Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Can someone get me an Antikythera mechanism? The ancient astronomical prediction machine is the Dial of Destiny in the new Indiana Jones movie. In the movie, it has time travel power. Which is always attractive to this multiverse hopeful. And the moment when Indy meets Archimedes! Wow! Tear inducing emotional moment. And they had just been to his tomb and retrieved the other half of the mechanism from the remains. Now to see the man in person. I am not sure if age has anything to do with my reaction. Time. The passing of time. The ability to stop its movement, even for a few minutes, the ability to travel through different time periods, places, worlds, past, present, future. The possibilities. And you never die!

I love it when they show time travel in movies. And in this one, when they show the late sixties, that is the moon landing time, in New York, those scenes could really make me feel I was a part of it. That I was in it! Amazing power of this thing called movies!

On the way out of the movie theater, I was thinking which time period would I like to visit, or live in for a little time or longer? The romanticized version of the Middle Ages? At Taxila or the later Nalanda? During the Indus Valley civilization? On the Silk road? Which figure in history would I like to meet? The Buddha? Bronte sisters? Dracula? Just random names. But now I know whoever it is, those people may not choose to meet me! Or if they did, maybe I will not think it as special as I may have imagined! I came to the conclusion that I would want to live it all! Travel through all times, all places, be all people, be each person! Impossible? Shouldn’t be. What if I am already doing it? How can you or I tell if I am not?

Before going to the movie, I had read a few reviews about it. One reviewer was miffed about Indy getting old and having to be rescued by a girl, even as he acknowledged the passing of the torch to the young. That latter part, yes, but did not feel that Indy was being weak, or that he was “rescued” by a girl. I thought he still held his own. And it is more of an equal opportunity thing. Maybe some do not like that. Also, Indy is more philosophical, which is usually what happens as we get older. We learn from our experiences, from the world around us. And I totally understand the character wanting to stay in that other world. What else to do if we don’t have anything to come back to?

And you will be philosophical if you see the world through the lens of history. Nothing has changed much, on many levels. Wars, for instance. The movie begins with World War II. It ends in the Battle of Syracuse between Greeks and Romans in 213 BC. Now that doesn’t mean you cannot try and make the world a better place for everyone or that you shouldn’t live a good life, but it is as it is. There are moon landings and parades and loving and laughing in between, as then, as now. “Life” is something else, all right!

Holy Land Notes

1. Herod the Great or Herod I is the Herod in the Bible. There were other Herods, his sons. 

2. Herod was not Jewish. He was from Edom, and his mother was a Nabatean, that is an Arab of the famous Petra area in Jordan.

3. Herod had a huge security detail that included Celtic and Germanic soldiers. It was a small world. Long before the Crusaders! Modern globalization is nothing.

4. Herod the great lived at the same time as Cleopatra and Mark Antony. They met.

5. St George is not English! He was a Roman soldier of Greek ancestry.

6. There were mummies in Israel too, because of the Egyptian influence. Egypt ruled over the land at one point.

7. Many of the people I met call cedars, pine, and they call cypress, oak. I heard this both in Israel and Jordan.

8. Limestone is called Jerusalem rock. All those mountains! And walls and buildings made of limestone!

9. Mountains and valleys, and valleys and mountains. Up and down and around them. Amazing landscape. The olive groves, pomegranate tree groves, vineyards. The blue skies and lush gardens.

Now they have banana and mango plantations. Thriving too.

10. Bedouins, the nomads, in Jordan have houses and cars, and of course, tents.

11. The interesting customs and traditions of the orthodox Jews and Muslims and Christians that are so alike, in spite of our preconceived notions about just the differences.

12. The keys to the place where Jesus is buried is held by a Muslim family. They open it every morning, and close it every night, apparently. This is because of the power struggles among the different Churches. Obviously everyone wants the key!

13. The place where Jesus ascended to the Heavens is a mosque owned by a Muslim who lets everyone in to visit.

14. The promised land is Jericho that Moses saw from the top of Mt Nebo. And Jericho is in Palestine.

15. The Dead sea scrolls in the Qumran caves were stored in clay urn. 

16. The innumerable excavations, the well preserved layers of history - ancient, Byzantine, Roman.
The cities and markets unearthed. The highly ascetic, disciplined (and misogynistic) lives of the scribes at the Qumran site.

