At thirty-six, Tsukuru Tazaki recollects his life he had led
up until that point in time. He ponders over his childhood, his time with four
of his best friends and about the most testing time of his life at twenty, when
the prospect of dying had such a hold on him.
Tsukuru, Japanese for 'the one who make things' - and true
to his name, he had a fascination to build rail stations and that took him away
from his closely knit group of five friends and from his family. From Nagoya,
his home town to Tokyo where he was to study engineering.
Tsukuru thought himself to be 'colorless' and an empty
vessel and unknowingly was first to blame himself when things didn't went as
expected. Was he justified in thinking about himself in this light? Did he ever
seriously consider how others felt about him? Should he be writing scripts for
others on his mind? or maybe this is how Tsukuru was wired.
"Some people write string quartets, some grow lettuce
and tomatoes. There have to be a few who build railroad stations, too. And I
wouldn't say I have a passion for it, exactly. I just have an interest in one
specific thing."
He had a chance encounter with Haida, a junior while in
college who had a thing for philosophy besides music. "This might sound
rude Tsukuru, but I think it's an amazing achievement to find even one specific
thing in life that you're interested in."
And then one fine day...without any goodbye, Haida went away
- just like a fellow passenger in a long train journey with whom you become
friends, only to discover next day they are gone while you were sleeping,
without bidding a goodbye or a promise to stay in touch. Tsukuru comforted
himself asking questions like - "Why would they stay friends with a guy
like me?"
After having failed to commit to any of the girl friends he
previously had, it bothered him as to why he wasn't taking that final big
stride. Was he clueless about the immense emotional baggage he was carrying all
those years? Why was (and is) he not curious to know why his four friends
banished him one fine day, no reason given whatsoever and no intent from
Tsukuru to know 'why'?. And since that incident, sixteen years went by where he
led a life which had no meaning whatsoever - but he carried on, walking those
steps necessary to survive life. Probably, that is what he is, a survivor and a
plain one at it.
And he meets Sara, and she at 38, two years elder to Tsukuru
fuels a spark which he badly needs.
Human traits do not change unless one is willing to change.
That way, human mind is a great player. It can play any game it wishes to and
all we do is react and act upon it. Within such dexterity, there too lies a
rigidity of not letting go of how you view life, being relentless in believing
certain things and how it would fail, each time and how you would ensure it
would fail because..... it happened in the past and it so must happen. Any room
for a change?
All his life and specially those sixteen years, Tsukuru
tried to hide those unpleasant memories - but deep down it was there, in a dark
corner and unknown to Tsukuru playing tricks on how he viewed life and its
situations.
"You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history
that produced them."
Sara convinces him why he must revisit his past, meet his
four friends and how he must pursue to know 'why' he was treated the way he was
long time ago. Tsukuru knew he can hide memories for a lifetime, but what about
the history that bogged him down, that made him a prisoner locked in a cell.
Doesn't he feel like breaking out?
Tsukuru takes a blind leap and decides to re-visit his past.
Along this path, he meets his friends and realise, life of others was different
from how he had pictured in his own mind.
While he was unearthing the past, he finds Sara on a summer evening,
walking with an elderly man, holding hands, laughing, which gave an impression
that she was very happy. He knew he finally found a girl in Sara with whom he
can spend the rest of his life and yet those images of her holding hands with
another man bothered him, every minute, every second. He had made up his mind
that he cannot give her that happiness, he was colorless, empty and probably
that's the reason people leave him, just like that... abruptly and all of a
sudden.
And then.... a trip to Finland to meet his childhood friend
with a hope that she would fill the void to that 'history'.
Sixteen years later, those feelings of dying came back to
him when he returned to Tokyo and he was sure, if Sara chose the other man over
him.. there was nothing left for him to live for. His mind was on a brink of a
collapse, took him to the darkest of the forest a man could imagine and threatened
to unleash deadly elves that would finish him.
"If he had to lose it, he would rather lose
himself."
..... and yet..... he manages to survive!, another battle
with his mind. And he realised one thing about himself - in spite of those colorless
sixteen years he led.
"Not everything was lost in the flow of time. We truly
believed in something back then, and we knew we were the kind of people capable
of believing in something - with all our hearts. And that kind of hope will
never simply vanish."
As the title suggests, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his
years of pilgrimage - the Tsukuru can be anyone we know and how each one has a
story, a unique one because of our thoughts, how our mind processes the same
fact differently and makes us to react in a way that makes us who we are. The
key to survival is not a set of formulas - but a constant game played on our
minds and that game knows no rules!
