Rebecca and me

The past few days have been, for me, severely depressing. It has been an awful low, as in a really very low low, something like a low with a 40 million ‘o’s in between –loooo….ooow. That low. I have been spending my days in a lab, alone, with the only company on offer a chat, occasionally, on gtalk. I have had nothing to dispel the loneliness, and even less to dispel the boredom. A friendless hour and a half spent, every morning and evening, in a bus, looking out of the window without registering anything, or maybe sometimes taking in the sunset obscured so ruthlessly but the concrete jungle of the city. An hour or so spent staring at a television, looking but not seeing. A barren, uninspired field inside my mind.
Yesterday I started reading Rebecca again, the only novel except Harry Potter, four years ago, that I am reading more than once. Yes, I have read it before, and it is still in my memory, and yet the novel dispels all the unfeeling sorrow within me, even now, even when I know what to expect. This time, in fact, the novel seems to me even richer. Every line written, every thought expressed falls like a raindrop from the sky and alights like a tear upon my cheek; they hold a greater magic now, they are more real, so real I can feel them, see them, taste them.
You might wonder what is so special about the novel. Move among the circles of avid readers around and you would scarcely find Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca mentioned, except in passing. Oh yeah, I read it. Good romance. Or maybe, yeah, had a horror touch to it. People have read it, sure, and liked it, but no one has seen it as it really is, or rather, as I see it. Because for me, the novel is not horror, not mystery, even though there is a death and the associated mystery; the novel is about that one character, that single fictional woman that strikes a chord with me more than any other person, real or imagined; that twenty-one year old heroine that Du Maurier created for this story, and was careful never to name.
I have met no one till now who appreciates the depth and beauty of that character. Perhaps because no one understands. People who read the novel talk only about how Rebecca occupies her thoughts, what a surprising revelation it is when the true nature of Rebecca is revealed. True, they are the defining points of the novel. But Du Maurier’s heroine is not just that, not just a vehicle for us to know about Rebecca. She has a life, and a life that is so vivid, so exquisite that in the novel she dwarfs the tall, dominating Rebecca in her prominence. The way she pretends confidence when Frith suggests she go to the Morning room, even when she doesn’t know where that is. The way she runs into the west wing just to escape meeting Maxim’s sister. The way she is afraid that someone will discover she has broken a vase. Her shy, timid personality, her absolute decapitating, yet unreasonable fear, her childish, humble ways, her ordinary, chaotic appearance; these are the things that make Rebecca the novel it is. Not Rebecca, not tall dominating Rebecca, not those tall, beastly rhododendrons that inhabit Manderley: the soul of the novel is a twenty one year old who is shy enough to be afraid of her own servants; and who, throughout the novel must even share her name with Rebecca.
But what of her, you ask. Why am I so concerned about her? I don’t know. Somewhere the novel reminds me of me. The way, when I first came to college, I sat erect in a plastic chair, perspiring, when a couple of seniors asked me to get a pack of biscuits, no more. The way, when faced with the task of calling up a guy I knew, knew quite well, to ask some doubts, I procrastinated for a full fortnight. The way I avert my eyes so often on seeing an acquaintance, for no reason whatsoever. God knows that I would run into a west wing myself, if I had one, whenever I had to make friends. Yes, by some surprising piece of coincidence, when Du Maurier drew up a picture of her heroine, she drew an amazing likeness of me.
Of course, I am not entirely a timid, blow-and-I-will-be-gone guy, or else I will never be where I am, past the JEE and a good rank at that. There is a part of me that is outgoing, a wee bit arrogant, and professional, there is a part of me that is Rebecca. The fact of the matter is that the world does not tolerate shyness, or timidity; the world does not tolerate Du Maurier’s heroine. It wants Rebecca, the charming, tall, dominating woman, the lady of the house, thoroughly professional and up to the task. It needs someone who will not run into the west wing when guests arrive, and if you do something like that it will look at you with bewildered, scornful eyes. You need to go out, fellow, talk to others, be beautiful, be the master, and the thorough businessman; a bumbling, timid guy who is content with his little cell of solitary comfort just won’t do. To be anything at all in this world you need to be Rebecca.
And that is what pricks my heart. The world is a fascist shithole, it scorns and scorns at Du Maurier’s heroine, making her realize at every step of the way that she is not like Rebecca, not what it wants, not what anybody wants. Let go of yourself, you are not needed, we need Rebecca. So either be Rebecca, or be damned. Y-Y-Yes sir, we will be Rebecca, all of us, and somewhere down the line we have six billion Rebeccas, Rebeccas who will rise to the top, trampling on others, crush the very friends they make, and yet not give a damn, and yet they will be beautiful, and yet they will be loved. Du Maurier’s heroine may have won, if only slightly; in the real world, it is Rebecca who wins. You are either Rebecca or you don’t exist.
Screw Rebecca.