This Year's Love

If I had my way, I’d walk barefoot all over the world. And if I had my way, I’d record my childhood on something permanent and sophisticatedly hoo-haa so that it would all be there, stamped into a microchip, or something suitably complicated, for me to reach out to and be transported.

Yesterday I was attending a dinner do that involved me (yet again) being left alone with two kids for an entire evening. Initiating a conversation is risky business; you have to be extremely careful because once a kid forms an opinion of you, it sticks till the kid’s on the wrong side of sixty. The mind boggles. Priyanka sits back on a couch and eyes the two specimens with a raised eyebrow. They are engaged in pinning each other to the floor, occasionally being lenient enough to let go so that they can clutch at each other's hair and snarl like nasal little whirlwinds.

Lightbulb in head. Act quickly before the moment passes.

“Hey, do you guys like wrestling?”

I am met with pitying looks. They go back to their snarling.

“No, as in WWE. Do you watch it?” Cast around in head wildly for point of reference “What about… what about John Cena, eh?”

I am eyed with newfound respect. Limbs are returned to rightful owners and I am affixed with two pairs of still-suspicious eyes.

“Yeah, John Cena’s nice. Which team does he belong to?”

I try to strategise – how many years is it since I watched WWE (yes, I went through a brief but intense wrestling fixation when I was in class eight or something, you can make your Freudian deductions but my explanation is that I hadn’t discovered rock music or Holden Caulfield. I am entitled to any outlet of angst in such situations), and how many wrestlers I watched are still around? I settle for the truth.

“Well, back when I used to watch WWE” – silent groans from the little Talibs at having to listen to granny’s wrestling tales – “Cena used to be in Smackdown.”

I seem to have been accepted. The conversation now deals with the potential merits and demerits of several wrestlers and their moves. Who hit whom with a sledgehammer. Who has a cooler costume. The flip side, of course, is that the rest of the evening passes entirely in WWE talk. After a point I discover a tattered Asterix comic under the bed and immerse myself in it, to no avail. There are still things to be shared.

“Didi, do you remember this cage match? This is what Edge did” (followed by a complicated stunt that involved both of them crashing spectacularly to the floor, bringing parents running to the room). And the last time I met these two a year ago, they spent the entire evening trying to initiate me into the cult of Power Ranger Worshippers.

People have their obsessions. As a child, passion overrules regard for the rest of the world, with the result that your obsession is the world’s obsession. It is a closed, hectic little universe where this year’s toys replace last year’s gadgets with an ease that is hard to believe. Which is why I was reminded of this movie. Without going into its artistic and cinematic merits, one thing that stuck with me was Elijah Wood’s character and his habit of collecting things. Put this memory away in a Ziploc bag, label it, keep it. The explanation in itself is perfect – “Sometimes, I’m afraid I’ll forget.”

I’d almost forgotten that I watched wrestling on a regular basis as a thirteen-year old. If I sat and plotted a graph of my favourite things by year, chronologically, I’d get a motley of chocolate wrappers and cacti gardening and Jonny Quest, decoupage and cutting interesting ads out of magazines, scrapbooks of this actor and that singer and cheap copies of Monet paintings. I’d get different things that I’ve loved and discarded, loved and forgotten, loved and unloved. Which is why I’d like to store my childhood. In bags, on camera, in writing – remember each year as a shrine to a hero who fell in a few months’ time. Sometimes, I’m afraid I’ll forget.

We’re eating dinner. Full mouths and good food are not conducive to discussions, so my mind can register other, more peaceful things for a bit. Suddenly there’s a power cut. The generator’s on, but too many things are running, so we go about switching them off. All the while the lights flicker.

Suddenly, an excited childish revelation. “Hey! This is like The Undertaker’s entry!”

I choke.

All the same, I'm glad I got a chance to remember.