Nothing can ever prepare you for old age. They say that life is the finest teacher you’ll ever get but in practice, you realize what a terrible student you are. All the lessons that life taught you either came in too early or too late. And to make it worse, you couldn’t recollect the right lessons at the right moment. In fact, you had forgotten most of them as time passed you by. Not to be critical of life’s teaching skills but if there is one lesson worth teaching to our species, then it’d be the art of remembering all the lessons on time. Otherwise, we are just a punching bag for time. Nothing more. Nothing less.
My childhood was marked by death—and the conversations it leads to in the household—and I was quite aware at an early age that people just leave. One fine day, they are gone never to come back. One of my earliest memories is the vacuum of my younger brother missing and women screaming in unison. I was acutely aware of the loss of my grandparents too, and later, a friend from our neighbourhood who was always sick. It was only during my high school that I learned he had cancer. So, yes, I wasn’t one of those kids who learned about death thanks to their pet dog. I am sure marana (Tulu for death) was one of the earliest words I picked up on my own. Which might explain my continued fascination with the D-word.
Now that my parents are in the septuagenarian range, they do reflect a lot on their mortality. Although neither of their sons gave them a grandchild—nor plan to anytime soon—they have pretty much accepted their fate and are devoid of consuming regrets. My amma doesn’t crib about worldly matters much and my pappa has started offering puja at the in-house mandap, beginning with a hibiscus he steals from the local park. Basically, they are mentally prepared for the last phase of their respective lives. A phase that is reportedly filled with wisdom but exposes more cracks than glory. Both appear to behave spiritually to a large extent and show immense interest in learning about scriptures, and how they apply to those with skins riper than an avocado. It’s an interesting transition to behold.
I seldom visit our home in Navi Mumbai and try my best to make my parents visit me in Kudla. Either way, I don’t miss out on our conversations much: I call them on the phone and do video calls on a regular basis, even if none of us have anything interesting to share. Of the two, my maa is the funniest one (she laughs out loud more often). He can be acerbic and his humour can belie his genuine scorn. Last October, when I visited home and ended up attending my childhood friend’s funeral, the subject of death was in the perimeter. And I asked my parents how they’d like us to conduct their cremation. Amma was elaborate about the customs in place, with the ashes flowing into the river bank in our village, and I nodded along. I turned to pappa and his response would have given Nietzsche existential complex: “Burn me and pour my asti (ashes) in some gutter in Bombay.”
It’s 2022 and people are yet to accept that their quality of life improves drastically in a smaller city. The so-called metros in India are choking up, squeezing too much out of you and returning too little. Yet, hypnotised by the post-independence trope of equating development with crowd, we are getting grinded on all sides. Go to any of the Tier 2/3/4/5 cities in the country today and you’ll learn immediately that the ‘slowness’ associated with them is more of a natural advantage than anything else. Bigger cities, aided by profit-driven minds, make you feel fast so that you don’t have the time to stop and ponder. For all the poetry attributed to the fabled spirit of Bombay, that island city barely holds up during monsoon. People are dehumanized on a daily basis in local trains while the billion dollar infra projects are held to sentimental ransom. Pretty much the same colour can be splashed on other bade shehar as well. In a place like Mangalore, people live rich. In Mumbai, people die rich.
I’ve been following the work of both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson since their Twilight days and they prove that actors can indeed break the market mould if they truly choose to. They could have continued doing run-of-the-mill movies, earning millions and bringing in new young fans across the globe. Heartthrob phenomenon. Interestingly enough, both decided to try a more difficult path of choosing meaty scripts. Two good. Today, you see them collaborating with some of the finest filmmakers of our times. Stewart’s heartbreaking act in Spencer (2021) and Pattinson’s blinding performance in The Lighthouse (2019) tell you everything you need to know about professional choice.
The other day, a young man on Instagram asked me whether writing a book is my ultimate goal in life. It made me think. If one has to condense their entire existence to one specific goal (short term) or purpose (long term), then there is something wrong with the equation in place. Yes, I do enjoy writing but I don’t like the formalities and the order, so to speak. Yes, I do follow grammar but I am not fond of colonial restrictions or lingual highhandedness either. It’s rather easy to say that writing one solid book in English would make me feel better about myself but when I dig the surface further, I’ve got to admit that writing gives me pleasure. If I continue to write, I’ll be happy anyway. Doesn’t matter if I peak with a book or not as long as I have something to say to myself, and to others.
Since my journalism days, I’ve been asked time and again to deliver guest lectures in colleges. In my head, it's a one night stand version of academics. You are invited to an audience of youngsters who don’t know but want to listen to what you have for them. You prepare for 45-50 mins of material—either on a PPT or just on a piece of paper—and the lecture runs to upwards of an hour sometimes. They clap and you are out of there. Oh yes, sometimes, you get a honorarium of a few hundred or thousand bucks, depending on the budget of the student cell, and sometimes, you say no to the money politely, so they gift you a book or something. During the Q&A section, you end up hearing some of the dumbest as well as the wisest questions. Overall, it’s a pleasant experience if you care about the next generation to rule/serve our country. And I do care about the youth. My only takeaway here is, you should avoid accepting requests for online guest lectures: you fail to build a connection with the students and the flow turns pathetic.
I am presently reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, and if you are a fan of Harari’s Sapiens, you would totally enjoy this book as well. It starts at the beginning and if you understand science—what I like about science is it doesn’t want you to worship it, it merely expects you to understand it—you’d be amazed by the amount of work scientists have put in to acknowledge our universe. There are so many theories, so many hypotheses and so yes, so many contradictions too. For instance, not all physicists agree upon everything. In the same manner, not all mathematicians agree about shapes. Yet, the overarching theme of science is to expand our horizon of doubt. Unlike religion, this branch of knowledge is perfectly comfortable with the most basic of human instinct: to ask for proof.
Being experts on all the topics under the sun must be so damn exhausting. There are folks on Twitter and YouTube who have an opinion on almost every little subject out there. One week, they are talking about the Sri Lankan economy and another week, about Virat Kohli’s lack of form. They keep moving on with the season of trends: the usual parade of pointless discussions and ceaseless arguments. I wonder who is going to tell them (or their audiences) that nothing is going to change. Anything done in the pursuit of sheer entertainment leads you only to more entertainment, not profoundity.
The logical extension of love is arrogance. When you love someone too much, you’d start believing that your love is the greatest thing you’ve ever possessed, or even created for that matter. Before you could even notice, chances are you’d start assuming that the other person can’t possibly match your level of love. Don’t know whether that’s a comfortable spot to be. In my experience and opinion, we all love differently just like we all live and think differently.
He: “Do you plan to go to heaven or hell?”
She: “Heaven, obviously.”
He: “But you are too arrogant.”
She: “Love can’t be arrogant.”
He: “Well, the amount of arrogance you have in your love for me, and your sheer dismissal of my feelings for you, is enough to make sure that they don't let you inside heaven.”
Watched your stream on Chalchitra Talks last night where y'all talked about arrogance, and now reading this! LOVE IT <3
Loved it!!!