Gotta work if you gotta change
The longer I stay away from this blog, the stronger is the desire to return. When I started blogging — a term I wasn’t initially…
The longer I stay away from this blog, the stronger is the desire to return. When I started blogging — a term I wasn’t initially comfortable with — in 2007, I wrote barely half a dozen posts in a year. As time passed by, the frequency picked up and so did my taste in topics. When you are new, you commit errors. When you are old, you are committed to those errors. It’s an enriching process. 2018 and 2019 were my peak years in terms of productive writing; the sort you look back at and don’t feel embarrassed. 2020 could have been slightly better had I challenged myself to move out of the ‘paragraph zone’. Last two years had a gentle mix of long form as well as short form writing. This year, for reasons foreign to me, has been inundated with paragraphs. So much so I even added ‘paragrapher’ to my Twitter bio. Perhaps the secret plan is to become the world’s greatest paragrapher. The problem is, there is no official competition.
Asking about past weekend is one of those conversational baits I don’t miss at all. Working from home could be tough at times but you are saved from unnecessary small talks. There have been days in the past when I felt so awkward about sharing my non-existent weekend details that I almost felt like revealing that I watched five football matches and masturbated thrice; with both the events happening independently of each other. Nowadays, I have pleasant weekends sometimes and it’d be fun to startle people with non-R-rated events:
“How was your weekend?”
“Ranga licked my left eyeball by accident while trying to lick my face.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I also lost my patience twice and my temper once.”
My friend Rudra once told me that the sureshot method of individual growth is by stepping out of the known and immersing oneself in the realm of the unknown. Being a practical Marwari, he obviously used simpler words as he doesn’t believe in the magic of prose. For instance, if you are well versed in cinema, good for you. But imagine the amount of knowledge that’d greet you if you try to look for cinema in the not-so-popular settings. Ladakhi cinema, maybe? Or what kind of movies do local Macedonian make? Or you can just pore through documentaries that were shot in Amazon basin but never got popular. We tend to pigeonhole ourselves, even with stuff that we like, which is ridiculous, to say the least. In this spirit, I genuinely seek older folks who appreciated South Korean cinema 30 years ago when it wasn’t even the toast of cine town.
For every Samuel Johnson, there is a James Boswell. And for every George Canning, there will be a Lord Castlereagh waiting to pounce on him (and vice versa). If you aren’t aware who these gentlemen are, do read up on them. One of the many admirable aspects of colonial history is the sheer fascination by contemporary historians for those who were in power/grace. Unlike the 21st century, where nobody — not even the pope — is a figure of mystique, people in the pre-modern era were quite peculiar. With their thinking, with their words and most impactfully, with their actions. If you went by Boswell’s description of Johnson, you’d have no doubt that the latter was the finest person to breathe oxygen in and let carbon dioxide out. Similarly, the accounts of rivalry between Canning and Castlereagh shall leave you spellbound for their pettiness and acute awareness of fellow ambitions. I can’t help but deliberate how lonely Canning must have felt on hearing about Castlereagh’s apparent suicide.
Welcome to the paragraph where I drag our generation to the cleaners. Moral bankruptcy alert in advance. After all, we are supposedly the young folks who care too much about everything, from the environment to the visible society to the invisible values. But nothing changes. Absolutely nothing. Why? Because our style of caring accentuates our lack of depth. To put it concisely, we long but from a distance. Our heart bleeds but not at the cost of our personal comfort. We are like scavengers who move from one cause to another. One week, we are crying our virtual eyes out about something, before growing tired of it, and latching onto the next popular trend. If this is not true, please tell me, what happened to the Amazon fire that we were hoping to extinguish with our tears? Or for that matter, the Australian bushfire? What’s going on in Yemen or have we stopped caring completely about those skeletal babies? Unfortunately, none of our so-called concerns last more than a few days. This pattern works for us as our desire for attention is totally in sync with our disdain for boredom. But then, by the laws of inaction, we don’t get to complain later why nothing changes either.
On a more serious note, if you truly care about something, go beyond your phone. Posting three stories on Instagram and a 280-character sentence in upper case on Twitter won’t make any difference. Yes, it will, for a brief moment, make you feel good about yourself, pumped up with the self-realization that you are far better than others. However, the major question is, are you? Those who made a dent in the social fabric of injustice have always been the nameless souls who got down to work. Merely saying out loud that you care about women’s rights or are against casteism — and that to the same people who either already know you do or are themselves in the same boat — is the perfect blueprint of an echo chamber. This approach doesn’t solve shit. If you genuinely care, try to convert your online angst into offline change. Do something, no matter how small, for those you claim to be concerned about. By posting something from your antiseptic apartment can only get you social cred. You can’t make life better for women and Dalits you allegedly worry about by never actually meeting them.
