“This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen ...” – These are the words of the very famous Calvin who in my memory never excelled in school and seldom made it to a class ovation. But unlike me when-I-was-six, he had the vocabulary even an average adult wouldn’t. As a kid, Calvin was my hero. While I sat trying to finish my home-work and get past those “sumptuous” dinners, Calvin protested against everything I would’ve wanted to and he even had his way. So dear Calvin, since you taught me the complexity of imagination, I hereby use it on you. You cannot eternally sit pretty at six. The party’s over J
So, what did Calvin grow up to be…
If I had to logically think Calvin’s way up, here’s what I see - A physicist in his laboratory, working laboriously, to say the least. Calvin - The prober always at work, who never makes it on time to any dinners or luncheons because he’s busy cathode-ing and anode-ing the electromagnetic waves that gave him nightmares as a child. Infact, Susie Derkins - his love and hate interest as a kid, did try to mend ways with him. But Calvin decided to give more weightage to the elementary particles of physics and thereby created an electroweak interaction. On the night of their engagement Calvin didn’t make it to the celebration on time causing Susie “social embarrassment”. He never apologised. Instead he began to develop a mathematical model on a word he’d never heard in his imaginary world before - “social”. Calvin lives, breathes and experiments, much to turn himself in to one.
And I as I say this, I wince at my imagination. Maybe its time to put an end to Calvin’s logical progression. Let’s think a little unpredictable.
So what did Calvin really grow up to be…
After finishing college with very non flattering grades, Calvin realized he belonged to no more disciplined schooling and studying further would only make his report card colourful, in a red sort of way. Calvin’s father got him a dead-end job at the suitcase factory. Today Calvin checks on the handles in the assembly line there. He makes no mistakes. Life goes on and so does the assembly line.
Just my imagination!
With all these probable chart-outs to Calvin’s life, I’ve realised, may be there is a bit of me that’s still envious of Calvin being the “Calvin” he was. I also seemed to have conveniently omitted Hobbes from the plot. I’d like to believe once Calvin grew up, his complex imagination found a sack. As a kid he was my hero, where his heroism was beyond my control. Today when I got the joystick to his life, I turned him in to a ME. I turned him in to an average adult, who’s stuck in an unfriendly rigmarole called life.
Hey Calvin, stay six.
