Annie spoke about Marquez and Paulo Coelho, Dan spoke about
Argentina, and somewhere the conversation of the two went about exploring each
other’s knowledge base about various things. Not necessarily South American.
Marquez lead to Columbia. And the magic of South America.
Its people, society, culture.
Argentina lead to Freedom and rights and political science.
And then it was music.
Dan was playing some new jazz rock stuff from his ipod.
And then they discussed Annie’s experience at Oxford and
Cambridge.
Annie gave Dan an outline of all the events, including the crazy
one at the Royal Albert Hall.
And then she moved onto Lisbon. There She filtered her stuff
to restrict the whole episode as just a result of bad judgement. But Danny knew
from Annie’s tone that there was more to it.
But, both accepted each other’s space and left it there.
In between Annie checked on Danny’s progress on his pet musical
project – a fusion adaptation of Shelley’s
Prometheus Unbound and Byron’s Don Juan – and then it lead to Milton and Ben
Johnson and then Shakespeare.
The discussion went on – from South America to England to
Germany and Russia and then France.
All through it was about Literature, Art, Philosophy and
poetry. Somewhere the topic touched Proust.
Marcel Proust.
Daniel was saying “so what about him” ?
Annie replied “nothing, its just that he seems to have
triggered an idea of time and space that has been reduced to a mere idea of
nostalgia but its just not that’
Daniel queried ‘what do you mean’?
Annie replied
‘ listen Proust’s ‘La Recherche du temps perdu’ is still a completely
ill understood part of literary art –
Proust really meant to sustain the word ‘recherche’ as the English
‘research’ and was not really intending to restrict the word or the title to
its French limitation – Proust’s work should be seen as a philosophical masterpiece
a voluminous attempt to study ‘time and human memory’ and the concept of ‘how
time past is a huge controller of time present and time future’ their deep
inter connections.
By now the effect of the pot was sinking on both.
Danny just said
Hmmmm.
Annie paused. As she took a drag.
But she was convinced that ‘Time and Space’ were probably
the most opaque side of human life and somehow’ time past had a huge impact on
time present.
‘Space now is but an extrapolation of space past’ – that was
how it was meant to be.
This time Annie spoke to her own self. Danny was lost
staring out into the sea.
She felt that together ‘time and space’ had a viscious side
to them. So that way the entire attempt by Proust was unique, and she wondered
if she could ever attempt to solve the mystique.
Talking of Mystique Annie also was intrigued by the concept
of Western mysticism. While Annie was quite familiar with the concept of Buddhist
or Hindu mysticism – the idea of Christian, especially the South American,
mysticism intrigued her.
She then asked Daniel – Dan you think I can try out being a
South American monk ? for a while ?
Dan did not bother to answer.
Annie cried out softly ‘Dan, I’m asking a question’ ?
Dan still did not bother.
Just then Annie’s mobile phone started ringing, Annie
checked and found it was Prof. Bernstein.
She answered the call. Exchanged some notes and gave him a
heads up on her trip to Montevideo. And then she hung up.
Dan then mentioned about an ongoing Uruguayan Film Festival
and then started the car, saying they should try catching up with one film, if
possible.
The Chevy sparked itself to a brisk start.
Gandhi looked stale with his ubiquitous smile.
Nothing seemed real.
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