When I was in school, we were taught that Pluto is the tiniest planet in our solar system. Not anymore. Poor Pluto is going slowly around the sun, oblivious to the fact that it has been demoted. Similarly, we were told there are four oceans (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic). Turns out there is a 5th name on the list now: Southern Ocean. On the same thread, the world's largest desert was supposed to be the Sahara. I remember our geography teacher telling us that its name has nothing to do with the Sahara group (whose founder passed away on Sunday). Turns out we were mistaken about the deserts as well. The world’s largest desert apparently is Antarctica. Why so? Because deserts are defined by their low precipitation, not just sand dunes. I wonder what all our education system (literacy system?) must have gotten wrong in the first place.
Does it bother you that Johnny Walker is a name associated with alcohol? I mean, walking is the last thing an inebriated person should be (interested in) doing. I’ve never seen a buzzed man walking on a ramp with utmost reassurance. But yes, Johnny Walker was established in 1820 and the famous walking mascot was created in 1996. And irrespective of its connoisseurs’ inadequate motor abilities, he has been walking and walking and walking his way into massive profits.
Mishearing something is the birthplace of puns. ABC was intended and XYZ was communicated, creating a wide window of opportunities for humour. For instance, we use certain words without fully understanding the extent of its damage. Vocabularies that reeks of prejudice and persuasions. On that note, let me share a recent exchange –
“You are a bigoted man.”
“What?"
“Big-hearted man.”
Did you know that Persians suffered the highest per capita casualty during WW1? Neither did I. Quite surprising. This despite the neutrality that Persia maintained through and through. Similarly, Lithuania suffered the highest Jewish casualty (upwards of 95%) during WW2. Both these stats are intriguing because they aren’t mentioned much in common discourses. Most of the time, we are so mesmerised by the main actors that we forget the role the supporting cast is playing in the narrative.
Now that I am greying rapidly and becoming acutely aware of certain inalienable truths of life, I’ve started thinking more rotundly about death. Earlier, whenever I thought of this subject, my viewpoints were prosaic and my conclusion, poetic. Nowadays, I read it in conjunction with reality: there is no life without death and vice versa. Which brings us to how the policymakers look at life and death. As is the norm in a civilised society today, life is celebrated and death is mourned. However, this doesn’t mean life is nurtured. Nope. If somebody's life isn’t considered worthy, they aren’t killed. They are allowed to live, not nurtured. That’s the most as well as the least offered. So, what about death penalty? Ideally, all those who support it should be killed, no? But then, it’s not as simple as that. Life never is. And neither is death.
Henry Kissinger once said that nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes – there is too much fraternizing with the enemy. To a large extent, he is correct. Sexes (or genders) don’t exist in isolation. That said, there is always power dynamics at play. We know this for certain because of the anthropological studies that throw light on tribes around the world where women hold power. In such societies, women generally enjoy a higher standard of freedom compared to their male counterparts. But matriarchy doesn’t seem to be interested in throttling men’s aspirations. I am not sure whether the same can be said about patriarchy, which feeds a lot on suppression. The ironic bit about this long self-serving system is it ensures that men don’t have to curtail women’s freedom the way fellow women (especially, older ones) would.
Human weaknesses don’t intrigue me. Gossip? No, thanks. I am not interested in our strengths either. The only thing I am interested in is your light. That spark you had as a child and somehow lost it along the way. That innocence you took for granted as the world got more and more brutal with its ways. That core of yours, completely agenda-less and free-flowing, prepared to connect with another individual at any given point of time. These are the elements I am interested in. Everything else is simply noise. I am too old and tired to deal with it.
How much can a decade do to the idea of change? Well, just look at South Korea. Within a span of 10 years or so, he has grown into a cultural power. From music to cinema to fashion, South Korean has become a keyword now. Thanks to them, there is something called glass skin now, not to mention wide varieties of plastic surgery and unattainable beauty goals. Insofar these quick developments, one might assume South Koreans to be living it up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s the country from the developed world in recent memory to record the highest drop in birth rate, worse than Japan’s. And if that wasn’t morose enough, it recorded the highest suicide rate among OECD countries. Back in 2012, South Korean authorities changed Mapo Bridge’s name to The Bridge of Life – hoping to bring down the number of suicide attempt cases. Turns out the amount of people jumping from that bridge increased in 2013.
It bothers me a lot when the writers/creators of movies/series don’t bother to be creative with the titles of their production. I mean, why would you want to name your project something that was already taken earlier. Why are there The Fall (a 2006 movie), The Fall (a 2013 series) and Fall (a 2022 movie)? Why couldn’t they think of something else? There are so many such excruciating examples of thoughtlessness. Just google ‘Inside Man’ or ‘Inside Men’. And this problem is not unique to western cinema. Indian cinema also faces a similar problem, not with repetitive words, but the very tangent of storyline. For example, they called that Netflix crime thriller Jaane Jaan (2023) when the title has very little to do with the story. A better title could have been ‘Teacher’—nodding to the character ably portrayed by Jaideep Ahlawat—but then, Bollywood can’t afford to outrank Kareena’s character, so they settled for a random non-word instead.
20 years ago, I used to look at David and Victoria Beckham and I genuinely believed that Beckham ended up with someone who is not even half as pretty as he is. Love is indeed blind. Of course, with time, one’s line of thoughts change. But, no, not in this case. I still believe that Beckham is a lot more gorgeous (not to mention, affable) than his better half. While watching his 4-part docu-series, it became apparent to me that every marriage is, at the end of the show, a show.
I don’t remember whether I’ve mentioned it on this blog before—or maybe I spoke about it on my terribly irregular YouTube channel, I am not sure—there aren’t many movie scenes as heartbreaking as Brad Pitt’s final walk in Babylon (2022). The way it’s executed makes you want to… (no spoiler alert). Here is a character who is finally aware of his limitations and he isn’t fully prepared to embrace himself. Of course, there is a stark irony in an actor playing an actor on the big screen. But deep down, every actor worth their salt knows that they are loved for someone who doesn’t exist. Yes, the characters they play. That’s it.
It disturbed me too why the movie was named jaane jaan when it had nothing to do with it.
Irony is not going away because world is more than just a straightforward logic.