Relic Hunters

I used to watch a show on AXN called Relic Hunter, starring a beautifully buff Tia Carrere. She kicked, whipped and shot her way around various terribly exotic parts of the world, vying with her rivals and always – or almost always – taking home the prize of an ancient relic at the end of the story. She was the relic hunter, moonlighting as a college professor (or was it the other way around?), with loyal students, a street smart secretary, skin-of-the-teeth escapes from tight spots and a nicely schizophrenic wardrobe of neat academic suits ranged against khakis sidestriped by an all-purpose tote bag. But the best part of the show was the relic she hunted. It was unique, prized, its retrieval inevitably involving some sort of risk to life, limb and luggage. To make it more fun, there was a strong streak of humour thrown in to balance the fright factor of being chased by machete-wielding natives, encountering snakes and shotguns at the dead of very dark nights and being caught in perilous traps with the walls caving in, the ceiling crashing downwards or water pouring swiftly into a sealed space.

Indiana Jones was also a relic hunter. Brought to life so wonderfully by Harrison Ford, he clamped down his bush hat, strapped on his whip and guns and took off into the wild blue to have untold, unnamed, un-matchable adventures. He went after the golden ark, he found the temple of Doom, he tumbled gung-go into the last crusade – in which he had the marvellously irascible companion of his on-screen father, played in masterpiece style by the fabulous, sexy, gravel-voiced Sean Connery. Indy slithered into caves, fell into sinkholes, ran hell-for-leather down steep slopes and had the time of his life getting whatever he was looking for, in spite of beautiful women with hearts of evil, villains who would stop at nothing to stop him and…shudder…snakes.

Collecting a relic in the movies or on television is great fun for viewers and even, sometimes, for the stars who play out their assigned roles. But, in real life, finding and collecting a relic is not that easy. It is easier, in fact, especially in India, to add your bit to history to a relic, carving it in (or on) stone, on the pieces of history that litter the landscape. As an individual, as an Indian, I am ashamed of my own people when I find them doing this, and have, on various occasions, launched into an attack with all the fervour of an avenging Kali!

Perhaps the most fiery incident of this kind was some years ago at the Qutub Minar in Delhi. My buddy Karen was visiting from Denver and we had been wandering about parts of the country, showing her and reminding ourselves how diverse and exciting it really was. In a small pavilion close by the main monument, we found a local yahoo yobbo etching his name deep into the pink-tinted walls, as his friends stood by and cheered. Being one who jumps in and then worries about possible consequences, I did just that. Grabbing the chappie by the shirt sleeve, I yanked him around to face me and let fly with a stream of Hindi, which under the most favourable circumstances tended to border on shaky and, under stress, on incoherent. It got mixed up somewhere along the line with English and a few words from every other language I ever knew. Dimly, at the back of my mind, I could hear Karen pleading with me, asking me to let go and “Let’s go!”

The yobbo’s friends crowded around, trying to speak their fractured English, miraculously not getting aggressive with either of us. The perpetrator himself, first startled into not reacting, then shocked at the frontal assault, dropped the penknife he was doing his sculpting with. The guard, attracted out of his nap by the noise, came running. A short spell of chaos later, the carver was marched off, perhaps to be beaten up or at least yelled at, or to be let off after a discreet exchange of pourboire. By the time we got into our car, I was shaking, almost in tears with anger and a shame I could not really explain to myself.

Many years later, I understood. It was not just a pride in my country and its history that had me throwing tantrums at this kind of vandalism, but a deep sense of self. As a modern Indian, I was part of the generation that would save our illustrious past for those who would otherwise not be able to know it. And that knowledge, I still believe, is the greatest relic that the future can hunt.