Different people, similar stories
Those who can write, write a book. Those who can’t, tweet. My experiences tell me, particularly when I am going through sleepless nights, that I could have come out with a book by now if I were truly a writer. The matter of fact is I am not a writer. Yet. Hopefully, I might become one in the future. However, as of now, I am an aspiring soul not any closer to my destination than I was 15 years ago. In the meantime, so many people got published — some very good, most not so — while I kept myself occupied with trivial pursuits. I am at the same age Arvind Adiga was when his debut novel The White Tiger released. He went on to publish two more books within the following decade. I don’t think I have that sort of zeal or stamina. Even writers like Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago) and J.D. Salinger (The Catcher In the Rye) fail to inspire me because they all published only one book during their lifetime. If they actually inspired me, I might have churned out a manuscript by now. Maybe it’s time to seek inspiration from authors like Barbara Cartland who wrote 23 novels in a single year (1983).
Nobody influences our species more than the writers/poets. Every language, irrespective of the clout it enjoys in the post-colonial hierarchy, owes its presence to those who coined the words. Since this blog is expressed in English, let’s stick to the language of the Engels. For the record, Shakespeare singularly contributed over 20,000 words. This is the largest body of work for any person in any scripted language. He didn’t stop at common nouns; names like Olivia, Serena, Jessica and Bianca were introduced by him via his spectacular plays. Similarly, Jonathan Swift (of Gulliver Travels’ fame) came up with Vanessa before throwing up a damn great sound called ‘yahoo’. To help best describe the chaotic xenophobia we’ve created for ourselves, John Milton tossed ‘pandemonium’ while Jane Austen gifted us ‘outsider’. Walter Scott was the first one to euphemize the jobless knights who would lend their lance for money and ended up introducing the most millennial of all words: freelance. Dr. Seuss went a step further and invented a brand new word ‘nerd’ to describe the upcoming generation. On the other end of the timeline, Charles Dickens not only mentioned dinosaurs in Bleak House — the first novel to do so — but also came up with ‘boredom’ in the same book. Imagine how boring it would have been without a word to describe that feeling. No, the French-inspired ennui (pronounced onn-we) doesn’t cut it.
Do you ever utter a word and then wonder what could possibly be its history? Where did it originate? Where is it planning to arrive at? Well, Darwin’s theory of evolution isn’t restricted to living beings. Even our vocabulary constantly goes through a transition and in a blink of an eye, we adopt and abandon. If you typed “asl” on any online games chat today, the person on the other end would assume you to be a relic from the past. Our letters phase in and out according to our conditioning, not the other way around. If everybody thinks it’s cool to say “what’s up?”, then it is kewl. The day we stop seeing it as a non-word is the day we’ll move on to some other expression. Speaking of which, you must have used the word ‘ciao’ sometime in your life. Its origin is as conflicting as it can be. Apparently, the medieval Venetian phrase for “I am your obedient servant” was “sono vostro schiavo”, which basically meant “I am your slave”. Over time, it got truncated to ‘schiavo’, later to ‘s-ciavo’, to ‘s-ciao’, and then finally to ‘ciao’. Don’t forget this whenever you use it, capiche?
Meryl Streep is probably the greatest actress of all time. When you are above 70 and still acing it, it means you are so relevant that they are writing roles for you. Can’t say the same about so many actresses who were damn good until a decade or so ago. Longevity isn’t just a litmus test of your skills and talents. It’s also an indicator of how much you’ve made the industry accommodate you. Streep has proved time and again her worth as well as her consistency. She debuted in 1976 and since then, there have been only two years (1980 and 2000) that she didn’t have a film release. And if that isn’t splendid enough, she amassed 20 Oscar nominations (winning three gongs). Before her, Katharine Hepburn collected 12 Oscar noms (winning four) but what set her apart was her refusal to attend the awards ceremony. The Academy honoured her despite knowing very well that she wouldn’t show up at the function. Later, Cate Blanchett bagged her first Oscar for portraying the feisty Hepburn in The Aviator (2004) becoming the only actress to win the golden boy for playing an Oscar winner. Imagine the double delight if she’d boycotted the media circus as well.
With the passage of time, the facet of truths change while the truth remains the same. For instance, as a boy, I was taught that there were nine planets in the solar system. As of today, NASA tells me that there are only eight. Pluto is demoted to “dwarf” although he doesn’t know it yet. Anyway, the point is whether we recognize the truth or not, it’s still there. It proudly revolves around the sun, unaware of the external politics. To go back a bit on this subject, Mercury and Venus are the only planets without any satellite. Earth has one (the only one without a name — it’s just moon), Mars has two (Phobos and Deimos), Jupiter has 79 (Ganymede being the largest), Saturn has 82 (Titan is the biggest), Uranus has 27 (Titania tops the chart) and Neptune has 14 (Triton being the boss). Even Pluto has five moons. If justice prevailed, Mercury and Venus should have been sacked instead.
