Unequal living, equal suffering
Every state in India has streets named after Gandhiji. Every major city has his name emblazoned. It’d be fair to say that his name is the most popular one in public consciousness. There are very few religious figures who get to achieve sainthood. Gandhiji is a clear exception as he is treated like a saint despite his political background. In 1948, the year of his demise, the Nobel Peace Prize committee decided not to award the prize anyone as a mark of respect. That’s the level of admiration he garnered not just on national but also on an international scale. Of course, we can keep wondering what would have been his legacy had he lived longer and died a natural death. Whatever be the hypotheses, the fact remains that there is a MK Road everywhere. It’s not that Gandhiji wanted this to happen: these were posthumous developments. On the other hand, we have Mao Zedong who made sure none of the streets in China are named after him. I think as long as streets are named after mortals, it’s perfectly fine. They shouldn’t be named after gods because people have the bad habit of walking all over them.
If you got everything you ever wanted, would you be satisfied? If yes, what would be left of your life? If not, what next? I’ve understood, with time and varied experiences, that being dependent on external factors to mask your internal issues could be a terrible method. You wake up alone and you fall asleep alone. Everything else in the middle are basically fillers of temporary touch points. The most you can do for others is give them your time. Which leaves you with the age-old question: what do I want? Well, it doesn’t matter because even if you got everything you ever wanted, you’d still be waking up all by yourself and falling asleep all by yourself.
As a writer, you can pour all your emotions onto the page, emptying yourself out, for a few lines worth reading, a few paragraphs worth highlighting, and at the end of the trail, you would still feel empty. That is the worst possible feature of writing. As a reader, you absorb and embody what you read. It’s an amazing osmosis where you don’t lose out on anything. This unfair relationship of a writer and a reader can never be course-corrected because that’s the bedrock of literature. The one who writes is supposed to bleed more than the one who reads. Nothing can be done here. Some of us put all our wants into words. Some of us put all our wants into sighs. Both are unequally suffering.
Over the past few years, UFC has skyrocketed, leaving the traditional boxing setup behind in terms of eyeballs and moolah. Yet, if you are a student of our species, you would be mindblown by the boxing giants of yesteryear, be it Ali or Frazier or Marciano or Tyson or Holyfield, to namedrop a few. Each one of them has such compelling stories to share. How they fought against the odds and showed up at the ring without fail. The amount of time and discipline they nurtured to be able to keep jabbing through the rounds, with blood mixing with sweat on their face, is what legends are made up of. It’s ridiculous to agree to chase dreams in an arena where grown ass men are expected to punch the shit out of each other. Doesn’t make sense. But then, what about human existence makes sense at all?
When you are fast asleep, there are rare moments when you are half-awake and half-gone and yet you know, during that instance, that it feels great to be resting like that. Such a nice feeling of absolute bliss. The fan is running at the right speed. No mosquitoes playing out music in your ear. Your blanket hugs you like a lover you never had, leaving your legs exposed to your ankles. It can’t get any better than this. The only problem is such moments are so rare that every time they happen, it feels like it’s happening for the first time. Groundhog Day alert. The exact opposite of deja vu.
Every 10-14 days, a language dies in the world. A language that took centuries to build, a language that meant something to a lot of people once upon a time. The way things are going, it’s obvious how languages function similar to the way MNCs operate: consolidation of the many, supremacy of the few. You can notice how there are super-languages in almost every country out there. In India, as vast and lingually gifted as it may be, the aspirational languages are either English or Hindi. In Pakistan, where more than 70% of the population speaks Punjabi, Urdu is cherished despite clocking less than 10% of the population. The story is pretty much the same in other continents too. In the United Kingdom, English is the preferred tongue, with Welsh, Scottish and Gaelic struggling to keep up with the dominant force. In such a stupid world, parents who wholeheartedly teach their offspring their mother tongue are doing an exceptionally thankless job.
I avoid arguments and confrontations as much as possible. The main objective behind running Shaktian Space (on Substack) and my YouTube channel is to rant about stuff without having to immerse myself in conversations. It’s like my childhood on repeat: bowling to the stumps drawn on the wall. However, there is one topic that I take an exception to and would definitely weigh my thoughts in: the lame assessment by people that the language they are particularly aware of is the sweetest language in the world. I’ve heard this in favour of Marathi, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Kannada and even Tulu. See, nothing wrong with believing in something that can’t be scientifically measured anyway but to claim that a language that you happened to be familiar with is the sweetest language in the world is like a blind man saying darkness is the best colour.
I recently watched an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! where he asked couples how many times do they have sex in a month. The catch being, the answers are to be delivered separately. The man would say 12 times while the woman would say 5. In only one case, both of them shared the same number. Soul mates indeed. But what I found interesting about this little social experiment is, the man tends to note a higher number in mind compared to his SO. Maybe this behaviour has something to do with our primitive backdrop. From our hunter-gatherer days, right through the Agricultural Revolution, to society-building, men sought quantity more than quality in sexual pursuits. I can’t think of any king—with the notable exceptions of Dara Shikoh who remained faithful to his wife, and Frederick I who had a royal mistress but never had sex with her thanks to his love for Catherina—who didn’t have a harem to begin with. It wasn’t like they stumbled upon the ‘best’ woman and then stopped dilly-dallying with other women. It was never about quality for men. As Forrest Gump mused, stupid is what stupid does. Anyway, here’s my grand theory on the equation of sex and marriage: if two people are in a bad marriage but are having good sex, maybe they are not in a bad marriage.
One of my priorities is to get fit and strong and fearless. OK, those are three different priorities but you’ve got to start somewhere. During my younger days, I was leaner and took my stamina and physique for granted. I naturally assumed that I am going to have those abs for good. With the passage of time, the gasping for breath became evident. When you are constantly moving, you tend to be supple. The moment you confine yourself to a chair, you are bound to regret sooner than later. The thing is, your body takes care of you, not the other way around. It keeps taking care of you until the point it can’t take care of you anymore. Every little damage and repair, every physical/mental ups and downs; your body held itself up like a soldier. Hence when you are in your 30s, it’s imperative to pay extra attention to yourself. Perhaps it’s never too late to lead a healthier lifestyle, because you are not going to take care of yourself, who can you be trusted to take care of? Your loved ones? Mother nature? Who else?
All the youngsters who reach out to me for career advice don’t realize that the era I was a part of was completely different from theirs. When I started out, the internet was blossoming and Ali G could get away with fooling so many reverential folks on TV. Social media was barely getting started and journalism was already feeling the pinch of online content. And in the background, we were noticing blips of startups making their presence felt, not just in the VC meetings. Things appeared unorganized and yet so structured in a lot of ways. Today, there is too much exposure, way too many opportunities too. Youth can do a lot and achieve a lot more (not just monetarily) under these circumstances. All they need to do is keep their eyes and ears open and keep their mouth shut unless google is completely useless.
What is the chemical formula of trust? Asking because we are all chemical beings, driven by stimulants in our brain and hormones in our system. How do we reach a stage where the T-word is as inconspicuous as oxygen? As humans, we fail everyday because we place too much demand from others and grant too little from our side. Almost tragic how doubts arise and lead us to uncomfortable corners of our mind. After all, once trust is broken, or even questioned, there is no coming back entirely. It’s a subtle little ingredient that drives the whole show on its own. Without trust, where would we be as species today?