Friday Night with the Penguins

Friday evening in the Wendelin-Chengiz home, and we're having a little party with just ourselves: yummy mushroom fritters, a light dinner that we hardly even get to, drinks all around. The show tonight is March of the Penguins.

"This is totally fake," my ever-skeptical husband comments over the opening shots of the endless blues and whites of Antarctica. "Probably all CG."

"You are all CG," is my smart retort.

"What, look at it. This would be so easy to make."

I shake my head. "What's in it for them? Why would they go through all the trouble to CG it if they were actually in Antarctica?"

The movie vindicates me almost as I speak the words: Morgan Freeman is now talking about how for the next year, a bunch of crazy movie-makers will stay holed up in a research base with thirty scientists, filming the mating cycle of the Penguins.

"Morgan Freeman sucks," Saurabh says. "He's so full of himself."

I agree. His narration has this self-conscious quality to it - and by "self-conscious", I don't mean shy and embarrassed.

But the penguins are fascinating. On the face of it, the lives of penguins look utterly pointless to me: once they reach physical maturity, those cute little birds' lives are done. Finito. They get about three months of summer off in a year to fish and swim around and eat - and then they start walking. They need to find firm ice to nest, ice that won't melt when summer comes and ice that's relatively sheltered from the harsh gales of the windiest continent on earth. The average temperature in Antarctica is 70 degrees F below zero. They walk more than 70 miles in that weaving gait of theirs, mostly on little flipper-y feet but sometimes sliding on their bellies on slippery ice.

Saurabh is loving this. "Shit, they're having fun."

"What fun, it'll be so frickin' cold."

"But look at them, sliding around. They're loving it."

"Yeah, at 70 degrees (F) below zero," I scoff.

"Nah, it's summer. It won't be that cold."

We check it up later on the internet. He's right, it's only just freezing at this spot in Antarctica in February. We find out that Morgan Freeman exaggerated with distances as well- the Penguins don't trek 70 miles, they trek 60. Still. Pretty frickin' cold, damn long walk. I maintain they're not really having fun. But I have to admit they sure make it look like they are, gambolling about like that.

Now they find their "save haven" in that icy hell, and begin to court one another in a ridiculously leisurely fashion - two whole weeks. They mate. The movie doesn't really show the mating - just some kissy-kissy poses (which are actually quite endearing and picturesque).

"Bloody G-rated movie," Saurabh grumbles.

I totally understand. "It's just animals mating. Why can't they leave that in?"

"Yeah, what do you expect... it's Hollywood. Some head honcho decided they should market this movie mainly to kids, so of course they couldn't risk not getting a G rating."

I'm almost as irritated as Saurabh. This is a documentary: it's not supposed to clothe penguins in human modesty. But what can you do? "They'll probably show the mating footage in the special features," I tell him, by way of consolation. Still, it's a 'meh' moment in an otherwise mesmerising movie.

The female lays a precious egg, and sits on it for a couple of weeks. Note that by this time, nobody's had anything to eat for about two months. The new mothers, especially, are starving. It's time for somebody to go fetch some food.

So the females transfer the eggs from their little furry pouch to their mates' little furry pouch. It's a trickier operation than you think, since they don't have hands. Many eggs freeze to death during the transfer.

And then the mothers start walking back to the place they came from - the nearest place where there's water, and therefore, food. 60+ miles again. They take their time, eating their fill and storing up food for their chicks, which will have hatched by the time they get back to their mates. They gorge themselves for six weeks, and start waddling back, their bellies weighing them down considerably.

By this time, the males are starving, and pretty much freezing to death, because it's mid-winter. The sun is hiding away somewhere, the winds are really beginning to huff and blow gallons of snow onto the huddled mass of males. It's been four months since they got any chow, and they await the females' return anxiously. Then - the reunion. The mothers are introduced to their newly hatched chicks, who are transferred to the female's furry pouch for safekeeping poste haste. As the hungry chicks feed on the fish regurgitated by their mommies, the males start on their 60 mile trek back to food.