Now that we have comfortably settled into useless trivia, can you name the most fragrant but invisible flower? The correct answer is common sense. It’s a very rare breed and is almost missable in the crowd. Bertrand Russell once described it as ‘the metaphysics of savages’. If you leaf through human history, across the globe, you will understand why this is so. Humans, by nature, are practically selfish and perennially stupid. Why else would we continue to take decisions — both at personal and policy level — against ourselves? We know already that fast food is a slow poison. We know that some people in our lives are incurably toxic and yet we don’t cut them out. We know that our consumerism is going to choke our grandchildren someday. Yet, we betray that flower in us and do whatever the heck we do.
Few months before he passed away, India’s first home minister Sardar Patel wrote extensively on China’s mistrust for India. To paraphrase him, unless the Chinese counterparts embraced us as openly as we embraced them, there would never be an equal bonding. 70 years later, his words remain prophetic. Time and again, we’ve shown that, for a country, nothing works until you put national interest at the top of your list. From Aksai Chin to the UN Security Council fiasco to 1962 War to constantly working against India on global platforms, China has proved to be a terrible friend and a miserable enemy. The recent intrusions at Galwan shouldn’t shock us given her maritime trespassing in the South China Sea. Countries like Japan, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam have already tasted this bellicose medicine before. The problem is we fail to see that this is not about land (or islands), it’s about unchecked ambition. In 2014, the world’s largest country (Russia) didn’t need to annex Crimea — barely 0.1% of Russia’s landmass is under agriculture — but it did because it symbolized its aggressive present. Similarly, a piece of uninhabitable land on our eastern borders is simply a metaphor for the future. It tells us that a bully can get away with his bulliness. The British did the same in the 19th century. The USA bullied in the 20th century. Perhaps it’s China’s turn to repeat history in the 21st century.
Going by the social media, it may appear that Indians are the most passionately patriotic breed. It’s not true though. When the news of Chinese aggression started flooding our consciousness, some “boycott” videos started flooding our timelines as well: somebody throwing his SONY TV set off his balcony not realizing that he is being idiotic on so many fronts. For one, SONY is a Japanese brand, not Chinese. Two, even if it was a Chinese brand, it wouldn’t matter anymore as he had already paid for it. Three, almost every second object in our view was made in China. Unfortunately, you can’t compete with ridiculously low prices. Fortunately, such alarming videos don’t speak for the country because a few dumbasses can’t represent a billion humans. However, in plain words, it’s impossible to boycott Chinese products so easily, particularly when it took years for them to propagate into global markets. From the toothbrush you pick up first thing in the morning to the switch you turn off before going to sleep, everything has Chinese fingerprints on them. A saner formulae has to trickle from the top. Our lawmakers must think of a long-term game wherein domestic industries are supported and dependency is reduced to a large extent. Until that point, we must hold onto the elastic of our knickers because that too was probably made in China.
I like to believe that there are countless parallel universes out there. In each one of them, I am playing a different role; maybe I am a singer in one of them and an excellent teacher and an award-winning ukulele player in another. In many of these universes, my ajji must be alive and sound. In some of them, all my childhood friends who moved cities during our childhood itself are my grownup friends. And in at least one of them I must be infinitely content. So many (unaccounted) possibilities, no? Anyway, in each of these universes, nobody stays. More importantly, nobody stays the same.
Before you read the following poetic experiment, you must know that Tennyson spent over 17 years on a classic poem called In Memoriam. Just like Leonardo da Vinci spent about 15 years on Mona Lisa. If only I was narcissistic enough to indulge in such mental masturbation myself. My badly edited blog posts speak loudly for my impatience.
However, the following piece is titled ‘Muna’.
They met each other in a dream.
A wonderful world it seemed —
By the rivulet, on a train, across a bridge, in the lane.
The sun shined in her eyes, his worried sighs;
Each moment spent under an unknown spell.
How clear can clarity get indeed?
So many coincidences, so many signs,
So many ballads, so many rhymes.
None can explain this tryst with destiny —
It has no beginning, it has no end.
It has no future, it has no present.
Who directs these dreams anyway?
Where she laughs freely and he speaks well?
You can ask any question except the why.
They will reach there as soon as eyelids lie,
Without crumbling under the burden of now.
Rising to a distinct place away from themselves —
Far beyond the bustle and bond,
Much closer to the unity of calms.
They thrived there for ages and for ages to come,
Two different souls, one lump of life.
How long will they last is a needless ask —
They neither say hello nor wave goodbye.
