I knelt down to get a closer feel of the fresh radiance from the rain-drenched creepers outside my home here in Chennai. It was an attempt to revive my numb senses in the only way I know, through memories.
Rain brings back those images for me, the ones covered in dust deep within the dark cellars of my subconscious. It is the same for everyone, I’m sure. Because rain is special, it is life for all being on this planet!
And the memories!
Be it the first skid fall from you bike as a kid while splashing through the flooded lanes in Kochi or the romantic rendezvous with the special person in your life just outside her college, followed by a walk under her umbrella, craving for each others’ warmth but abstaining from indulging in any form of PDA, respecting the sensibilities of the Malayalam-speaking, love-hating, well-educated average citizens of the biggest metro in my home state - Kerala.
“You too, Leslie”, would have been the snide remark from that elderly gentleman who was staring at us from the opposite side of the road that monsoon day when I held the girl in my life close and walked, getting wet all over.
Hey... Wasn’t that line reserved for Brutus for the most famous betrayal in history. “I don’t deserve that remark, dear sir,” I should have replied, holding my girl even tighter to convey the truth and the bare truth that I would never betray her.
But did Julius Caesar really had enough time to turn and see Brutus’ power-hungry eyes and then raise his hypnotic voice above all the commotion on the Ides of March to express his pain in three simple syllables. “Et tu, Brute,” they say was the great Monarch’s last words before resigning to his fate; though even now history freaks have a field day arguing that the phrase was first used across the channel in England and not in Rome or thereabout.
Whatever it is, since the English happen to be the keepers of history till the Yankee resurgence in the twentieth century, the version best known in the new world is the Latin phrase Et tu, Brute?, which is derived from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where it actually forms the first half of a macaronic line: "Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar!"
Shakespeare in turn was making use of a phrase already in common use in his time: It appears, for instance, in Richard Eedes's Latin play Caesar Interfectus of 1582 and The True Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke of 1595, a source work for Henry VI, Part Three.
Shakespeare's version follows the Roman historian Suetonius, who reported that others have claimed Caesar's last words were the Greek phrase "καὶ σὺ τέκνον;" (transliterated as "Kai su, teknon?": "You too, my child?" in English or "Tu quoque, Brute, fili mi" in Latin). But Suetonius himself claims Caesar said nothing as he died. Plutarch too was sure Caesar was silent and merely pulled his toga over his head when he saw Brutus among the conspirators. While some others believe the phrase was meant to be a curse on Brutus which ultimately brought forth the violent death of the statesman.
‘You too’ remained though, even now, and in highly abbreviated forms in modern-day text messages. “U2, u fucking asshole,” says the evolved man through his IPhone 3G, the adjectives taking on more biological implications which one can attribute towards the rather high awareness our generation has towards sciences, especially biology.
U2!
“U2, so what is U2 sir?” A friend of mine was asked this question by an eight-year-old kid at an obscure village in Bengal not so long back.
Why would a primary school kid in a laid back Bengal village want to know about Caesar and his supposedly last words – U2? And what prompted him to ask this question to my friend who is hardly Plutarch.
My friend, who was standing next to me during my sense-stimulating exercise mentioned at the start, explained, after snapping my attention from the trip down memory lane to the music at the background. He was playing Bono and the gang you see; wait a minute, The U2! Now I get the connection.
The music he was listening to, apparently took him a few years back to his university days in Kolkata. Music took him for a ride just like I was taken to where I belong by the rain.
“Back those days I had this habit of taking train rides and getting down at a random station and just walk around for a while and get lost. Of course getting lost was literal as I didn’t have a mobile phone then,” my friend said unassumingly.
I wanted to interrupt saying, “dude, these are the same things that the modern day spiritual types do and then glorify it as trips to the depths of nirvana”. Am sure Buddha turns in his grave each time he hears that. But that’s the way the world is now.
My friend continued: “I got down and some station and was walking. I was wearing a red U2 T-shirt and then this kid comes up and asks me ‘what is U2, sir?’ I still remember his face. He must have just started learning the English alphabets or something and he asked me this. And when I listen to U2 these days, the first picture that comes to my mind is the boy’s face.”
But sadly the boy’s question as never answered, my friend’s justification was that “he would never understand”.
How could he be so sure, I felt. It’s the age when we are all so well informed and misinformed too by the G-Thing, Google, I mean. So you can never fathom what people around you know or don’t know.
Anyway, back to the all important question that has come out from all these random memory trips. What is U2?
I, being inclined towards pessimism these days would say that it points only and only to BETRAYAL of the highest order. While my friend here would say, shut the hell up and listen man.
I am listening and he has a point, you see. The guys from Dublin (read: U2, the band) are not betrayers at all. They are very honest in their music.
So is the definition of 'U2' evolving? Are the history books being re-written by a bunch of musicians? I would be very happy if that is the case because, for a pleasant change, history books would not be written by war-thirsty generals and oil-thirsty presidents; but by musicians.
But my friend didn’t help the peace cause one bit by not explaining to the kid, who is the next generation, that U2 is not a word of betrayal, but U2 is music and love and all things that love stands for.
I guess “you too, Brutus” will stay for some more time. So will U2 and their Joshua Tree and history will take its own route.
Aha! It is raining again. Time for another trip, another route!
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