Disciples of Diego Alvarez

No, not Diego Alvarez, the porn star who shows up on Google Search, but the fictional Portuguese explorer in Chander Pahar is the topic du jour.

Chander Pahar (Mountain of the Moon), fueled my imagination about how glamorous it'd be to be in Africa. Shankar, the protagonist in the famous Bangla book by Bibhuti Bhuson Bondopadhyay, is greatly influenced by this gold prospector.

Shankar gets a job at Uganda Railways and then battles African Lions, Black Mambas and braves volcanos to find the mountain of the moon, where the largest diamond mine is situated. Diego Alvarez, his mentor, becomes the typical hero of a tragedy. He lost his partner, Jim Carter, to a mysterious creature in the caves of the mountain. He knowingly decides to find the mountain again, and dig up more diamonds. Eventually, he and Shankar together find the caves, and he is killed by the same creature who killed Jim. The storyline is better described in the Wiki entry here.

Chander Pahar was the most fascinating piece of travel reading of my youth. Two of his other books are also my favorite - the famous Pather Panchali, later made into an aware winning film by Satyajit Ray (the film sucks compared to the book, btw, IMHO), and Aranyak, the underrated book about spending nights listening to the noises in a jungle. Bibhuti Bhushan, who never set foot in Africa (MOTM is based on Rhodesia and Uganda), sat in his Ghatshila, India residence in 1910, and imagined the majestic Baobab trees, and the experience of setting train tracks in an uncharted jungle, and living in tents at night with man eating lions circling the camps. the images. The feeling of reading them is still etched in distant corners of my memory. While I was landing on Nairobi airport last march, I was looking out the window in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a Baobab tree.
But I digress from my main topic, again.

Diego Alvarez is my tragic icon because of his obsession. What must it be like to sacrifice family, friends and trusted partners like Jim Carter, chasing after diamonds? And continuing on, never giving up, facing hardship and struggle, with a single focus of obtaining riches beyond dreams, and ultimately giving up own life? Is this the meaning of life, spent in pursuit of some abstract rock, giving up everything and everyone in the hopes that obtaining it will bring fulfilment. What if Alvarez found the rocks, would he have gone back to Portugal and settle down, or would he have developed another interest to chase after?

Obsessions are good. For a short time, it provides motivation, and allows individuals to rise above themselves despite difficulties and challenges. The entire fabric of social structure is built on cavemen becoming obsessive about showing off their (hunting) tools, and the women obsessing about wearing bright things that made them visible inside the dark caves.

Is there a case to be made for lifelong obsessions?