Do
you remember movies or novels which are named after the protagonist, but actually
end up giving more screen time and character depth to a supporting character or
sometimes, surprisingly, to the antagonist? Batman - The Dark Knight comes up
in my mind first. Boy didn't that turn out to be a brilliant move! The movie
became iconic with the Joker's darkness engulfing the Batman's knightly
qualities like the moon does to the shining sun during an eclipse. The recently
out, Avengers - Infinity War, also pulls off a similar stunt by portraying the
entire character arc of Thanos, the almost omnipotent nemesis to the Avengers.
Forget about more time devoted to him than the whole bunch of Avengers put
together, the movie went on to show the colossal Thanos decimating the elite
bunch of superheroes and making half of them vanish. At the end of the movie,
you would ask its creators, why not name the movie Thanos instead?
I am
being accused of committing a similar titular homicide by my imaginary sidekick
Romrir. "Treachery, deceit, betrayal of the highest order!", screams
Romrir to a nonchalant me. "You name the blog after me, but I haven't made
an appearance since the first post. You ramble about everything, the universe, time,
haunted ships and what not, but me!" Well, I am starting to get a little
uncomfortable now. Although I am not impressed by Romrir, as he keeps
blabbering useless and completely incoherent things at me when I am trying really
hard to focus at work, I am feeling a teeny bit guilty about leaving him out of
the narrative for quite a while.
"Well,
my dear Romrir, while I have a strong desire to write about you, don't you feel
I need some worthy content from you to pen it down?", I ask my sidekick in
an authoritative tone, hoping he gets intimidated. "Hmm....I have given
some ideas. Wait, haven't you been bouncing all your thoughts on me? And I have
responded every single time either agreeing or giving an alternate view when disagreeing
with you. Doesn't that make me the contributor of half of 'your' content?"
responded Romrir slowly with his voice firming up considerably towards the end.
I am astonished by Romrir's plucky attitude
today. "While I can't dismiss your claim outright, you negate your worthy
points with your distractive behaviour buddy.
Playing a tune repetitively while I want to get rid of it, speaking out
random incoherent and anachronistic topics like the universe, anthropology, wars, pop stars, movies, sports
and what not while I am in a meeting or in a conference call at work. This is
only the beginning of the long list. Oh! the top slot in that list goes to
flashing images of hot women in compromising positions when absolutely not
needed!"
I
can see Romrir's sheepish grin. After a momentary pause he asks me, "I try
to entertain you my master. Variety is the spice of life they say."
"There's a time for everything Romrir", I said sternly, hiding the
smile on the edge of my mouth. "Well,
you are like a flashlight. You throw the much needed light in darkness, when I
need a different perspective, when my mind is crowded by egotistic thoughts.
But having said that, you also turn the light beam directly onto my eyes
sometimes, blinding me in a maze of excessive thoughts", I said calmly.
"I try my best to help you", replied Romrir in a docile tone. "I
hope you do. However, it gets a tad excessive at times. Too much introspection
leads to self-doubt. An idea which should
have shot out like an arrow gets caught in the dense shrub of inward thoughts. Remember
those times when you and I get caught in endless loops of 'does he/she know
that I know' questions? Not to forget the never ending 'what ifs'! Less is more.
Occam's razor", I said.
"You
know what my dear friend! An idea just struck me like lightning. What if I post
this conversation of ours as the next post in the blog. Won't that make it a
post completely devoted to you? Et
voila! Two birds in a stone", I told my sidekick with a spark in my eyes.
He just smiled silently. I posted the blog and turned the laptop screen to show
him, "Hope that satisfied you."
Romrir
waited a couple of seconds and replied cheekily, "I knew it! I was right!
I knew this would work right from the moment when I incepted the idea in your mind, when you got out of your seat after the Avengers
movie!"
