Remembering Patrick Stewart
“Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalks us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment, because they’ll never come again.” (Star Trek Generations, 1994)
Somewhere between the Middle East and the Atlantic, 35,000 ft above, I learned that Sir Patrick Stewart has passed away. He was 86 and lived a long, successful life, no doubt. Still, for icons like him, it creates a stillness of a personal kind.
Flashback of memories sitting quietly on your side suddenly wakes up and takes you on a whirlwind tour of the time left behind.
Also Read: Remembering Robert Redford
My mind went to Bloomington, Indiana, and to Avik Mukherjee. We were graduate students in the days before the internet. We are dinosaurs, if you like. Television meant a few national channels on a campus connection. Parties meant a handful of friends, a pressure cooker, and a cheap non-stick pan from a K-Mart blue-light sale. The blue lights have long gone dark. So, somewhere along the way, did my connection to Avik. He was an MBA student and left after a year.
What he left behind was Star Trek.
No adda was too good for Avik to abandon. When the hour came, he would jump up and run to Eigenmann Hall, where the common TV was. Most of us lived off campus and had no set of our own. He said he would give up the best biryani in the world for Captain Picard. I laughed then. I understand it now.
That is why this loss feels personal. Stewart never played the hero who wins by force. He played the man who listens, who waits, who stays kind. He showed that waiting is not weakness.
That is how a bald man on the bridge of the Enterprise entered my life. He was still and patient, and he believed that a conversation could do what a fist could not.
Years later, a different kind of crush brought me back to the same man. Hugh Jackman’s Logan led me to the X-Men, and there was Professor Xavier, and there again was Stewart. Next to him stood another old friend, Ian McKellen.
Then, one rainy night before Thanksgiving, in New York, I saw the two of them on a Broadway stage in Waiting for Godot. Sir Patrick was Vladimir and Sir Ian was Estragon. They were two knights of the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing two tramps by a bare tree. I had first heard the story of Godot in ninth standard, from my friend’s father. He had told us, “One day it will all make sense.” That night it did.
Stewart’s Vladimir was tattered hope, dignified even as it frayed. Fifty years of friendship glowed in every swapped hat and shared glance. The play was funny and it was heartbreaking, and the two could not be separated.
That is why this loss feels personal. Stewart never played the hero who wins by force. He played the man who listens, who waits, who stays kind. He showed that waiting is not weakness.
Godot never comes. Beckett knew that. But the waiting, done in good company, is a life.
So tonight I will make a cup of Earl Grey, hot, for Captain Picard, for Vladimir, and for the memories that stalk us all our lives.
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Mousumi was raised in Kolkata but now call New York her home. She pursued her PhD from Indiana University Bloomington and currently works as a Marketing & Consumer Data and Design Analytics professional. She is Co-founder and Director at MDRK Partners. She loves to read, cook, take photos on her phone and travel.