For me, from what I’ve consumed so far, George Carlin was the greatest comedian in the English language. Period. Yet, he wasn’t around when social media bloomed. It’d have been awesome to watch him drop humorous gems on the internet but then, that’s life (or death). Amongst the current giants, I appreciate Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle for not censoring anything on stage; and this is not a recent phenomenon: even their earlier work followed the same no-holds-barred philosophy. They say whatever the fuck they want and don’t show mercy to anyone or anything. Which is something we are yet to see amongst desi comedians. They either lack the knack or the courage to go all out or maybe both. Well, too commercial-minded to hurt their target audience so can’t blame them. I am all for freedom of speech and expression as long as it doesn’t come from a place of hatred. And in this context, comedy has to be the last refuge for hate. After all, the jokes aren’t intolerant. People are.
Have you noticed how humans gather on the terrace during sunset and walk within the limited space? Somebody told them that walking is good for their health. A common sight during this uncertain lockdown is how we are suddenly very conscious about our movement — or rather lack of it — and getting down to business with the most basic of exercises. Somebody who has never skipped before in his life is now roping 7-days-a-week. Someone who slothed on his office chair is sharing youtube videos on how to sit properly. Ergonomics has become his favourite word. In my honest opinion — the only thing honest about me are my opinions — it’s a healthy sign that due to a pandemic, people are becoming conscious of their workout/postures but it’s also a grave reminder of our times: something as basic as walking shouldn’t be an ‘exercise’ in the first place and secondly, sitting straight is the least you can do for your spine.
During a recent phone call with my dad, I mentioned the term ‘pop culture’ not realizing that he wouldn’t have a clue. Just blurted without a second thought. My bad. He repeated the words, bringing to my attention to something I never realized before: pop culture sounds a lot of ‘paap culture’ when presented with a southern Indian accent. The word ‘paap’ in Hindi means sin and given the sort of vilification every upcoming generation receives from the older generation, this particular mispronunciation is a fitting tribute to how things stand today. To the old, the young are paap culture icons in the making, aren’t they?
Last month, I tweeted the following observation on my mother tongue, Tulu, and received a lot of responses from fellow Indians from different parts of the country.
Turns out most languages in India adhere to an unwritten principle of not saying goodbye; a word that basically means ‘god be with ye’. Superstition (a simpler word for trepidation) must have played a role here. Why else would a culture actively dissuade you from interrupting someone when they are embarking on a new journey? For example, amongst Tulu speakers, the concept of directly asking where a person is going is nowhere to be heard. Instead, the word used is ‘doora’, which is more in tune with the distance, not the destination. Congratulations on learning two Tulu words today.
Do you know why some of us cheat? The answer is pretty straightforward: we think we can get away with it. That’s all. Nobody cheats being fully cognitive of their ethical decay, emotional trauma inflicted on others, and whatnot. No, that never happens. Even Ashoka the Great went back to warfare after shedding tears at Kalinga. Cheating is a manifestation of an individual’s overestimation of his skills. If you are going to cheat, be so damn good at it that you never get caught. When you get caught, you are bringing down the cartel of cheaters with you. This has been my most vivid learning from hosting — two different categories called Friends’ and Strangers’ — quiz on zoom for over two months now. Contestants, despite being warned beforehand, google and think they are too smart about their muted techniques. It’s like watching a pathological liar lie in broad daylight: you know what’s going on. When you cheat during a quiz, you are obviously dissing the quizmaster but you are also disrespecting fellow participants who are being sincere by sticking to the set rules.
While watching Fight Club (1999) for the first time, you’d be awed by the abject rejection of capitalism and consumerism. But after repeated watching, you might learn the subtle ironies in that movie. For somebody who rants against monoculture and public validation, Tyler Durden — the nameless Narrator isn’t at fault here — ends up creating a cult where people are basically digesting his ideology and cloning his personality. So much for real freedom. So much for individualism. Now, this is something even the nameless narrator realizes by the end of it, peeling the layers of his own (alter ego’s) contradictions. However, have you noticed one more area of paradox which isn’t conveyed? Ikea is featured prominently as the epitome of furniture consumerism but despite all the anti-Ikea dialogues, did the movie manage to turn its consumers against the company? The answer is obviously no. In fact, it worked as propaganda for its mass scale acceptance amongst millennials. And therein lies the largest limitation of cinema.
A friend of mine is studying in Amsterdam and she shared a few gorgeous pictures from there. None of these European cities need IG filters to look breathtaking. These cities may be built on the welted backs of colonialism but they sure are blessed with picturesque weather. Anyway, while going through those images, I thought of a question: why aren’t there riots in places like Amsterdam? So, to find answers, I stumbled upon the last instances of riots in the Dutch capital. They all happened more than 40 years ago. No riots in recent memory. It’s like a generation decided that that’s it. No more looting and littering in public. When do you think our subcontinent will stumble upon such a decisive generation?