What’s a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid?
‘Action & Destruction’, yes that is what I was obsessed with for a very brief period of time in my childhood. It does not define the whole basis of my childhood but it was nonetheless interesting upto a point.
No, it was not breaking the television, tearing apart the pillows or making toys forcefully crash against each other, kind of destruction. It was more of a cinematic imagination.
It was literally the theme of every other movie back then, whether the movies were from different countries or even in cartoons it didn’t matter, there were things blowing and there was this person or a group of people who subdued the bad guys with apparently more violence and destruction. I was like ‘so this is something cool’. The concept of how far the reality was from the entertainment world had not yet registered in my mind.
So, with my imagination, I was drawing characters in my drawing notebook, with their own plots, and letting them have their moment fighting to the apparent death and destruction. When outside I was riding my bicycle like I was riding one of those bikes with the person no one messed with but he had the most messed up mind.
In my own eyes I was born to be this self-sacrificing hero who no one could beat, and he could never be killed no matter what, yet his struggle and indication of a possible end was supposed to be the most dramatic and sad part of the story.
I don’t really remember how it ended, maybe because of a few nightmares with me being pushed down a mountain and I am afraid of heights so I woke up in the middle of few nights. So, one could say the destructive and violent hero fell down the mountain and disappeared amidst the clouds below never to be found.
Only when I grew up, I realised there are serious problems in the world because of this, with young people actually becoming more violent and all this action and destruction has just been increasing in the world of entertainment. Many people enjoy it, no harm in that, but at the same time do keep an observant eye for those who might be impacted the wrong way and at the same time don’t get pulled down that river yourself. Not everything is for everyone, like the guy who is afraid of ghosts only because of horror movies.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 