17. Noah’s ark and the flood happened in Turkey. Had forgotten that point.

18. St Peter’s fish is Tilapia.

19. The significance of the undying olive trees- the tree of life. 

20. The beauty of the Sea of Galilee, which is really a lake cradled among mountains.

21. Pomegranate is the royal fruit because of the crown on it. I saw ancient pomegranates unearthed from the long time ago in Egypt or Cyprus in the 13th/ 14th century BC in the Israeli Museum.

22. Jerusalem Cross, with its 4 little extra crosses

23. The myna birds, originally from India, are considered to be invasive in Israel

24. The utter isolation and barrenness of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, near Jericho. Still, the Bedouins breath life into it.Hump backed mountains all around me. And the caves.

25. If you wondered how Queen Helena (later St Helena) knew where these significant spots were, where Jesus walked, did his miracles, preached, and died and rose again, the answer is simple. When Jesus died, and his followers started to multiply, the Romans went and built their temples in all those spots. Made it easy for Helena, I was told.

And last, but not the least, The incredible feeling of sadness and resignation. 
I had thought I would feel sad/emotional ( because even though I am not religious, I am suggestible, even gullible) when I saw the places where Jesus the man who preached indiscriminate love, walked. I did feel a little sad, at the Dominus Flevit, where Jesus wept looking at Jerusalem.

And at the fourth station in the Via Dolorosa, when Mary saw her son,beaten, bloodied and hurt and carrying this huge cross, her heart broke.Even though it was all overshadowed by the bustling market streets of the bazaar. All the life around me. it kept coming back to me in quiet moments.

Just like the amazing rock formations in southern Jordan. Some like temple gopurams carved into rocks. Others resembling elephants and camels and fish and such, and the colors on them!

Wadi Musa - Moses’ Valley- where Petra is. The mountains that built walls to block the skies.

The incredible feeling of sadness and resignation came from the extraordinary number of European churches in the most significant spots for Christians. Including the Holy Sepulcher church, (built by Queen Helena)where the tomb of Jesus is. The divisions. Among Christians, and between religions. I did feel like a new convert, Judaism being the old religion. A convert in India, where Hinduism is the old religion. A convert in Israel, where Judaism is the old religion. Yes, I am repeating myself. The paradox. And Christianity is over 2000 years old. Can’t really call it new! And my ancestors are supposed to have been Christians since that time. So it doesn’t make sense, really. But I felt the rift, the alienation, the futility- but then that’s me! 

Well, it may have been because I got a glimpse of what many Jews thought or not thought at all about Jesus and Christians. I had never given it much thought before. It was a jolt. How do they see something that doesn’t exist for them? 

However, I loved the landscapes, and the histories enveloping them, underneath them. I felt I was an organic part of it, in spite of the superficial alienation of which I spoke of earlier.

And Petra! The stories those rocks and the siqs could tell! Thousands of years worth. The camel caravans laid with goods from all corners of the then known world! The traders, the travellers, the monks. The ideas that were exchanged. The eyes that were opened to new wonders and thoughts. The crimes that must have been committed. Solved. Hidden.For ages.
The wailings. The laughter. 
The hopes.
The life. 
The death.

Fun fact: Our Lord’s prayer is displayed in many languages in the church where Jesus was supposed to have taught it to his disciples. Malayalam is there. And Sanskrit. But Sanskrit is not Sanskrit. It is Manglish! Hehe

I was a little miffed at the power of the different churches displayed in the holy spots. The Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, represented by the Italian, French and Spanish contingents, the Coptic, the Ethiopian. Yes we are Roman Catholics.But we are not there! And we are one of the oldest. Why did we run after the Europeans? Isn’t it time we had our own Church?

The one and only, the Marvelous Sylvester Stallone

 Just watched The Expendables - all 3 of them - again. And again was reminded why some actors are superstars. Like Tom Cruise. Clint Eastwood.  Dolph Lundgren. Jean Claude van Damme. Jackie Chan. Harrison Ford. Denzel Washington.Chuck Norris. Jason Statham. Liam Neeson. Scott Adkins., well his movies are direct to video,  ut that doesn’t matter, I enjoy his movies immensely. Why when I see their movies, I feel like I am seeing a movie. And why after seeing one of their movies, I come away feeling satisfied, satiated. But only Stallone can bring a bunch of those superstars together to create sweet mayhem, to dole out justice and to live to enjoy their  victory. Sweet! Fair distribution of roles, dialogues and screen time.

For the next one, he should get Jackie Chan, Clint Eastwood, and Shah Rukh Khan, Gina Carano, Michelle Yeoh, Aamir Khan, Pierce Brosnan, Lucy Liu … will be back with more