So Much to Talk About, and Nothing to Show

Now to go by thoroughly with the headline, it would come to the knowledge that when you actually have the fortune of visiting the houses of the very simple, very scholarly and absolutely hermit-like, though not in physicality, but definitely in practice, it feels like a new doorway has opened up for you. 

In my lifetime, I once had the opportunity, to visit my Professor’s home back during my college days, while we were shooting our documentary. Mostly, we’d be going to get a heads-up from him with regard to our filming, and I was absolutely baffled the first time I visited his house. 

The entire drawing cum dining space was covered with DVDs and book on various films right from the soils of Japan, Germany, America, Italy to regional languages like Marathi and Gujrati. Apart from that lay a desktop and a table decorated with books again. Whenever we’d visit his house, we’d see that he’d often be clad in shorts and loose T-shirts and wouldn’t even bother combing his hair while we were to meet him. 

All he cared about was the status of our documentary, and how were we progressing towards it, whether or not we did ample research, visited the spots where we’d be shooting, talked to the concerned target audience, and the like. As for myself, I’d often be amazed looking at all the simplicity around, even if jokingly we did ask a question or two about the same, he’d be oblivious to it, as if nothing of that sort matters ever. 

I guess the trick lay in the fact that for every other sentence that he’d talk, he’d be using quotes from films, and would often be mentioning as to how could we be using the same in our documentaries. I was dumbfounded, not knowing how to react, as back in my house, I’d often be surrounding and be surrounded by things that I mostly didn’t require most of the times, yet never really bothered to change. 

And, why would I? I often argued with myself, and here was the Professor that only cared about his subject, and the welfare of his students, yet possibly never felt the need of decorating his room with ornate decorations in order to please others. 

While communicating he’d be mentioning about the Seventh Seal, talk about George Orwell, Ray and Robert Flaherty. Later I realised, that he had a lot to talk about, and nothing, absolutely nothing to show.