A young mind

A girl is sitting all by herself in the midst of a busy morning cafeteria. Spotted in front of her is what seems to be a plate of Chinese food and a very intriguing black book. The clock shows it is only 11.30am; it must be an early lunch for her or simply she is craving for noodles, dumplings and stir-fried vegetables. She starts to tear open the hot sauce and sweet & sour sauce sachets and pours them at the corner of her plate. Oh, the sweet & sour sauce is so bright red! 100% colouring and preservatives, perhaps? Nevertheless, she begins to open the black book and attempts to read it while eating. It is not an easy task, as it seems to her. Some of the sauce got onto the book and she is running to get some napkins to wipe the sauce off. It will stained, nevertheless. The effort is very much appreciated.

From a distance, the title reads “The Motorcycle Diaries”, a personal diary written by none other than Ernesto “Che” Guevara about his journey across South America and his provoking thoughts associated with it. Humff, that is a very interesting choice of book. It might implies she has a curious young mind, probably she is seeking for a reason to understand the workings of a young mind of another; she chose to find the answer in the young Che Guevara. Love or hate, Che Guevara has become one of the hero in the past century and the diary reveals the development of his idealogy and his compassion to help others. It is amazing how traveling can change one’s mindset forever and for that he had to be fortunate. He didn’t travel the way you and I did, he had it the hard way on a motorcycle together with his friend Alberto Granado. Although the motorcycle did fail them later, but nothing is to bring them down. He put himself at the same level as the locals to enjoy and suffer the pain together, despite his status as a medical student. That was the young Che and she is reading the right book.

Probably, she is not even halfway reading the book from what it seems from here, and so, she is not even close to the climax. Smiles are repeatedly spotted on her face while she is doing some not-so-fancy multitasking. Did Che write jokes in his diary? One can safely assume that. Che was a revolutionist, no one can beg to differ that, but one can agree or disagree with his act of revolution. Yes or no, his young mind was the essence of his revolution.

Let her finish the book; she will succumb to a conclusion for herself. From where she stands now in her reading, she will find Che’s ideas to be persuasive and admirable. Well, a brilliant young mind doesn’t come too often.

“This isn’t a tale of derring-do , nor is it merely some kind of `cynical account’; it isn’t meant to be, at least. It’s a chunk of two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams. In nine months a man can think a lot of thoughts, from the height of philosophical conjecture to the most abject longing for a bowl of soup – in perfect harmony with the state of his stomach. And if, at the same time, he’s a bit of an adventurer, he could have experiences which might interest other people and his random account would read something like this diary”

(Guevara,1951)