WOLVERINES IN OUR LIVES
I was always fascinated by Wolverine, truly speaking, never really grew out of it. For those of you who are unaware, Wolverine is one of the most iconic characters of Marvel’s X-men, portrayed by Hugh Jackman in modern cinema. His animal instincts, retractable claws (Adamantium, to be precise) and a typical anti-hero persona made him quite a fan-favourite. What truly got me enchanted though, was the strange regenerative capability aka the healing power. As a kid, I remember wondering for long hours, how good it must be to have this ability, since I was a brat and used to get hurt often.
I kept on reading more and more, grew old enough to watch the movies, then grew older to watch them again. My understanding of the character widened, and I kind of started getting psyched about what goes on inside the mind of a person who has lived beyond the normal lifespan of a human. The amount of pain he might have had to withstand while going through all those otherwise life-threatening injuries, which his healing power had nursed. Kind of explains why he prefers being recluse despite having multiple romantic interests.
Not undermining in any way, the creative spirits of the storytellers who shaped up his character, surviving in this generation is like living the life of Wolverine, sans the claws, unfortunately. At least for the few who are still sane and here, I would take the liberty to include myself, it is just the same. Mornings get started by waking up to something where humanity has disappointed us again and the nights end reminiscing over another day in disdain. It is not like we were born into a rosy world where everything was hale and hearty, but the sharp turn that we have taken in the last half a decade is magnanimous, and not towards the better.
We live in a generation where polarization is power, misogyny an everyday occurrence and our favourite pastime is assaulting strangers with a keypad, albeit we are unaware who our next-door neighbours are. I am not saying that we come from a generation of righteousness, for that matter, let’s not even go back there, but here, today, right now, I can see how this species end. There won’t be the requirement of a meteor or an alien invasion, we are zooming towards a time, where we will be capable enough to annihilate ourselves. Going by how we are now, that shouldn’t take a lifetime.
Here comes the interesting part, a lot of Wolverine’s life revolves around him searching for his origins, his lineage, courtesy the attempts to wipe his memory off. Kind of relate to our inept attempts to relate our thought process with some credible sources. We don’t come from a particular side of things, we don’t have any affiliations, we are not under any wing, or for that matter, any broader polarizing prowess as religion, country or caste. Where we come from is a point, where there was hope for peace, where we still used to wake up and not feel our hearts wrenched and our minds horrified to what happened last night, somewhere. What we see instead is the hopelessness of a redressal, the attempts too futile, and the insanity weighing down everything logical, with infinite times more that of gravity. We have long given up those instances when we hoped, when we cared, when we mustered enough strength to stand back and smile. Explains why I connected with the character of Wolverine so much so early in life.
