About blue whales and barnacles’ penis
In our dreams, we become everything that we could have been otherwise. With our eyes’ shutter down, we reach new limits and set new…
In our dreams, we become everything that we could have been otherwise. With our eyes’ shutter down, we reach new limits and set new limitations — contrary to popular belief, these two words don’t mean the same — and accomplish wild possibilities. For instance, you can be an adventurer in the Amazon basin overnight. Nobody is going to stop you and ask you for your credentials. No, that’s not how the world of dreams work. You are something and everybody around you simply accepts it. They say we are imposters in our day-to-day existence, which might be true, but nowhere close to the sort of imposters we turn into during our dreams. From allowing us to fly a plane to letting us engage in brutal combat to encouraging us to kill strangers and saving our beloveds, our lalaland is an escape as well as a prison.
While growing up, my amma used to say that I speak in my dreams. I was apparently the only one in the house who screamed words in his sleep. Others mumbled whereas I was known for creating a conversational concerto. This stopped only after I moved to a hostel in 2002. That’s when I started watching dreams that left me with tears and nightmares that scarred my upcoming days. Perhaps the fact that I was away from my family for a change played a role here. I remember waking up in the middle of the night only to find myself weeping about something. Similarly, the horror of confronting scary characters — instead of running in the opposite direction — always resulted in a cold sweat. Since there was no one to talk about these dreams with — we don’t appreciate social media enough; it’s perhaps the sanest place to talk to yourself about you — they remained with me. As of today, if I watch a wonderful or a haunting dream, it immediately makes its way to this blog. Thank internet for small mercies.
If I ask you specifically to help me with some ideas, you might struggle a bit. To paraphrase the mighty Arnab, the sheer suddenness and the unexpected nature and the unpredictability of such requests might put you in an uncomfortable spot. Turns out we aren’t afraid of ideas until somebody uses the word ‘ideas’ to define something. Otherwise, we are basking in the glory of our ideas about everything around us. So much so we are more in line with our imagined views about stuff than its core realities. For instance, right now, in the thick of this lockdown, you crave the idea of going out with your friends. But if you were to go out with them, the experience wouldn’t come anywhere close to the initial idea that you had. That’s the beauty of mind. We think that we are in control of our personal narratives but in practice, we are slaves to our environment.
My nephew is barely three months old and I hear stories about him smiling in his sleep. He doesn’t cry when he is deep resting. Weeping inconsolably is for wakey-wakey times and I can’t help but wonder what must be going through his soft little head. How much information he must be collecting and discarding day in and day out. Those curious little eyes, constantly staring at bright colours and patterns, will absorb a lot more than we fathom. Most importantly, I wonder about the dreams he watches during the long hours he is asleep. Does he see or does he feel them? A tiny little body and so much complexity. Someday, he will grow up and, hopefully, would smile while he’s fast asleep and somebody nearby will him remind later how peaceful he looked for a few fleeting moments. Someday, he might even cry in his sleep watching a dream with the fear of losing someone he hasn’t found yet. That would be tragic, yes, but necessary too.
We want answers and we want them now. We may not understand the questions but we can’t wait to greet our answers. That’s how desperate we are. That’s how impatient we are. The reason why more often than not, a meeting doesn’t give desirable results is because people come to a meeting — online or offline — to speak, not to hear. The ideal technique should be to think beforehand and then speak as well as hear others out. Unless you are a genius of Chanakayan order or accurate of Rankean confidence, it’s quite basic to meditate on the subject and then jump to a conference. Otherwise, most of the so-called ideas expressed in the meeting would be the equivalent of you running on the street naked without experiencing an eureka moment.
