OLD MAN vs MARLIN vs SHARK and You

 

     

     Growing up, you truly realize the depth of classics that you have read when you were a child, and although it might not have stuck with you back then, memories and certain lines of the story pop out of the attic of some corner of your head when you are least expecting. I am talking here about Hemingway’s 1952 classic, ‘Old Man and the Sea’.

 

     It was summer vacation of early 2010s when I was enjoying one of those lovely cold evenings at my mother’s place in Wayanad, I came across a copy of Old Man and The Sea at a local bookstore in the town of (I still have the book!). At the time it seemed an easy read, just a hundred pages, a man trying catch a big fish and no major mind boggling twists or revelations. It sure was a good read. I had also watched the 1958 movie adaption of the novel during that time on the computer. Sure, a gripping tale, high stakes and battle against sharks, pretty decent stuff all round.

 

      However only very recently I came to respect the novel for the depth I could not previously comprehend. For those who have not read the novel, the story is about an old fisherman Santiago who ventures into the sea alone in hopes of catching a fish to end his long streak of not catching a fish. He baits a marlin; however things are not as easy as they seem, with a marlin who wouldn’t give up and sharks ready to scavenge the bleeding marlin, all while the old man is slowly losing his bodily strength and going only farther into the ocean.

 

       Now you could see the story as how you would watch the movie, Jaws. A man outmatched by a force of nature and his desperate attempting to overcome his predicament. However for me, The Old Man And The Sea turned out to be the answer that most of us are desperately trying to find. The story is a timeless tale of the nature of humans ourselves. In specific I’m talking about his arrogant determination to push beyond both his physical and mental limits. Santiago was considered salao, a very unlucky man who had not caught anything for eighty-four days. The author shows the great physical and mental battle that took him to finally catch the marlin. How ever his quest is far from complete as he has to now fight off the scavenging sharks all biting off their share of the marlin. Watching the film, the ending did feel anticlimactic back then, with a marlin with barely any flesh left lying on the shore and our old man battered up.

 

     Perseverance is one of the greatest gifts that we have. We soak up punishment everyday despite our body and mind telling us to give up, trying to attain a better tomorrow. The writer has also carefully crafted the story in such a sense that there is no enemy. The marlin for the old man was a matter of pride and honor which he was determined to achieve no matter the cost. The marlin too, puts up just as good of a fight as him pulling him away from the mainland, bleeding his fingers numb. He used to be called El Campeon in his good days after defeating a massive man in arm wrestling competition. He is old now, yet he is young in his spirit and would not give up. However like Odysseus he would strive, seek, find and never yield.

     There is a beautiful relationship that sparks between the old man and his marlin. Although an enemy he must conquer, he finds his own spirit in the marlin, admiring its beauty and desperately fending off the scavenging sharks. It is truly the battle that gives value to the fruit. And in Santiago’s case, he was victorious, despite what he brought to the shore. For Santiago, the same marlin who he had fought days for becomes a precious child he could never give up even if he could lose his life. He did his best again and now he deserves his best dream of the lions in Africa

 

     At the end of the day, the novel is a tale of what a man is and what he could be. Look around us dear reader! We wouldn’t be here if not for the person who thought, Oi! That sure is a funny round rock, or someone else who found the evil bright spark between his two twigs.

Let’s push on dear reader! Onward!