It’s human nature to expect a good life for oneself and your loved ones. What’s the harm in dreaming big? It’s all relative. A boy who lives in a mudhouse dreams differently from a girl with a manicured garden outside her window. But the common thread here is our ability to aspire, to want better. Achieving is a different story altogether. Most of us don’t manage to get everything we set out to score. That’s how it works. There is no hidden cheat code. A sweeper bought a lottery ticket on Saturday, won a massive amount on Sunday, resigned from his work on Monday and spent the rest 20 years of his life not doing a single day of hard labour. If you sit him down and ask him whether he has stopped dreaming, he wouldn’t say yes.
Once upon a time, my ajji was alive and not so kicking. If my failing memory serves me right, she was always drained but high on spirit. Even if it poured heavily, she would make sure her children and cattle are safe – her priorities were sorted. The trees she planted decades ago today provide shade and produce, the wise words she shared back then still resonate in the households of her progeny. One such frequent thought was based on mortality: according to her, it’s perfectly alright if a person spends a distressing life as long as she dies with honour. What she meant by this is it’s very important that a person lives with minimal dependency and dies without any dependency. Being bedridden with others attending you wasn’t her idea of a reasonable exit.
As I am getting older, it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that, for the most part, things don’t change. They simply assume new forms to keep you from accepting yourself. Our circumstances pretty much get to define us. We can only give our best shot and hope for a favourable result. What you were in the past, you are pretty much the same person with a few tweaks. None of us possess the strength to defeat ourselves on a greater plane. At the end of the calculation, you are a long continuous process that is unaccounted for. Your significance is questionable but your being is supreme. The fact that you exist is the finest magic trick of time. Cherish yourself.
My dear friend Akshar Pathak turns 33 today. It’s funny that just a few years ago, he was a baby-faced man in the room. Now, he is all grown up. I’ve known him for over a decade and in my experience, very few people can be fun as well as funny the way he can. Although he has been AWOL from social media—he is father to the most adorable boy; hence busy with life—one can (try to) learn from him how to make the most of humour in a difficult situation. Whenever something untoward happened in his personal or professional space, I’ve always noticed he would say something unexpectedly or do something ridiculous (a prank, perhaps) to diffuse the tension within. Have met a lot of humorous folks in my life but can’t think of anyone else who turned sense of humour into an instrument to deal with bad surprises.
Make a list of all your worries on dated paper and then categorize them into big worries, medium worries and tiny worries. Let a month pass by and then create another list and categorize the worries again. Now, compare the two pages and see which worries are sticking and which ones are not. The nicest thing about worries is they are loyal to you only as long as you are loyal to them. Otherwise, they move on, leaving you behind. Furthermore, your worries are defined by you, not vice versa.
As a boy, I was very fond of the way amma spun around her long hair with her bare hands and created a bun out of it. Glorious piece of mastery. Whenever she stepped out of the house, be it for bazaar or wedding, she always had a flower/s cutely fixed in her bun. Being a proper mamma’s boy, I was keen on learning this art. In fact, I remember adding a bun to all the women I sketched during early school days. A massive bun on top of the head, if not back of it. No plaits please. Now, when I think about it, what a bun does is it declutters itself, making the neck visible and the nape accentuated. In my opinion, among men, only Harry Kewell came close to perfection with his samurai bun.
The trouble with being a good listener is you seldom know when to pause. You are too invested in the other person, so to speak. A talker is webbing on with their words, not realising the flow of time. On the other hand, the listener is helping with their silence. It’s not a viva anyway. A talker talks mainly because they have understood what makes them happy: to keep sharing their thoughts irrespective of who is listening or not. And in such a setting, if a listener finds a talker they are really interested in listening to, then there is no greater confluence possible.
For the time being, my father lives alone in his apartment along with two cats (belonging to my brother) and as expected, his crank-o-meter is hitting all time high. Asking him a simple question like how-are-you can deliver caustic responses.
Me: “What did you have for lunch?”
He: “I am a ghost.”
Me: “Huh?”
He: “I am a ghost in this house and ghosts don’t need food to survive.”
If you google “world’s oldest profession”, you will get a straightforward answer that is not so straightforward. Prostitution is considered to be the oldest job profile for a complex reason: it predates currency. Our understanding of labour and how it equates with time is lost on the art of trading one’s body for material returns. Yet, in almost all recorded cultures, prostitution had left an imprint. Despite all the atrocities meted on them, the sex workers continue to exist. They continue to be exploited despite the fact that they are effectively doing society a massive favour. When we discuss human rights, they are seldom considered. Their minority status is moot. Yes, there are countries out there that have legalized prostitution and brought in regulations, but overall, prostitution continues to be the world’s oldest thankless profession.
Being a Federer fan is like bleeding a bit and smiling a lot—probably at the same time—because it was never easy. When the Centre Court at Wimbledon was getting dark that evening in 2008, with the ball barely visible, and Nadal played his best ever tennis on grass, many Federer fans like me couldn’t sleep that night. It wasn’t because Nadal didn’t deserve the win—he deserved every bit of it, including the exuberant celebration—but because we knew that Federer was hurting. An epic final deserves an epic conclusion. And we all knew that Federer might be a vessel of grace and elegance on the outside but he is softie inside. A lot of his fans are like him and aren’t afraid to admit it either. He is no Spanish bull. A few months later, he literally wept in the final of the Australian Open, consoled by none other than Nadal. Since then, it was never an easy ride for one of the greatest tennis exponents in history. The past decade was a heartache, with Federer facing a Grand Slam drought for 5 years. The 2019 Wimbeldone final loss to Djokokvic, despite holding championship points, was brutal for him as well as his fans. Yet, he held on and refused to retire. He knew it would have been a poetic justice of sorts to leave the big stage on his own terms. But then, a human body has its own plans and finally, after several surgeries, the Swiss icon has announced his retirement. The Laver Cup, starting this Friday, will be his swansong, and henceforth, many like me will experience stoic relief as well as an awkward mirth to not having to hold our breaths anymore.
Those who pursue meaning in life don’t bother themselves with the pursuit of happiness. They find a truer purpose of their existence: digging deeper till they know something nobody else knows. A unique relationship with the truth. Experts, they are called in their respective fields, but they are genuinely curious—to ask more, know more, learn more. When you hear them speak on YouTube, you quietly accept that they don’t feel vacuous when they wake up in the morning. They have understood the trick of living. For them, happiness is a fleeting emotion like a breeze greeting your face all of a sudden. There is no point chasing it.
Favourite line- your significance is questionable but your being is supreme. The fact that you exist is the finest magic trick of time. Cherish yourself.