Your journey is only yours
When you think of content, think of Salman Khan. Here is an actor who has understood the market better than the crème de la crème of business schools in India. Why? Because he knows the difference between content and audience. People keep saying that he is a terrible (over)actor and posts strange tweets but that’s not at all a true representation of who he is. First thing first, anybody who has watched Andaz Apna Apna (1994), Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) or Tere Naam (2002) would vouch for his range. Now coming to his lack of intellectualism, he doesn’t read morning newspapers as he wakes up after noon, not because he is not interested in world affairs. Having spent time in journalism, I can tell you that he is highly informed and eloquent too. Which brings us to the distinction between content and audience. Now, the content that Salman Khan helps create—let’s call it bhai cinema—caters to a large audience who dearly love him and don’t give a damn about his content. They are there in the cinema hall because he makes them feel relatable. As a consequence, we seldom get to see him experiment with his onscreen range. In an idol-friendly country like ours, the love for a person supersedes the love for his creation. And Salman Khan knows that way too well. If I were to extrapolate here and put myself (along with my lousy blog) in a similar ring, that’d be like saying that there are thousands of readers who like my content but unfortunately, they don’t love me enough to pay for my content.
The problem with our society is those who know are worried too much about being wrong while those who don’t know crap are cocky about their ignorance. You can see this pattern unfold across the globe actually. A person who had spent 15 years studying a subject would sound nice, mellow and apprehensive whereas an idiot with access to free data would sound like he cracked the Poincare conjecture before Perelman did. For example, my brother is pursuing PhD and a PolSci buff but while talking to him on his favourite topics, he measures his words like a bespectacled researcher in an abandoned laboratory. Maybe such a pattern emerges when you go through too much information on your own. You read so many sources that you’ve acknowledged that truth isn’t that easily available. We might live in an impatient world but that doesn’t mean we are owed anything for our haste. Maybe brevity is indeed for fools whereas verbosity is for scholars.
Thank god for mothers! It’s worth wondering where would we be without our mothers. No, it’s not a rhetorical question, because, obviously, we are here in the first place thanks to our mothers. But on a larger scale of things, our mothers teach us how to live before anybody else. Which is also why you should never underestimate your mother’s ability to connect the dots. She might come across as an illiterate in an increasingly digital world, she knows you better than you do. I’ve learned this the hard way: my amma figures out what’s going on just by my voice. After all, a mother has not only given you your life but also seen a fair share of life.
What’s the worst joke that you’ve ever heard? Whatever it is, forgive it for it can’t possibly be worse than Christoph Waltz’s ‘pun’ on how Oscar rhymes with awesome. No joke. He actually cracked this one on the red carpet at the Academy. He was half-right, to be right. Just the wrong half: Os and awes do rhyme but only as much as awful and office. He literally got it the way around. Well, what if it was a very smart joke much ahead of its time? Or species?
Being married to an excellent cook is you get to know a lot about food whether you appreciate the knowledge or not. I know for a fact that cilantro and coriander are really not the same. I also know what we consume assuming it’s cinnamon is actually cassia as the former is relatively expensive. Etc. Etc. Food can be a touchy topic but it brings people together more than it divides, and that’s why it ought to be celebrated at all cost. That said, you can fuck around with people too by saying that you’ve never had a particular food item (fast food, if you may) ever before although it’s an obvious lie. Notice how they take it so damn personally that they’d even order it for you. Once the order is in, you can fuck around with them again by saying that it’s not at all good. The show doesn’t end here. Continue munching and finish the whole thing while constantly dropping negative reviews about it. That, ladies and gentleman, is the power of food.
Samuel Beckett died a few months after his wife passed away. Jinnah passed away miserably less than 8 months after his so-called nemesis Gandhiji was killed. Mehboob Khan, who directed Mother India (1957), passed away a day after his good friend Jawaharlal Nehru did the same. Similarly, Carrie Fisher’s mom passed away a day after her daughter died. There are several such popular instances of people checking out soon after or a little while after their close associate. I find the whole ‘follow-up’ amazing because it makes these individuals connect in life as well as in death.
In our nation (using this word to point out that, despite our differences, we might be a unique tribe), people who are barely productive are expected to be reproductive. A person in their early 20s hasn't done jackshit to come up with another human out of their genitals. The very thought is outrageous, if not darn tragic. Not to sound pessimistic but shouldn’t you experience your existence a bit before deciding to pop out a mini-existence of your own? Isn’t your journey yours and not anybody else’s? Besides, what’s the hurry? Delaying isn’t equal to denial. Think about it.