An all black Rubik’s cube made of time
And other things
n=9;I’m not a regular watcher of the telly, but these new shows that come up on Netflix and the likes, have quite the grip.The other week, I spent some crazy hours stuck in the maze-like Science-fiction series called Dark, a German show, but the language mind you, is no dampener.
Half-way through season-1, I was kicking myself because there was no way I could now abort watching it. For those who haven’t had a sizeable chunk of their precious living hours consumed by the show, if you want to watch a tremendously crafted science-fiction story about time-travel and parallel-universe, infused in family drama and get yourself in knots about science, fiction, time, parallel-universe, families and drama - all at the same time, that too in German, go for it !
It’s a fascinating subject, time-travel and of course, Ze Germans have the oldest relation with it but the makers of this show have outdone them all.After a season or two, before resuming the binge-watch session, I had to clear my study table and set it up with three watches - two analog and one digital, a compass, an open connection to a (GPU) server on the cloud, as much research material I could get hold of on time travel as well as parallel universe, copy of “A brief history of time”, a bottle of whisky to keep me sharp, blank sheets of paper, Staedtler (German) HB pencils and a hurriedly crafted totem to keep track of reality.
All in vain. I was like a kid in a theme park, bewildered, enchanted, on the edge and absolutely curious altogether!
Thankfully, my being an Indian helped, since you know, Aryabhata the mathematician and astronomer came out with the concept of zero, and then our ancients did talk a lot about duality and multi-verses and of-course, Ekta Kapoor has helped us over the years to grasp the inter and intra family dynamics.It’s all there in our gene pool or common consciousness or what have you.I just needed to tap in it! So I think most of us who watch the show, will get it. for those who can’t Netflix has released a guide to help you decipher the meaning and significance of things and events - right from the yellow jacket that Jonas wears to Adam not telling him something of consequence, just keep a notebook to take notes and draw connection graphs for events, people and time - will come in handy.
You know, watching this show, I began to wonder why there have been no interesting shows ever made in India on time travel or parallel universes or just science fiction in general. The indomitable Shaktiman might fall in one of these categories, I’m, not sure which one.I do remember watching Indradhanush as a kid and it was good for the times and my age then, and then there was Mr X in Bombay in the 50’s - the oldest science fiction movie or was it Kalai Arasi (Tamil) or Kaadu (again, Tamil) and later, Paani and of course, Mr India, that took a jab at invisibility as a concept.
Recent times have seen the release of movies like RaOne, Robot, Enthiran, PK, Tik Tik Tik and so on, but there’s been always more focus on the plot about people than science in the fiction.Come to think of it, haven’t really read any book by an Indian author on these concepts, whilst mythology continues to be a fast moving genre since forever.Hold on a minute, mythology is science-fiction in the under-belly if you think of it.So, actually, a lot of Indian writers pre- 3ooo BC or so, loved science fiction.
Satyajit Ray, amongst other things, did write a book that I doubt if many have read - Diary of a space traveller and other Stories.I did manage to dig out a couple of lists of sci-fi books by Indian authors here and here, and am going to have a go at some of them.
Anyways, having meandered on this parallel path about science-fiction in India and after I finished watching all the seasons and episodes of Dark, I realised it was 6 am, I made myself a cup of coffee to get rid of the buzz(not from the alcohol of course) and spun the totem, just to be sure.