Once upon a time, there was a little boy who wondered why is it ‘once upon a time’ and not just ‘once’. He grew up listening to stories that started with these magical four words and realized eventually that some traditions should remain the way they are. There is no point altering the course of a river that is going to meet the sea whether we like it or not. Stories, for better or worse, are built on the premise of time. They are unique—just like the second law of thermodynamics which bothers to distinguish the past from the future—in their own ways but what is common to them is our desire to absorb. Ever wondered why the storytellers come and go whereas the stories remain? Exactly.
I love animals and I am sure you do too. If we could all channel the Mowgli in each one of us and spoke to them, we’d be dumbfounded by our collective gruesomeness. Removed from the industrial complex of producing food on large scale—as of now, farmed animals outweigh the rest of the living beings—one can’t ignore how we use scriptural words like ‘sacrifice’ because ‘murder’ sounds harsh. For some reasons, only the lives of humans matter. Every other living being—which sadly includes dogs and cats as well—how many times do we see them mentioned in news reports of heavy rainfall or floods?—is supposed to be there for our convenience. What a travesty! For all our poetry and lingual aesthetics, we are yet to master the rawest of all essence: empathy for fellow creatures. In our historic arrogance of having conquered the animal kingdom, we forget that we are guests here. Like the dinosaurs were and the beings that predated them. Whatever is extant has to be extinct someday.
Last weekend, I happened to stay in a hotel room in Bangalore for one night and it was my first such sojourn since 2016. All of a sudden, I realized that I’d absolutely enjoy the orderliness of living out of a suitcase. People who travel a lot keep cribbing about being constantly on the move but I think it must suit me. A hotel room complements my OCD. Being allergic to mess, I might be able to focus better with an organized bed and table and bathroom. Also, there is an understated peace in the corridor: that strange calmness that sounds like valium. Maybe it’s an inordinate reaction to the pandemic and being cooped up in my house for so long, but I feel the artificial perfection of a hotel room is exactly what I need right now.
Have you ever seen the ears of boxers, wrestlers and extreme martial artists? Yes, they are all bulge-y and visibly damaged. Cauliflower ears, they are called and aptly so. These modern-day warriors, emerging from sports arena, may get their face disfigured during bouts but a few months down the line, there won’t be a scar on their face. That brutal uppercut that left a pitiful gash? Not a mark left anymore. But those ears, well, they have a different personality altogether. During childhood days, teachers pulled our ears to apprehend us and we presumably learned our lessons. Perhaps these cauliflower ears have their own set of learnings to share.
In 1973, the Rosenhan experiment took place where members pretended to hear voices and went for psychiatric help. Almost all of them were treated by their doctors, employing various degrees of medications and therapies. The whole episode not only exposed the sheer cluelessness of psychiatry but also reminded us about the deceptive nature of humankind. Nothing is what it claims to be. If somebody tells you that they love you, maybe they say that because they love the fact that you love them: an insurance of sorts. When those participants from the aforementioned experiment blatantly lied about their mental health, weren’t they showing us a mirror? For instance, if a person tells you that they haven’t seen a ghost and hence can’t believe in ghosts, it is a reasonable conclusion. However, if a person tells you that they have seen ghosts (not just a ghost) but still don’t believe in them, then you are in for a major ride.
Last week, I heard a lot of fascinating stories thanks to a colleague-turned-friend. But the one that knocked the cherry off the cake belonged to his childhood in Delhi. Turns out his neighbours (the husband-wife duo) killed their children, before hanging themselves, thanks to heavy losses in business and the resulting debt. Well, our young hero somehow sneaked by the policemen and got into the house to get a peek of the incident. Imagine two adults hung and kids dead on the floor. Ghastly image, no doubt. But what’s incredibly interesting is how a child decided to draw on the paper what he saw and in the process, got admonished by the police first (who couldn’t believe that a kid witnessed the tragic scene) and then his parents (who couldn’t believe what was wrong with their little Picasso), before being packed off to live with his grandparents (who could only hope that they could cure their dear grandson).
