On your mark, get set, don’t go
Before modernity started caressing our backs, there reigned an era of simplicity. If you asked a poor man whether he’d prefer winter or…
Before modernity started caressing our backs, there reigned an era of simplicity. If you asked a poor man whether he’d prefer winter or summer, he’d go for the latter. The choice was logical: in summer, he could do without having to wear clothes. In winter, that blanket would squeeze out his budget for stomach. Today, if you ask a poor man the same question, you’d be perplexed by the complicated nature of his answer. Give him rain, snow or sunburn, he has mastered the art of getting by. The weather has nothing on him. The world does.
I recently watched Roma (2018) and the movie has so much to say without saying much. Primarily focusing on a Mexican maid who doubles up as nanny and lifeguard, the story takes you through affluence. Although she is shown lonely for the most part, she manifests unconditional love on the screen. At the risk of giving away spoilers, we ought to admit that Alfonso Cuarón is one of the greatest filmmakers at work today. And I say this not based on his repertoire but because of his desire to stay true to the elements. While watching Gravity (2013), you feel the soundlessness of space coincide with the deafness of solitude; Children of Men (2006) makes you appreciate the otherwise annoying cry of a baby; by the end of Y Tu Mamá También (2001), you are filled with despair as there is no space left for passion; in Great Expectations (1998), somebody grabs your hand and places your palm on their chest to tell you that the heart inside is already broken. All this and much more becomes possible because the director at the helm knows what he’s doing.
A dear friend of mine recently went through the exact same events that I dreamed the following night. How is it even possible for somebody who stays miles away to see what the other person experienced? As spooky as it may sound, I feel there is a a greater context to this coincidence — ittefaq in Urdu; ittewhatthefaq in Meta—whether the two of us fully understand or not. By all celestial equations, there must be a sound reason why everything happens and why we exist at the same time. Of course, we can banish a lot of events in our lives with a word like ‘accident’ but we’ll never sleep sound unless we know why we dream what we dream.
Pranav is probably the only person I know in my circle who isn’t buzzed by the whole Gully Gang parasite. He neither gets the language nor the feels those rappers convey. In all fairness, Delhi is still over a thousand kilometers away from Mumbai, so, expecting everybody to get it would be cruel. In my defense, I absorb every single verse of my favourite desi hip-hop artists because I know exactly what they are talking about. Be it when Divine asks his opponent to enroll his younger sister in a decent school or when Naezy invokes our ancestors to make a point about the future we won’t get unless we demand it. These guys keep their shit real by sticking their nose into subjects they are well acquainted with. And that could be the singular reason why they will succeed in their collective mission.
Being a party animal who doesn’t attend parties, here’s something you should try the next time you gather at a social setting: ask genuine questions to each others. Questions that would compel you to think and remind you how far you’ve come as a person. An example being, what’s the meanest thing you’ve ever done? Or which is your most recurring nightmare? Or even one song that you believe was written for you? Such questions and the resulting answers might help us break down the wall of fakeness that we’ve built around us. A lot of us don’t know who we are. The greater danger lies in not having the patience for the person we are slowly becoming. After all, we are not afraid what others will see in me but we are petrified by what we might see in ourselves.
Have you heard of that robin who bled during winter? And despite its impending death, it kept singing under the gloomy sky. Not to spoil its legacy but maybe, just maybe, somebody tried to kill it because that was the only way to make it stop singing. Well, who knows?
I know for a fact that my wife and I won’t move to Mangalore anytime soon. In spite of an active job-hunt, the prospects have been quite bleak. Yet, I continue to dream of moving there somebody. In some ways, I am that guy from Akbar-Birbal stories who stood all night in the cold, cold water of Yamuna. On being asked by Akbar how he managed his feat, he revealed how he kept looking at the burning torch of the palace far away. That somehow kept him warm. The dream of settling in a simpler city like Kudla somehow keeps me warm too.
Everybody wants to write a book nowadays.
Everybody is a photographer nowadays.
Everybody wants to speak nowadays.
Everybody is an intellectual nowadays.
Everybody wants to win nowadays.
Everybody is on their way ahead nowadays.
Everybody wants to…
Everybody is…
Not sure for what though.