Lost between value and price
When everything is said and done, only children are precious. They are worth fighting for. No argument. Unlike the grownups, they’ve still got a chance at innocence. Even if the history of our species is violent and reckless, we can confide in the goodness of the future. The little ones don’t need to carry the crown of shame that humankind pointedly identify with. On the contrary, we must leave no stone unturned in protecting the kids from any form of abuse. The only reason why we have such a fractured world is because the childhoods of so many people weren’t held sacred by the adults entrusted with the responsibility.
The previous generations asked questions and sought answers. The current generation demands answers and seeks victimhood. A much-needed window of self-reflection is grossly missing. This behaviour has a lot to do with their continued fascination with their own awesomeness. They have genuinely convinced themselves that they are at the best stage of human evolution, and all the wrongs in society are only because of the past. Nobody in the present is to be accountable. In other words, they are not accountable. I find this sort of victimhood very interesting. When you are victim of your own awesomeness, nobody else can save you.
A lot of us always seem to struggle with money. We don’t want to work hard but wish to lead a reasonably comfortable life. We never go out and buy a lottery but in the back of our heads, we feel that we deserve to get that kind of lucky in life. I am no expert but if my friend Rudra is to be believed, the only way you can get rich is when you develop pure lust for money. Money is not interested in romance or foreplay. It wants you to be obsessed and think about it throughout your waking hours. All those who have made money on their own can attest that there is no way you can take a break from this relationship. It’s worse than death in terms of commitment.
What do you understand by the word ‘creativity’? If your immediate thought is art, then you are not mistaken. You are simply humble. You see, creativity isn’t always about creating something new or charming. More often than not, understanding creativity is the same as creating art. Without the readers, there are no writers. Without the listeners, there are no singers. If you can really understand a medium of art, or an artist for that matter, you are already creative. Just that you are too shy to give yourself any credit for this blossom.
Whenever somebody on social media asks me to recommend a book to read, I tend to say Sapiens by Harari. If they go and read this book, then I recommend Upanishads. There is no way I would recommend Upanishads first. This compendium of the most fabulous collection of thoughts deserves some groundwork in reality. Too much metaphor isn’t healthy for you. Sapiens provides you the perfect base to build a solid framework of worldly as well as abstract concepts by some of the greatest thinkers of all time. Well, here’s the best bit: Upanishads is so great a book that there is no single author to its credit. A writing project that never happened before or after that.
During my journalism days, I found myself interacting with screen luminaries, especially from the pantheon of Hindi cinema. During such conversations, I often made them laugh or they made me blush. There was no silence in between us. When Asha Parekh was felicitated at the Jagran Film Festival with a lifetime achievement award in Mumbai, I was in the waiting room with her. I walked up to her and the following conversation ensued:
He: “When I was in school, I thought you were the most beautiful woman on TV.”
She: “Really?”
He: “Haan. You were my favourite actress too.”
She: “Not anymore?”
I couldn’t say anything to that and turned tomato in the face while she smiled graciously.
One day, all the class division and caste discrimination might come to an end. However, the line between an employer and an employee shall remain forever. Until the robots take over aggressively, there is no way this chasm is going to be disturbed. An employer knows why he is in the commanding position and the employees know why they are supposed to be in the active mode. It’s not about the market dynamics, it’s not about the cycles of economics either. The difference is about a person’s appetite to take a bet on themselves. All successful business people were motivated by their own desire to win but more importantly, they never ever wanted to succeed for somebody else’s greater success.
It’s our nature to judge. Go anywhere and you’ll find that humans judge. Yes, in the West, people are discouraged from staring at others but that doesn’t stop anyone from judging the shit out of each other. Judging is an essential tenet of our existence. Nothing right or wrong about it. In desi context, judging assumes an altogether different dimension of peer pressure. Old people judge young people because they are expected to judge. If they don't do that, fellow old people will judge them for not judging young people. Can’t blame them. It’s a complicated practice that thrives on paying attention to unnecessary detail.
Speaking of which, you’ve often heard how many of us enjoy musing about a historic event we’d like to be a part of, or at least witness. For example, Battle of Plassey or Dandi march or Gettysburg address. Some even wonder about killing Hitler (read about Godwin’s law) before he caused havoc with World War 2. Fair enough. Yet, if you ask me, I’d like to go back in history only to stand back and judge how terrible the so-called great men were. I’d judge Mir Jafar for his deception, Gandhiji for his lack of crowd management, Lincoln for his long pauses and Hitler for his stuttering body language. In fact, I want time machine for the sole purpose of judging all these popular personalities through all the possible lens of human weaknesses. Thank you in advance.
Do you know your worth? I mean, in monetary terms. Purely on the basis of capitalism. In the Hebrew Bible, the distinct values of a man, a woman and a child were clearly mentioned in Shekels. Of course, the prelude to this value system was rooted in slavery. Without knowing the value of a commodity, you can’t put a price to it. Basics. Anyway, coming back to our era, why is it that we know how much Adele is worth while the commoners continue to struggle with coming up with the right salary demand? What is the correct math? Who is going to tell us? Everything is expecting us to dot the i's and cross the t's but nobody is telling us how we can add commas to our bank account.
One of the most compelling aspects of Hinduism is there is a concrete attempt to humanize gods. Instead of always elevating them to impossible standards, they are often brought down to our level of fallacies. Why else would Rama be put in a situation where he has to be unfair to his beloved Sita for the sake of his subjects? That specific dilemma is human by design, not godly. It’s not that he doesn’t know that he is god. The trouble is, his subjects don’t know that he is a god. They see him as a king who has to prove his ability to be equitable against all odds. Similarly, Krishna exhibits all the qualities of a flawed child: he can get jealous, mischievous, troublesome, distracted, reckless too. Despite his godly status, he is portrayed as a human through and through. Even Ganesha is gently upbraided in folk songs for being lazy, sleepy and gluttonous. I find these attempts at direct contact with the gods deeply touching as they are a reminder to what we are in the first place: incomplete humans.
This week, KK passed away in Kolkata. As expected, tributes flowed in from all directions. His wasn’t just a voice of a Bollywood playback singer. He represented a piece of our collective past, our days of growing up. From the hundreds of ad jingles that made us sing along to the most heartwrenching songs depicting different phases of life, KK’s inimitable voice was right there. As the days pass by, it’s slowly hitting the ‘90s kids that the reason why they felt this massive loss at a personal level is because they realize now that something from their childhood has now gone missing. And that is an irreparable hole to carry.