Work is worship for those who know what they are doing. For the rest of the crowd, it’s an unbearably cliched outlook. While you are working, whether full-time or partly, you try to figure out the many machinations behind a project. Different organizations function differently, just like different football clubs operate variably although each one of them play the same game. Patience and concentration are your best friends here: you may like to flaunt that you work for higher ideals but at ground reality, you work for people and with people. That’s about it. And if there is one thing you must always adhere to, it’s the principle of professional self-esteem: never put yourself or your work down in your work space. Never. That damage is irreversible. Let others judge you. Judge yourself for your weight gain and lack of dental hygiene.
Cinematic representation of a story reveals as much as it hides. At first glance, Mirzapur comes across as a story about power and ambition but on closer inspection, it becomes obvious that the whole drama is about family and respect. They are shooting people and breaking innumerable laws for cinema’s sake: consider their acts as an urge to make up for what is missing. A facade to hide many facades. One more aspect surfaces in the second season: democracy in India is flawed not by design but by gumption. Even the biggest don in this wretched city knows by heart that you don’t mess with the state’s chief minister. Not because of democratic apparatus in place but because the CM’s chair only welcomes a greater don. It’s no place for crimeless souls. Maybe that’s why I feel the name of this show could be a nod to Phoolan Devi. After all, irrespective of her bloody history, she served as a member of parliament twice from Mirzapur.
Mother tongue, once taught, stays forever. I am yet to meet somebody who improved upon the language of their childhood. Particularly amongst the urban lot, where parents neither manage to teach their offspring correct enunciation nor enhance their vocabulary. As a result, the child continues to feel diffident in their root language. For example, I speak Tulu like fellow Tuluvas who grew up in Bombay, with a lot of ingestion from Hindi, Marathi and English. When a local Mangalorean hears me, they can easily pinpoint my foreignness. The only problem with this equation is if I am shrewd enough, I can point out the Kannada-ness of their Tulu as well. If Hindi/Marathi/etc. aren’t welcome in Bambaiya Tulu, then how is Kannada welcome in vernacular Tulu? Double standards (no pun intended), no?
According to anthropology, fear has been a very useful tool for us. Humans flourished mainly because they paid attention to their instincts. If we are fearful in the year 2020, it proves a basic theory: our DNA trailing thousands and thousands of years is damn solid. We could have easily shed the garb of fear the way dodo did (bad example) or birds of paradise (good example) did. But no, we held on them for their effectiveness. It caused us moments of anxiety and panic but it saved our lives and stopped us from taking feckless decisions too. Problems rose only when fear married superstition: religion is the love child of this union. Backed by irrational beliefs and feelings, a person tends to cause wreckage of all types. This is also why it’s rather cute when religious folks claim that they aren’t superstitious. That’s like suggesting none of the millennials are narcissistic.
My dad is currently on his first stay with us (Palla, Ranga and I) and I’ve been noticing how removed from technology he is. His one-point entertainment is YouTube but unlike you and me, he doesn’t click on the Skip Ads button and watches whatever YouTube presents. Over the past few days, I’ve seen him watch movies in various languages (Kannada, Telugu, Punjabi, Malayalam and Mid-Atlantic English) as if he is the world’s finest cinephile. He doesn’t click on the Full Screen button either lest he doesn’t get back to the original screen. I’ve been trying to teach him better but it seems like this old man feels safer treating YT as TV with zero agency on the audience’s part.
Your thirst for knowledge will take you places. Every little thing that you learn today will be put to use some time in the future. Not always monetarily though. According to the law of knowledge (I just made this up), no gyan is useless. Not saying this because I am always neck-deep in trivia but for more practical reasons: if you aren’t willing to learn new stuff, you will turn obsolete. Learn as much as possible, be it practical or theoretical or both—simply keep your mind open to new theories and objectives. Remember there is somebody out there from the world of science who is interested in knowing why wombats shit cube-shaped poop. Their desire to learn must motivate, not disgust, you.
I love how much thought you behind your random thoughts! Here from your Instagram :)