3 consistencies of existence
When a legend passes away, time pauses a bit. Perhaps it’s not everyday legends are born and maybe that’s why their departure feels differently even to those passing moments. Right now, millions of people in India and abroad might be experiencing this. The heaviness of passage. Lata Mangeshkar, or Lataji as she was fondly called, breathed her last this morning. She was 92. That’s a long, well lived, gifted life. It’s one thing to be talented and quite another to transform it into something epic. To her disciplined approach, her career spanned longer than independence from imperialism. And what a career she had! Singers tend to stay at the top for a few years, not decades, but this nightingale held on to her crown with little to no friction. Although she sung in about 40 languages, her contribution to Hindi cinema is unparalleled: you can think of any event in life—happy, glum, expectant, nostalgic, passionate, anything—and she’d lend her voice to an immortal song to mark that occasion. During my short stint as a journalist, I had the (mis)fortune of writing obituaries for greats like Rajesh Khanna, Dara Singh, PK Nair, and others, and it feels like I am writing an obit to one of my all-time favourite singers here.
It’s 21st century and discrimination is possible on on the basis of clothes. Might sound crazy unless you live in a country like India. Just a couple of months ago, a lady was not allowed entry into a restaurant because she was wearing a sari. Dress code, apparently. A colonial vestige held dear by desi hearts in cities. Recently, a group of young female students were barred entry from a college not very far from where I reside. Why? Because they were wearing niqab—there is a difference between niqab and hijab—and it prompted another communal controversy. Whatever you think about a regressive face veil, one thing is for certain: these girls’ education is bound to suffer and that is not acceptable. There are obviously religio-political players in the mix here but the only ones with their skin in the game are these students who just want to appear for their annual exams. On one hand, they are facing pressure from institutions that are wantonly changing rules and on the other hand, they are facing pressure from their fathers/brothers who insist they wear these medieval garments under the scorching sun.
Knowing the right language makes all the difference, no? Anything said in English, with the perfect employment of the catchy words and jargon, sounds serious enough. A part of the blame falls on social media’s reductive understanding of the world we live in. Instead of writing and reading in detail, the public resorts to catchphrases. Quick disposition of information. Quicker consumption. Which could be the reason why exaggeration is always in the air. Remember when Trump was elected POTUS and not a week went by the fearmongers didn’t remind us how he has the nuclear codes? As if he was allowed to launch nukes for fun. As if there were no military protocols in place. But then, that’s how a narrative is set, built and manifested over the years. The Russians were allegedly meddling in American democracy but somehow couldn’t meddle against Biden’s election. Speaking of Putin, we have been constantly fed clouds of a war in Ukraine. Fortunately, if something is getting exaggerated on social media, especially Twitter, be assured that it’s miles away from reality. That’s why it’s difficult to take genuinely critical words like catastrophic, racist, apocalyptic, genocide and truth at their face values alone. More often than not, things aren’t that bad. Of course, it doesn’t mean that they are good. It only means that the sewage has been perpetually flowing.
In the pageant of victimhood, whoever screams the loudest is touted to be the winner of pain. That might explain why so many of us are willing to accept being a martyr of suffering—both real and imagined—even at the cost of doing little to nothing to mitigate a situation. An analogy would be you tweeting ‘EAAARTTTHHQUAAAAAAAAAAKEEEEE…” instead of finding a safe spot for yourself first. Over the many, many centuries, the poets continued to tell us that words mean a lot and in some cases, they mean more than action. Well, we are finally at that stage where the fear of tomorrow is equal to fear in the very present. Bad things don’t even have to happen anymore. The mere assumption that they might happen is good enough fodder for martyrdom. A problem with this attitude is that the oppressors refine their game faster than the oppressed could even realize what changed.
