What's WOT, What?

Ten years have past since that fateful day which turned my life around. Ten years since that quiz in the Daly Memorial Hall, standing on Nruputhunga Road in Bangalore, where all good KQA quizzes took place, where my good friend Sidu Ponappa, or Panchyloppuly (quite a mouthful) as he is dearly called, showed me this blue covered book of eight hundred or so pages. A book so blue, that the sky paled in comparison; a book with a cover of a fine lady on a white horse off to Banbury Cross, perhaps; next to the lady’s horse was a stern warrior on a dark steed followed by a train of people on lesser horses against a pale moon. Ten years; ten summers, Wordworth would say, with the length of ten long winters.

Raised as I was in a world of myth and legend, pouring since my childhood over the intricacies of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, I was drawn to what old Panchylopuly had to say about the book. It was a book on fantasy, he informed me, called The Eye of the World; first of a series of books by an author called Robert Jordan. The book was supposedly about a band of adventurers and how they were sucked into having to fend for their lives and rescue the world. I was all of twelve years old and saw, in my mind’s eye, great knights fending off dragons while rescuing damsels in distress with really long hair a la Rapunzel and Arthur. I took the book from him and began reading. The first chapter gripped me by throat and dragged my tired eyes at one in the morning (which is late enough for a working man and a nightmare for a boy thinking of the witching hour) through a series of around ten thousand pages.

Ten years and eleven books later, I find it hard to think of my life without the Wheel of Time and fantasy in general. How can I forget the times I went out to bat while playing inter-school cricket psyching myself up with the dying words of Manatheren? Carai an Caldazar, Carai an Elisande, al Elisande, Fear holds no place in my heart, al Elisande. How many times have I called Her, Mashiara? And would I ever forget how she reacted when I told her what it meant? How could I forget Marwaha and me fighting our Jedi battles and then discussing that Jordan’s descriptions of sword fighting go far beyond that of the Jedis’; wondering how Heron wading in the Rushes actually looked; whether the swordsman actually held the sword with one arm or both when delivering the blow?

And yet, the Wheel of time goes much beyond mere words or swordfighting. If I am a romantic now, thinking always in the rather contrasting world of black and white, I would attribute the same to my excessive reading of fantasy novels. The Wheel of time shaped a lot of my morals and ethics. It taught me about heroes and heroic deeds, that everyone has a hero in us who is willing to fight for what he or she believes in. it showed me how a person could choose his or path based solely on ideology, with little consideration for the consequences of ones actions. It reiterated, wittingly or not, the world of karma that we live in, that cause has effect; that the world is so much more beautiful; that our own mundane lives have meaning; that immortality comes through passion, through love, through grandeur.

And that, as GRR Martin comments in his site, is the essence of fantasy. If I may be allowed to paraphrase him, fantasy is black and white, while other fiction (and possible NOT our world) is filled with confused shades of grey. Though I may be repeating myself to those who know me, grey is not a colour, it’s a mixing of two beautiful extremes, grey is for the lazy, for the ones who aren’t sure enough to make that decision, who do not wish to bear Atlas’ burden on their shoulders for choosing. Fantasy is about gold and silver while the rest is about tarnished bronze. Fantasy is about mulled wine with an aroma of exotic spices while the rest is nothing but stinking vodka. My world is fantastic; it is filled with fantastic people, with fantastic situations, with ethics and choices and so much more. It might be absurd at times, but it is grand nevertheless. My world is populated with Zelazny’s Sam, with Martin’s Tyrion and Snow and Danny, with Rincewind and Corporal Carrot and the Great God Om. And all because my world was first filled by Lews Therin, by Mat, Rand, Ishamael. An Moiraine.

Moiraine. Weep for Moiraine, my brethren, for she represents you and me. That part in us that would die for our cause. That shows us what passion might be, that gives meaning to our life and work. That shows us that duty is heavier than a mountain and that death is lighter than a feather.

Weep for Manetheren and its fall. Weep for the Aiel’s loss. Weep for what was and is and what might be, world without end. World and time without end. Weep.

My little post is unable of course to capture all that I have learnt. All because of that winter’s Sunday in Daly Memorial, where a friend showed me what our world is. Taishar Malkier, Taishar RJ. May the Dragon ride again on the winds of time. Thank you for colouring my world.