Saurabh and I are enthralled, and we're making assorted noises of awe. Morgan Freeman's pompous narration has ceased to irritate.

"Shit, that's incredible," I say. It seems that the hungry males, even though they've been starving for four months, save a little food in their stomachs for the chicks to keep them fed till their mothers come back. "Imagine the self-control it must take."

"Yeah, you'd never be able to do it."

"You would never be able to do it."

We look at each other for a second, and snort. My witty repartee is a running joke, as are my uncontrollable snacking urges.

As we settle back in to watch the movie, Saurabh seems thoughtful. "This is God, babe," he tells me. "You atheists don't know anything. Look at this."

Uh oh.

My oh-so-very skeptical husband often suspends his disbelief when it comes to the question of God. To him, God is an axiom, the fundamental law governing the universe, the initial Cause of all things. That which is wonderful and incredible in nature is God. Almost a reversion to the pagan idea of God, when you think about it... but I am always appreciative that his position is at least rational. He doesn't think God has much to do with benevolence and answering prayers and such.

"That nurturing instinct these penguins have," he continues, "that is God. Look at it."

I'm always ready for this debate. "That doesn't mean a thing," I tell him. "The 'instinct' is 'God'? What does that even mean?"

"Just that. Where does it come from? What gives them the instinct? The law that allows them to have it - that's God."

"Oh, come on. An instinct is a product of evolution. If they didn't have this instinct, they'd have died out."

"But they didn't. How come they suddenly got this instinct that allowed them to survive?"

"They didn't suddenly get it. Hundreds of species that didn't have the instict did die out. What you're seeing is the one that survived because it had the instinct."

"And what is this instinct anyway? In physical terms? It's just a feeling. Evolution can make changes in your chemistry, but how can it give you a feeling?"

"You read that brain book!" I remind him. We both recently read this excellent book about the workings of the human brain. "There's physical chemistry behind every feeling."

"Tchah!" he says, shaking his head. "There is true, unexplainable beauty here. You're just refusing to see it."

That does it. I launch into a passionate tirade about beauty and mystery and wonder.

I think saying that something is scientific does nothing to reduce the wonder of it. Quite the contrary, in fact. Take the moon, I tell Saurabh. On days when there's a cresent moon, if you look closely, you'll be able to see the faint outline of the whole moon. The reason you can see it is because light from stars billions of miles away illuminates it - starlight, and light reflected from the earth itself. Think of the journey those particles of light have taken, their amazing paths, from millions of light-years away, and all the way from the sun to the earth and then reflected from the earth's atmosphere onto the moon. The wonder I feel on contemplating that beats the fake-wonder of the "God did it" explanation, hands down and bottoms up. There's just no comparison.

It's a terribly moving speech. Saurabh, bless him, is tipsy enough to regard me very fondly as I am making it. I've won this argument, for now. Tipsy opponent or not, I am feeling very smug.

I bring in more mushroom fritters, settle into the crook of his arm, and we turn the movie back on. As the chicks grow, they're transferred from mom's furry pouch to daddy's, and then back again as the parents take turns to trek, feed and bring back food for the chicks. By the beginning of summer, the chicks are old enough to begin their own march back to the fishing grounds. Under the wing of the parent of the moment, the learn to walk and gambol around and slowly move towards their destination. Meanwhile, the parents are still taking turns to bring back food for the chicks, all the way from the water.

Soon, the penguins reach the water. It's the moment of parting: the chicks will now take off on their own, swimming and fishing and living out their carefree childhoods for five years. Then they will reach physical maturity, and they will return to their parents as adults. They are ready to begin on their first annual march to produce their own offspring.

It was a good movie. They even showed the actual mating in the special features, so Saurabh and I were mollified - though the making-of documentary was below par (they just repeated what we'd been told in the movie already, whereas I was interested to know how they shot it, and what the humans went through during the filming).

All in all, March of the Penguins is not a bad way to spend a cold Friday night, especially when accompanied by mushroom fritters and a tipsy husband willing to concede arguments to one's charm.

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