Still waiting for a miracle?
When the pandemic started, I thought of organising Zoom quizzes to keep myself entertained and stay in “touch” with my fellow knowledge-seekers. May 2020 was the month online quizzing came into being for me and my fellow participants. It’s June 2022 already and there aren’t lockdowns as such anymore. People don’t even wear masks (disclaimer: I do because I am scarred and scared of China) before stepping out. However, our quizzes continue regardless. They aren’t as frequent as they used to be but the movement hasn’t died. Yet. When we began two years ago, 9-12 people used to join. Now, the figure has dropped to a modest 6-7 but I keep at it. There is a selfish reason behind it: these online gatherings are a rare social event for me as I don’t have a friend circle in Mangalore. So, the quiz becomes a place where I get to interact with non-colleagues and treat fellow quizzers as a guinea pig for my lame jokes and smart wordplay.
In Tulu, your name gets affectionated a lot, especially if you are a male. If you are Sundar, you will be called Sundara or Sundare depending on the gender of the loving person addressing you. Seldom have I heard a Tuluva being called by the name printed on their birth certificates. Some leeway can always be expected in this part of the world. The etymological logic behind adding the aa-suffix to ancient names is deeply rooted in Sanskrit, and its contiguous relationship with other languages in the subcontinent. That’s why we are comfortable with both Mahabharat as well as Mahabharat, Ramayan as well as Ramayana. Ram as well as Rama, Krishn as well as Krishna, Ganesh as well as Ganesha. It’s interesting how adding a syllable can be an act of endearment. Which makes me wonder why nobody edited Akbar to Akbara. After all, he was the first Mughal emperor to not only mint coins featuring Hindu deities but also make sincere attempts to learn the local language.
There are many ways to look at the world and one foolproof way of keeping things exciting is to accept that this world is a testing tool for you. You smile at others, some smile back at you while others frown. You do good to others, some remember while others move on. An endless series of experimentation where you create and destroy hypotheses day after day. The reason why we don’t want to learn something new about strangers out there is because we aren’t ready to find out how those new learnings might help us in our lives. Utility. It’s a fair assessment but it doesn’t answer the question at the core of our existence: if only few people matter in our lives, then what the fuck are the rest of the crowd for?
In case you haven’t noticed yet, I am a sex icon. No kidding. I figured this out about myself during my sojourn in Gurgaon, and Mangalore is only adding more citations to my thesis here. Turns out female dogs—or as the hip-hop artists from both the East and the West Coast call them, bitches—can’t have enough of me. Particularly the younger ones. They climb onto my leg, strap themselves tightly around my knees and hump while looking straight at me. Used to happen in Gurgaon, including my latest visit where I stayed with Bilal and his young pet Munmun, as well as in Mangalore where our street rowdy Terror longs for my legs every time she comes running at me. Maybe in my previous life, I was a prolific member of the canine family.
You are 70% water and yet you fail to acknowledge that you are part of the water cycle. From your eye-shutting sneezes to your eye-opening experiences, H20 dominates through and through. Keeping in line with this philosophy, is it fair to say that your ultimate aim should be to turn into river? Think about it. Once you become a river, you keep flowing and don’t look back. You don’t hold on to your past and wholeheartedly embrace your future. You take turns where need be and you gush forward wherever possible. You leave behind people and now that you are a river, you can’t even shed tears for them anymore. You neither drown nor rise. You want to meet the sea but who is going to tell you when your journey is genuinely complete?
What we want from life often comes to us from others. In our childhood, we stumble upon individuals who fascinate us, who shape us into who we want to be later in life. These are role models, so to speak. They could be anything from stylish to successful to beautiful to good-looking—beautiful is not the same as good-looking; the former is a feeling, the latter is an attribute—to funny to simply amazing. Some grownups might have even inspired us to become rich in life and own a lot of stuff too. Their glamorous life and glaring car might have hypnotized us to aspire for the same rewards from hard work. I doubt if any of us had a role model who was so happy that we too wanted to be happy just like them.
One of the nicest things about Mangalore is you can hear the crickets scream in harmony during the daytime in monsoon. In hardcore cities, you never get to hear them at all. In the outskirts, you get to hear them only after sunset. But here, they play out their music in broad daylight. At least in the neighbourhood where I reside. As I am typing this, they just hit crescendo once again. It’s only after you read about tiny creatures like crickets, termites, bees and ants you’d realize that there is much more to life than chasing concrete.
