Rip Van Winkle and Solo Date

He was residing in the city for the last three years after migrating there. He started from his residence one day and went out in the city. He went to the nearest metro station and took a ride to one of the popular areas in the city, known for good restaurants and relaxing atmosphere. He had some good food and then decided on go-karting from there. 

He took an autorikshaw from there and went to one of the prominent residential districts of the city, got into a cafe and settled down with a cup of coffee being entirely unaware that something important had gone missing. 

While he was enjoying his coffee, the auto driver who had given him a ride from the other location walked up to him in the cafe, and handed over to him a key bunch. The bunch had his car keys, house keys and locker keys. It was then that he realised that he had dropped it in the autorikshaw without realising so. The auto driver had driven back to the cafe as soon as he saw the key bunch, negotiating through the city's thick traffic and notorious long traffic jams. 

The man sipping and enjoying his coffee profusely thanked the auto driver for his kind gesture and offered him some money to compensate him for the drive back to the cafe and probably some part as a reward for the kind act. The auto driver politely refused the money offered and was on his way quickly. 

***** 

Rip Van Winkle was a Dutch-American villager who was a very likeable fellow, but avoided work and responsibilities. He was particularly keen to avoid his nagging wife. He lived in the Catskill Mountains in the south-eastern New York, along with many early Dutch settlers there, before the American Revolution. One day he left his house with his dog on a squirrel hunting trip. 

As the evening fell, he heard his name being called and found an old man in traditional dutch dress carrying a keg. He helped the old man carry his burden and then saw a group of similarly dressed men playing ninepins, similar to today's bowling game. Rip Van Winkle joined them in the game and drank heavily from the keg and fell asleep. 

He got up on a sunny morning and found that much has changed. He now had a foot long white beard, his dog was nowhere to be seen and surroundings had changed as well. He returned to his village which had now become much bigger, people were dressed in unfamiliar clothing and no one recognised him. Someone asked him about his voting in the recent elections and he answered that he was a loyal subject of George III, not knowing that American Revolutionary War was fought and many of his friends were killed in it. 

When Rip went to his house he found that there was a young man with his name and a young woman as well. The young woman said that they are the children of Rip Wan Winkle and their father is missing for twenty years. His wife had died in the meanwhile. The young woman, his daughter, had also named her infant son after her father. 

Rip learns from a village elder that the men he met in the mountains were said to be ghosts of the crew of a ship named Halve Maen, owned by the Dutch East India Company. His daughter takes him inside the house and Rip resumes his usual idle life and enjoys telling his story to every stranger he comes across. Some consider him as insane, but it matters little to him. Then the legend grows in the neighbourhood that whenever there is a thunder near the mountains, the men of the shipwrecked crew must be playing ninepins. 

*****

The first story, the one of the missing key bunch and friendly auto driver, has appeared in today's newspapers and is from Bangalore. The one about Rip Van Winkle is the summary of a short story by the same name written by American author Washington Irving, first published in the year 1819, some two hundred and six years ago. 

There are many events of late in various parts of the world in which there is a conflict between local people and immigrants from other parts of the same country, or from other countries as well. Sometimes it is about availing the benefit of local facilities and some other time it is about speaking local language. There are stories of immigrants being treated very harshly for not speaking local language. There are also instances of immigrants taking pride in not speaking the local language and not even making efforts to learn them. This has happened in many parts of the world. Some of them get very very wide publicity and are followed by the visual media day after day. 

The story of Rip Van Winkle is read every year in the area community even today. There are three statues of Rip Van Winkle around New York state. Four films were made on the basis of this story. There were several theatre adaptations and used for serials and cartoons. We studied this when we were students in High School. 

*****

What is the relation to the two stories, one a real life happening last week and another a story written over two hundred years ago? There are indeed similarities. 

The story of the "Missing Key Bunch" would not have attracted any attention as there have been several such happenings over the years. For every hostile treatment of an immigrant there is also a parallel anecdote wherein the community has embraced a stranger with all love and affection. For every cruel auto driver story, there are matching stories of good samaritans. Many auto drivers have handed over valuable jewellery and similar assets and documents to the police, which were later returned to their rightful owners. 

The story would not have caught attention except for two expressions used in the news report. The first one was about "OP". The second one was about "Solo Date". The story started thus: "The OP, who is not a Bangalore native, said he was out n a slo date......." 

It took some time and work to understand the meaning of "OP" and "Solo Date". We knew that OP was used for denoting "Opening Balance" in accounts. Some people used it to mean "Operation" in surgical interventions. But in today's language OP means "Original Poster" who makes a post in the social media platforms and creates a thread for others to hang around it!

The expression "Solo Date" is even more interesting. There was no dating in our parts of the world fifty years ago. The only date we knew was the date on the calendar on the wall. Dating system prevalent in some other parts of the world has entered even middle and high schools now. Those not familiar with this may as well see a recent Kannada Movie "Gantu Moote".

Dating concept originally probably meant to happen between two individuals, usually of opposite sex. It then graduated to dating between two people, maybe even two men or two women. There was the case of a person marrying herself (Please click here to read more about it) sometime back. Now here are the days of "Solo Dating" or "Self Dating". It is defined as a "deliberate activity done alone to prioritise self-care and connection, as a way to embrace life without external validation and enjoy activities or relaxation". It is said it helps self-discovery, stress management and personal growth. 

*****

We spent several days alone, especially on holidays during early working life, when family or friends were not around and we lived alone in strange towns as part of employment. Days were spent on similar activities like going out and having lunch in a restaurant, coffee in a small canteen and watching a movie in a theatre. We were not required to Solo-date because we did not feel lost, making self discovery unnecessary. Today's generation may say that life was not this stressful at all then which required stress management by solo-dating. Neither was a need for shutting out from external interventions for validation.

This is indeed one of the "Rip Van Winkle" moments for us, as if we have come back from a deep slumber of several years, and finding everything around us has changed! It often looks like that we used the wrong dictionary and grammar books. We were not lost in those days, but there is a need to rediscover ourselves in today's world!