Immortality

Often as a kid I used to wonder what I’d be like when I grew up. I also used to “decide” at times that I want to be this person or that person… Usually, the “persons” used to be super heroes from a variety of television programs that I used to see. Here’s a list of my favourite superheroes, in order:

1. He-man

Easily, the coolest of them all!!! A good looking prince with ton of loyal servants, the powers of an entire Castle (GraySkull), a tiger for a pet, and a beautiful princess. Truly, a Master of the Universe.

2. Lion-O (from Thundercats)
   Ok, so now that I think about it, this character was probably gay, however, he was one of my childhood heroes, so I must mention him here. Leader of a bunch of cats with special powers, this guy had a super cool sword that gave him “sight beyond sight”. If I recall correctly, I believe I had pestered my parents into buying me a not-so-cheap plastic replica.
3. Superman
   Who didn’t / doesn’t want to be Superman. Part-time gay, part-time bird, he is now my least favourite, so I have no desire to talk about him here.
4. Spider-Man
   The friendly neighborhood spider, the wall-crawler, the web-slinger… I loved the cartoons. But, thanks to Tobey Maguire, this hero crawled down my personal favourites’ chart, to the very bottom.

Fictitious characters apart, there was a different set of “heroes” that I wanted to be. Back in the 80s I spent around 5 years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where my father was working as a doctor for a hospital. This was common phenomenon and supposedly a very lucrative one as well, for Indian Doctors to go and spend a few years in the Gulf.

Anyways, I don’t know how many of you have actually experienced the same, but the non-fictional heroes that I’d wanted to be were none other than our bollywood heroes. The two that I can vividly remember were “Shashi Kapoor“and “Amitabh Bachhan”. Believe it or not, I’d actually spend a lot of time sitting in front of a mirror watching my face age and transmogrify into that of the above mentioned heroes. Soon I learnt that the all the changes were taking place only in my head. Needless to say, I remain quite disappointed till this day ;).

And then there were times, when I would imagine myself to be some kind of Supreme Being sent down to look after other humans. To protect them, to guide them, and to bring order and peace to them. Anyone who was entrusted with such huge responsibility would obviously need to have super-powers. On a number of occasions I thought I had special blood that could not contract any disease and super fast running powers. Every time, I’d get a blood test, or any other kind of test, I’d just be waiting for dad to come with the report, surprised with the unusual levels of whatever parameters decide our health. I’d imagine that I’d just be sitting there with a smile on my face.

Everyone, right from childhood wants to be someone else. Everyone wants to be someone other than themselves. It is too common a phenomenon to be ignored. Everyone wants to be immortal. Imagine what the creator, if there is such a thing or person, must think every time such a thing happens. What would Beethoven have thought of if his music spoke back to him and told him “Music sucks, I wish I could sound like Metallica”. Well, either our creator is used to it and doesn’t care any more, or simply doesn’t exist.

As the years pass and things start going wrong we all realize that there is no such thing as immortality. Most of us look nothing like what we wanted to, start losing our hair by 20, the liver starts complaining by the time you’re 25, which incidentally happens to be the age when u can legally start drinking. And then, on day you’re told that one of your Inter-vertebral discs has prolapsed and you’re forced to change your lifestyle…

But wait… My dad started going bald when he was 35+. His friend’s had slip-discs and liver problems when they were 40+. What’s wrong with me? Me? Is it just me? I know at least 10 other people, most of whom are younger and much lighter than I am. What ever happened to evolution? What ever happened to the advances of modern medicine?

I’d like to believe that we are all being punished. We are being punished for not liking who we are and for wanting to be someone, or something else. Our parents didn’t have dreams of being immortal. They didn’t have the fancy super heroes to look up to. They just had their parents. They dreamt of having cars and making their parents proud and happy. They dreamt of flying kites in open fields. Play games, singing songs, and a lot of other things that didn’t require them to be immortals. We are being punished by the creator for wanting to be immortal, and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Modern medicine and evolution may allow us to live longer, but what kind of a life would that be? Would it even be a life? Or would it just be an existence forcing us to depend on machines and borrowed, artificial organs and other body parts. Is that a price that we’re willing to pay to be immortals? Not me!