The greatest irony of all is being fully aware of what needs to be done but not doing it. If you are overweight, chances are you already know what you should be doing to get your inches under control. There is a greater possibility of you sitting on your hands, accumulating more fat instead of going on long walks and adhering to a balanced diet. The same principle applies to other aspects of life, be it procrastination, drinking, smoking, lack of focus, etc. We know what needs to be done but true to our primitive instincts, we’ll still take chances with time. We are a wonderful, wonderful species indeed.
I was watching a video on YouTube on the physical obstacles mountaineers face. Apart from the abject loneliness that they put themselves through, what is intriguing about them is they smile through the pain. It’s madness. Somebody can go whisper to them “you don’t need to do this” and they might reply “I know, I know” before tightening their gear. When their heart almost collapses and they are gasping for the last breath, they keep themselves motivated to step up further. Of course, not all of them succeed in reaching the summit but the fact that they are willing to go through hell on earth for a few moments of sheer euphoria tells you everything you need to know about the human spirit.
There are very few things I miss about my life in Bombay. Commuting in local trains on a daily basis is definitely not one of them. While working for Morningstar, I used to bicycle to work as the office was barely 4 kilometers away. It’s only after joining mid-day, that I understood why there is a mute in commute. It’s a silent, painful experience. Particularly for folks on Harbour Line who have to deal with this crowdburst called Kurla. We used to hang onto the door as if our lives depended on it. Well, our lives did depend on it. Say what I may about the inconsolable gap between what Mumbai should be—given it’s status as India’s richest city—and what it is for commoners—thanks to pathetic infrastructure and poor planning—one thing remains unique to that city. People. They are less of strangers and more of a support system, especially when you are traveling together. I remember barely hanging on the edge of the compartment, with tips of my middle and ring finger carrying my entire body load along with my satchel, and the train was somewhere between Lokmanya Tilak and Chembur station. There was no energy left in me and like a miracle, this guy standing beside me, cramped for space just like the rest of us, put his arm around my waist. To this day, I have a feeling that my fingers would have slipped had he not held me on time. I wonder why he did that.
Do what is tough. It’s easy to dwindle away, assuming that life is supposed to be easy. The truth of existence lies in how we face difficulties, how we overcome situations thrown at us. It’s important to practise our composure during a storm. Too much comfort is what led to our complacency. We are mediocre but nobody is telling us so. Everybody around is hyping us up by using vacuous words like ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’. There is always room for improvement. We can be better. We must be better. Stop saying that your handwriting sucks and that it used to be nice during school days. Just re-learn and start writing on paper. Simple. Stop saying that you don’t have the will to get back in shape. Go without sugar for a day and see what happens. Talk to old friends you are out of touch with. Connect with them and then find more excuses to become what will surely fulfil you. The road to redemption is not supposed to be easy. And each one of us is redeeming something or the other here.
My parents have been married for close to four decades and have known each other since childhood as they hail from the same village. However, they don’t get along very well. The reason is obvious: my amma has understood that she doesn't have to put up with his idiosyncrasies anymore. Her young ones have flown from the nest anyway. Due to this backdrop, I end up capturing some of the most heartening but pointed conversations between them.
Pappa: “Your amma says I keep coughing for her sympathy. Do I need her sympathy?”
Amma: “When he is alone, he doesn’t cough.”
Pappa: “How do you know that? When I am alone, only I know whether I cough or not.”
Amma: “Do one thing. Cough when you are alone.”
Pappa: “Your amma has become unreasonable. Only god can talk to her without going mad.”
Amma: “Why aren’t you coughing now?”
I am a massive fan of comedy. If you can make me laugh, I owe you a lot. Throughout my age of reason, I have sought humour in circumstances that otherwise are deplete with laughter. A little pun here and a wisecrack there. Words, words, words. Although Kramer is my favourite TV character, physical comedy isn’t for me. Which brings us to my amma-in-law who walks like a penguin but has a sharp wit to boot.
Me: “Due to rains, fish are getting imported. Look at this one. This fish is from Oman.”
Amma-in-law: “Does it speak Arabic?”