Movie Night

Motorcycle Diaries has to be one of the best films to have come out this year. It is the story of Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (famous South-American revolutionary) and his friend Alberto Granado embarking on the trip of their life, on a end-of-life motorcycle. What starts out as a college road-trip, changes both friends, not so much because of any particular event or events, but more so due to the impact of the journey itself. The defining moment is when the asthmatic Che swims across the river that separates the ill from the healthy in the leper colony at San Pablo. Life's experience, not planning makes for great leadership.
I was sitting there and obsessing about all the things I would have had to do if I were to make that trip myself, and about an hour later I realized that I would never have made the trip. It is simply not in me. I may have been able to plan the trip for someone else, but my restless, nit-picky mind would not allow me to complete packing, much less go on the trip. It is saddening and at the same time it is also a new thing that you learn about yourself. A couple of years back I would've deluded myself into thinking that I could've done it, and blamed lack of opportunity for my inaction.
The rain, the river and the boat-trip on the Amazon from Lima to San Pablo, brought back two dear memories: the last boat-trip in Love In The Time Of Cholera and Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, the improbable tale of an obsessive opera fan wanting to build an opera hall in the middle of the Amazon. At some unfathomable level, these are all tales of man transcending time and hopelessness in pursuit of the big trip.
Along more existential lines, while Che and buddy almost covered the whole of South America on a beat-up motorcycle, on foot and hitch-hiking, yours truly had trouble getting to the movie theater. While taking a turn, the car skidded on the wet road and did a 180 degree turn before deciding to settle down on the median. No external damage from where I can see, but I can hear squeaky noises while driving; come Monday and a few zeros will wither and fall off my bank-balance. Oh well, that will be then. Meanwhile I will spend the rest of the weekend obsessing about it :-)