more to explain things than the silence my friends could interpret. It's already been six hours and I still keep thinking about what's happening back home.

You know how people say your entire life flashes before you when you're about to die? Well, the flashback happens quite often even before death. We were queueing in the aisle to finally get off a ten hour flight. It's sunny and beautiful but it isn't home. Waiting at the baggage claim, I was too lost to find my baggage and therefore took a while to recollect the turquoise ribbon I had put around my bags. 

Oh wait, I've to take a cab because nobody's coming to pick me up at the airport. I cannot drag along 46 kgs of baggage all the way. But the man who was sitting right next to me in the flight chose to help. I wouldn't have recognized him by the way he looked or dressed but only after he went on to welcome me in his Gujju accent did I realize that, I'm not going to be alone here and there's lot more to learn in this unknown land.

Obsessed with Closure.

If you ever seem to be a sitcom fan and The Big Bang Theory is your favorite because of the lead, Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons); I'm sure you'll be able to relate to this article. Dear readers, today I'm going to talk about The Closure Alternative (Big Bang Season 6- Episode 21) and my inputs on this morbid obsession with closure.

The most amazing writers end their books abruptly; like you're reading and there seems to be no conclusion for what would have happened to the characters? Did they really meet, survive or die? Sometimes we even miss out the chance to know what the author might have thought about the end of the story. With reading, we get more attached to the characters. Somehow, we seem to get more worried when the fictional character is facing a problem and with them, we weave our own version of the story.

People say it's hard to make a movie which is as close as it has been described in the book. Well, I couldn't disagree more because every reader makes his/her own character sketch and it isn't an easy task to put all those sketches in one single character in the movie. However, it's just not books but even movies end abruptly. What is the motive behind this? Why do they make us scratch our heads or leave us in a profound state of curiosity?

Linking it back to my favorite character, Sheldon Cooper (So he's this scientist guy who has his own set of annoying idiosyncrasies. He lives with his roommate Leonard, who has to bear all his tantrums. Sheldon has an obsessive compulsive disorder and the episode I mentioned, he faces a problem where he cannot accept situations which have no closure; like not being able to blow all the candles on a birthday cake, not completing a word in a sentence or not finishing the tic tac toe, not letting the dominos trip, etc.) he goes through the same problem some of us do. 

We get really obsessive about characters and it becomes difficult to watch a movie or read a book with no closure. Recently, I read one of the most beautiful books, The fault in our stars by John Green whose character Hazel Grace goes through the same obsession; so much that she writes fan mails and even goes all the way to Amsterdam just to meet the author and get all her answers.

It's not like people obsessed with closure are facing a psychological threat but somehow, reading takes us to another world. It's a magical palace with a thousand imaginary worlds, of our own. Movies, adapted from books play the same trick. For some, reading might just be a hobby but some really wish to crawl in those books and be a part of it. Like how would it feel to be there with Harry Potter fighting his fight against Lord Voldemort, to get lost in the labyrinth with Alice in Wonderland or to be the Charlie and take a tour in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory!

We've had several movies which end unanticipated and the people who seem to appreciate this style had something else to say. So I asked a friend of mine, Niraj Mulani, to tell me what he felt about closure and he said, 'I think I like it when the author or director leaves the story on a lose end and let's the audience figure out what might have happened because then it let's me be a part of the story and the audience can have their own version as the suspense.' So the director or author plays safe with not disappointing the audience and as well have their own happy ending. 

The truth is we don't really like unfinished things and this closure, we're forgetting how closely it affects us. For years, we've tried to give ourselves the comfort to deal with all the discomforts we find. Dealing with deaths isn't easy, so we came up with funerals as a closure to the dead and the sentiments attached with them. When incongruency took over us, we came up with the comfort of defense mechanisms which could as well be a closure for someone ignoring reality. We need closures in life, to deal with situations, people, relationships and deaths; to realize that something is over and we need to let go maybe because our mind is still stuck in the things we didn't conclude. We need to move past it and realize that no matter how hard it hurt, it's time to take a step ahead then moving backwards. Closure is a healing we all need; those last words said and the last goodbyes- we can't be devoid of the last chance. The closure may or may not meet your expectations but we all seek it to let the old go and say hello to new things.

That reminds me of how Yann Mattel beautifully put it in Life of Pi, 'It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.'