I remember, if not clear as a crystal, Jurassic Park to be my ‘first’ Hollywood movie. The movie we saw on a black and white TV in our school set the benchmark for monsters in my life. Two hours of awestruck moments that I lived watching these beasts traverse a little screen literally defined my love for dinosaurs. Then there were school visits to dino-themed parks that left an everlasting impression. If it were not for that disciplined lad in me who would follow the swarm, I could have lived more, stood there staring at our crazy ancestors roar, growl and move. But we were short on time, and our teachers squeezed us from every tunnel to take us to the roar of the jaded bus instead.
Sometimes I wish to go back in time, and spend a whole day there, in that dino landscape, with my my mouth wide open in awe. That inquisitive head of mine was ready for it all. That sense of amazement that saw every minute detail, from teeth to horns to eyes to structures to scars. That fleeting moment of less than an hour, I wish, I wish to relive every day.
Four years later crawled “The Lost World”. Its imprints still fresh, probably from watching the movie too many times to forget. As we left the theatre, we were impregnated with images in our heads. We kept swiveling around, little kids as we were, to watch our 6 for a T-Rex to pop up or a raptor tail to dance in the grass. The Jurassic Park 3 ushered in the Pteranodon fear for the first time. All these movies defined my childhood – the stories we shared as kids with each other, the “did-you-see-thats” and “do-you-remembers” that played a second fiddle to jackhammer that fear into us; a profound and eternal love to see them breathe through a screen literally pulled them closer.
After 14 years of punishing patience, the project Jurassic breathed again. And I am glad it did. I don’t wish to forget them. Them beasts that traversed ground that we tread over now. We walk over their graves unwavered and unbothered like they never happened. That they are mere bones for archaeologists to explore. We trample over them, their sad fate like a boss, as if we made our own existence happen, and brought us to life.
Jurassic recreates them. A theory that we might not possibly achieve, but can only imagine on a big screen. If we can bring them to life, it is through a media that is capable of resuscitating the dead. We should all be thankful to people who work so hard to bring us close to our true relatives, the beasts that knew nothing about life, just like we don’t.
