Are you pure and pious?
Over the past decade, the mainstream media has struggled a lot with the concept of truth. In essence, the journalists weren’t prepared for a world where the commoners would be equipped with an instrument (social media) that would create micro-journos out of anyone with half an kilogram of brain and a smartphone. Now, thanks to the deep penetration of the internet, we receive footage from places the mainstream journalists never bother to venture in. This paradigm shift in perspective has played out rather curiously in a vast country like India: the mainstream simply picks up any chosen narrative and then procures 10-15 stories related to it from faraway lands in the country—to assert that it’s a national event. Quite a fabulous turn of tales, if you may, because you can find congruence in almost everything the editors wish to project here. For example, if power (electricity) theft is to be shown as a national issue, how difficult can it possibly be to get a dozen such stories from different states/territories on the same day? You can replicate this template with anything. Everything, actually.
Aren’t we all tired of breaking news? I mean, if anything, they are heartbreaking news. I’ve never consumed news with that fervour with the capability to make me feel better. Never. It’s always something upsetting, something benumbing, something grave, something hopeless. I wish there was a news channel that would broadcast only positive news; stories that would make us want to save the world for a change. The question here is, does the audience have the stomach to handle something nice? We’ll have to see. Instead of breaking news, people like me are in dire need of good news. Please.
How do you differentiate between facts and truths? I mean, when I was in school, Pluto was a planet. It was a fact. Back then, there were no states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh or Uttarakhand. A fact, again. There was no such thing as the Southern Ocean either. But then, with time, the facts change because our truths change. The truth is that Pluto still exists, having no trouble whatsoever with what the earthlings call it in their textbooks. Similarly, the land that came to be renamed as the newest states of Union of India existed for ages. And in the same vein, the limitless stretch of ocean—it’s all one unit of water—doesn’t care what the scientists believe in. A mild conclusion could be in favour of truths over facts because the former refuses to be a subset of the latter.
The term ‘mythology’ is used extensively but isn’t understood much. We, the learned lot, like to relegate it to the past, not realizing that it had never gone out of work. Mythology is always in the making. Without the human spirit of mythologizing others—people who are admired or detested for different reasons—there is no aspiration to climb up on. All mythologies were carved out of their concurrent realities. For the mythology of Zeus to be created, there had to be some semblance in the real world. The same is true for other mythological characters like Krishna, Ra, Odin, Rama, Sita, Aphrodite, Venus, as well as the founders of the many religions. Our imagination can only take us so far. If you think mythology has stopped today, you are mistaken. It’s constantly in motion. Just look at how our celebrated heroes, especially from the field of sports and business, are heralded in our culture. This is so because humans can’t do without stories, and all great stories sprinkle in a garnish of falsehood to achieve perfection. That’s how tales are sold through products endorsed on glossy screens. As of today, no mythology is greater than that of Elon Musk. Here is a man who has made a generation of well-informed individuals believe that Mars is inevitable.
Nobody else can decide your truth for you. Remember the Trump Era? Every week, that Joker-cum-POTUS lipped something obnoxious on TV and his detractors frothed while his cheerleaders smiled and shrugged. Even during such a divisive drama, it was interesting to note how we, the blessed public, couldn’t keep our bias aside. Think about it. This is the very reason why we mistrusted everything Trump said except when he bragged about a sexual assault. We chose to believe that because we wanted to. It never occurred to us that he might have never done any of it and was pathologically lying to make himself appear macho. We called him a liar through and through but instantly believed him when he said he could do whatever he wanted just because he was rich and famous.
How do you take your coffee? I take it with a lot of hope. Since I am not a coffee snob or a caffeine aficionado, even a small (pink) cup fills me with good thoughts. No demands. It has to be sweet though. It’s beyond me how others can have black coffee and that too without a spoon of sugar. Like how? It’s an acquired taste, not a required one. Either they have evolved way too much as living organisms or they have genuinely given up on life. Either way, I’ve got admiration for those who enjoy black coffee without sugar. Yet, if you think about it, not demanding sugar in black coffee is also a demand, no?
If you aren’t residing in a smaller city, where almost all the addresses are accessible within 30-40 minutes by car, you can’t fathom the difference between space and time. I won’t call myself a poet (anymore) but I can pen extended paeans on the sheer convenience caused by a city that is well-connected and adheres to basic principles of well-being. One way to look at this subject is to accept that there is a lot of village left in Tier 2/3 cities in our country. Another way to look at it is to deconstruct the ongoing imitation game (Mangalore wants to be like Bangalore, Pune wants to be like Mumbai, Salem-Chennai, etc.). The more you spend time in smaller cities, the more you get to experience the lightness of fast transforming villagers. After all, when a village breathes in, a city breathes out.
10 years ago, Taslima Nasreen tweeted to me something heartwarming. Back then, I used to work as a journalist and enjoyed certain aspects of my job a lot. Particularly watching lots and lots of movies without paying a paise. Now that I am working on the corporate side with little to no time for myself, I revisited her tweet and was wondering what would make me happy now. As a starter, if I didn’t have to worry about money—my parents aren’t leaving behind properties, they did more than enough for us anyway—I would plan my day around watching 5-6 movies every single day. Followed by reading about those productions, and probably writing about them. Nothing else. That’s it.
You must be old enough to have heard the words “true love” and if you haven’t, congratulations. Because eloquent words make us want to live long, even if our quality of life suffers. They motivate us to reach for the stars even if we fall flat on our nose. That’s the beauty of poetry. But here’s a spoiler for you: there is no such thing as true love. It’s just love. When you love, you love with your entire being. There are no half measures in loving. Just like there is no pure sky up there. It’s just sky.
Unless you don’t follow me on Instagram, you must know that I am heavily into trivia. Every day, I try to read and find some nuggets worth sharing with my readers. Little useless things that help us understand our world better. Of course, they are not going to change your lives. But then, nothing does. Those who are into trivia can only find solace in the fact that there is always more to learn. Whatever you know already is never enough. On that note, I was thinking about something last night. Let me share with you because I genuinely care about you. Here you go: it amazes me that more people are alive than the number of people who have died. Even if only one human being is left on the planet, there would still be more people who are alive than the number of people who have been dead.
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