Speaking of which, whenever you hear a prominent word, does it draw a picture in your head? For example, when I read ‘persecution’, I immediately think of Jews, Gypsies (Roma) and Parsis — not in that order. Since the very purpose of persecution is to annihilate the people in question, I think my deepest sympathies lie with the Parsis. As of today, there are about 15 million Jews and almost the same number of Roma whereas there are barely 200,000 (and not counting) Parsis left in the world, with most of them residing in India, their historic safe haven. I think we should change its spelling to ‘parsicution’ in their dying honour.
Do other people’s happiness make you sad? If yes, you are perfectly normal. Humans, by nature, are ambitious. Although success appears to be our common denominator, collective failure is often our parachute. It’s OK if I have a small car as long as my neighbour’s car isn’t bigger than mine. We call it a competitive streak when we know by now that it’s a mental illness: wanting more and not being able to enjoy what we’ve already got. Sick.
It’s February already and safe to suggest that Lionel Messi is having the worst season of his career. From scoring goals and providing assists week in and week out in one of the most demanding football leagues in the world, he has gone down to become the footballer with second-worst conversion rate in the top-5 league. There are many factors at play here and only time would tell how we’d look at his post-Barca legacy. Given the supremely inhuman standards that he set for himself for over a decade, whatever he is doing at PSG feels a tad underwhelming. Not one hat-trick yet. Bleh. But then, I also feel that he can do whatever the fuck he feels like on the field because he has done more than enough already.
My mother grew up on a farm, working in the fields all day long. When a person call themselves an army brat or a faculty brat, it is an association, nothing else. The kids won’t necessarily work in defense or academics. But the category my amma belongs to is unique in our country because a farmer’s children often get their hands dirty in the mud. In fact, just the day before her wedding, my mother was working in the paddy field. So, it’s natural that despite the post-marriage years spent in the hustle-bustle of Bombay, she retains a strong connect with agriculture. She remains critical of “modern” villagers who don’t farm anymore and have let their land turn fallow i.e. useless for farming. India alone accounts for 25% of the world’s fallow land. Letting a productive land become unproductive out of sheer laziness is something worth thinking about. Her criticism can be be best summed up by her joke on this subject – “We live in a world where kids are going to ask – ‘amma, on which tree does rice grow?’”
I don’t know about you but I remember everything I studied in English/Hindi/Marathi chapter books. Very vividly, including the titles and stories. There was a Hindi poem in our fourth standard where a mango tree describes the 3 seasons and how people react differently to her. During rain, people gather under the tree to avoid getting wet. During winter, people gather underneath to burn a bonfire to stay warm at night. And during summer, people gather to throw stones at the tree to score some ripe mangoes. There is no prize for guessing which season was ironically the worst. That’s when the sun above is harsh and people below are harsher.
After a long meditation, I’ve arrived at the conclusion of life. There are only three consistencies you will undergo while you are alive –
Suffering (you will keep suffering throughout; suffering is an art of living)
Waiting (you will keep waiting for something to happen; patience is in your DNA)
Healing (you will keep healing from your past wounds; redemption is possible)
Have you noticed how the desi accusation “bada aadmi ho gaya hai tu?” limits itself to only one gender? You would be hard-pressed to believe that only men are supposed to get prosperous in life. Womenfolk are resigned to the peripheries of his existence, providing him vital support from time to time, without revealing their identities much, let alone, take credit for his success. Thank you. I am all for gender equality but if we are not going to reprise the phrase ‘badi aurat’ anytime soon, I’d feel bad for South Asians.
My mother finally visited us in Mangalore and she is an ideal mother who is always advising about what to eat and what not to eat, and how to stay healthy, etc. Can get annoying at times. Since I am so used to talking to her on the phone than in person, when she was going on and on about the benefits of some spices, vegetables and oils, I ended up saying “deele, amma”. That’s Tulu for “please hang up” – something I’d say when we’d be talking on the phone. And I said when she was sitting a few feet away. Amazing how our brain works. Or doesn’t.
He: “If I remember you, you have a problem with that. If I forget you, you have a problem with that as well. What do you want?”
She: “World peace.”
He: “For that to happen, you will have to die first, and that is too high a price for world peace.”