Nobody inspires me anymore. There was a period when every second person I read about made me want to push myself beyond my threshold. Let’s call this phase the TEDx Era. Watching a few inspirational videos by erudite personalities would propel me to be the best I can. Not sure whether any of them worked because there is nobody else to evaluate except me. I remember watching a documentaries on Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, and I can’t forget how petty I felt, auditing my rickety life goals. To this day, I have nothing but respect for folks like them, who stand up against the system, not because they know better but because somebody has to. That’s the thing about inspiration. It comes and goes. Sachin Tendulkar made me believe that I too can become a cricketer; I even (unsuccessfully) trialed for Bombay U-15 selection. Meryl Streep once nearly inspired me to become an actress. So, yes, all these ultra-achievers kept entering my realm of purpose and left through the back door while I stayed contemplating what to do next. Finally, after crossing 34, I don’t have any one particular role model to look up to. That doesn’t mean I don’t admire the courageous and the resilient souls — most of them don’t even make it to the magazine cover — but I am perfectly fine with my style. Or rather lack of it.
This pandemic has taught us a lot of stuff. Some almost life-changing while most so random but not redundant. For example, we realized that working-from-home is effective in cutting out unnecessary wastage of time and resources (commute, office chats, internet, etc.) but at the same time, it also means that we could be slogging all the time. In a workplace, you get these mini-breaks as you move from Point A to Point B whereas when you are stuck at home, one zoom call ends at 11am and another starts at 11am. You are constantly seated but occupied too. The trick here is to manage your time more efficiently by contributing to projects where you are 100% and excusing yourself from those where you are barely 60%. After all, being productive is not a question anymore. The question is, are you productive against your wish? What you do in your professional sphere must help your organization as well as you grow. Learning should remain the quotient. Before lockdown took place, we used to hear a lot of people say they work late, conveniently forgetting that they start their day late too. Any idea why we don’t hear that much?
There was a time in history when I used to enlighten my brother with never-heard-before pieces of knowledge. Now that the tide has changed, he bombards me with mind-boggling nuggets. Epistemology, anyone? He teaches political science/mass media at a college in Mumbai and in his field, semblance is problematic. In other words, truth is god. During many of our chats, I’ve noticed how Pol.Sci and Media are roaring for truth but are often far from it. At the end of the day, a student of truth believes what she feels like. All the data and all the statistics are often insufficient mainly because inadequacy is a major ingredient of human nature. We covet completion but nothing completes us. And for some cosmic reasons, perhaps, we believe truth might just do the job. But then, the problem is truth isn’t there to complete us. It’s there to set us free. And it will set us free provided we are chaotic enough.
In our country, we talk about government, not governance. Similarly, we discuss corruption, not bureaucracy. Smoother words, hollowness inside. The way I see it, there is a strong dearth of uniformity, especially in the public sector. It’s like those who are supposed to helm the system are too impressed with an octopus. As you know, none of an octopus’s limbs are aware of what any of the others are doing. They all have independent control systems. At least they behave so. Not very different from the public units in our country. A road is being dug in the middle of the monsoon with water accumulating the holes while trees are chopped on the sides — as if an offering to the rain gods — is a common sight. Wonder whether any of the departments involved here consult any of the other departments who should be involved as well, so that we are spared such degrading public spectacles?
Are you fascinated by blue whales? Of course you are. They are, with utmost sincerity, epic in all possible terms. Yet, there is a lot we don’t know about them. While you are reading this, scientists and explorers are at it, trying to decode their mysterious behaviour. We still don’t know why they sing at that particular frequency. We still haven’t seen them mate; they go to the deepest parts of the ocean to do the deed. We still don’t know why they can only identify the colour red — it’s the colour of their fave food — and don’t care much about the rest of the spectrum. All we know is they are gentle giants who know their place (and pace) in the world. However, blue whales still fare better when compared to the barnacles. Here is a creature that is beyond crazy, above amazing. They are everywhere and yet so reclusive. Even Darwin couldn’t fully figure them out. They appear static but the fact remains that they adopt sedentary lifestyles — like the rest of us — only in their adulthood. In their younger days, they explore the world. I particularly find its mating culture interesting. Turns out size matters in their community and as a consequence, a barnacle with small disposition would go to extreme lengths — literally and figuratively — to ensure he spreads his seeds. Which is also how (not why) barnacles have the largest penis in the animal kingdom, when compared to its body size. In absolute terms, blue whales obviously have the longest member. Epic stuff indeed.