From heroes to nowhere
For an era in dire need of an original hero — somebody not tainted by human weaknesses and almost free from the preconceived gamuts of novels — we are busy creating villains. We have a problem with everyone. Nobody is perfect, apparently. As if a flower aims for perfection when it blooms. Regardless, once in a long while, an individual breaks the clutter and emerges as a hero for the whole humankind to look up to. In my book, one such person is Edward Snowden. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have fathomed the sheer depth of the hold authorities of the so-called free world have over the civilians. When Assange’s team started leaking all those classified files, we were barely scratching the surface of the problem. With Snowden, we go face-to-face with the inventors of modern frankensteins. No, this is not a brief review of his recent book but it’s interesting to learn about his undulating journey. As a kid, we all wanted to be heroes, inspired by varied characters, both real and imagined, and seldom do we become one. More often than not, we dissolve in the crowd. In fact, the only thing common between Snowden and me is we both found our (future) wives online. He is a recluse and yet he can’t abandon intrigue. He appears shy but does a podcast better than some of the most extroverted celebrities out there. In one word, he is a mystery and in another, he is an open source. If only we could learn someday whether Edward Snowden is indeed his real name.
Remember when Shankar Mahadevan sang that Breathless song? Well, he can’t do that in Gurgaon. Although it might feel like low air quality issue is intrinsic to Delhi NCR, the cast is much wider: the whole north India is at risk. It’s quite lame to suggest that no problem is bigger than us, especially when we are the problem. None of these environmental anomalies should be a surprise to us. The skyline gets super-hazy and the air turns heavy every Oct-Nov and yet, we pretend to be surprised every single time. Instead of being proactively doing something for the environment, we’ve conveniently sidetracked the conversation by placing the onus on third parties. In other news, the smog is growing thicker than us.
We all know Gandhiji wasn’t in favour of industrialization. He foresaw the human redundancy left behind by machines and vehemently stood against material dependency. After moving back to India, he vowed a swadeshi lifestyle and stayed true to his set principles. No soap, no toothpaste, no nothing that was mass produced by factories with workers getting bare minimum. And people saw, for a pleasant change, a leader who practised what he preached. However, although I admire his thorough perspectives about things around him, I genuinely feel he was unfair to cinema. For him, the full screen was nothing more than a medium for propaganda: he had noticed how cinema played an influential role in WW1 so, to him, the celluloid was less about entertainment and more about inculcation. In hindsight, he had a good point. After all, when you mention the word ‘hero’ to a kid in Indian subcontinent, the child’s first thought jumps to movies. It’s impossible for children to associate the H-word with somebody real. The magic of reel becomes too much to bear in such a dreamy society.
At the base level, each one of us is a human being. We might claim subscription to different ideologies but deep down, when fire comes to burn, we act like exactly like each other. Ideology takes a backseat as people rush to destroy their appointed enemy. When right wing trolls rushed to berate an e-commerce, thus bringing down its overall rating, we were aghast at how mob culture works in the Internet Age. Turns out the left wing trolls are no different when it comes to venting their anger at an establishment. They too will gather to damage their villain in whatever ways possible by leaving negative reviews about a place they didn’t know existed, let alone visited. What this common behaviour shows us is our vulnerability in times of rage. We want to bring change so quickly that equanimity doesn’t appeal to us anymore.
Friendship happens everyday just like friendship erodes everyday; like a plant in constant need of water, it loses against the pull of time. Even the strongest of bonds fail if constant care isn’t provided. When two people don’t contact each other anymore, they lose more than just touch. Good friends somehow manage to fight against the odds of indifference and keep their bond alive. Such folks are rare in a larger context of being as we all know by now how busy we can get. Also, words — not abject silence — essay an important role in ensuring the bridge continues to exist. Open conversations, topped by deepest regards, go a long way in this lifelong operation. We can only grow as a person when we have a mirror in another person, and a good friend does that for us. Besides, how are your friends going to tell you you are gaining weight when they are busy gaining weight too?
Capital punishment is a 12th century concept in a 21st century world. But it’s worth pondering over all the options that are available for those who commit the gruesomest of crimes. If a man who has destroyed a woman, both physically and mentally, expects mercy to be granted, there is something amiss here. That missing ingredient is logic. How is he ever going to redeem himself, either inside a prison or outside of it, for what he had knowingly committed? How exactly does his incarceration going to help his victim(s) — the entire family is affected — in any practical way? Similarly, putting him on the gallows don’t do much except provide temporary balm to the ceaseless pain of an unjust act. In the middle of these contradictions, we search for the meaning of life as well as death.
A few months ago, somebody called me an old soul and instead of taking offence at it, I felt remarkably great about myself. To be frank, I prefer the greys to the B&Ws of youth; my proclivities are in tune with the earned wisdom of old age, rather than the borrowed knowledge of youth. Excuse my premature arrogance but I find older people more at peace with themselves than the younger ones. Despite all these upmarks, one can’t help but accept the slow tragedy of how our world is not equipped for the wrinkled populace. We are in such a hurry to get nowhere that we don’t have the patience to listen to those who might have simply learned how to live.
Everybody needs a break. Everything needs a break. Next month, I will be taking a month-long sabbatical from chess. I’ve been at this boardgame (boardsport?) uninterrupted for months now and I am really looking forward to December. My 2019 January goal was to cross 1300 rating in classical, 1200 in rapid and 1100 in blitz. None of them is going to materialize anytime soon. In fact, I am in a steep decline, repeating the same old unpardonable mistakes, and crying over missed opportunities. The worst part of chess is when your lower ranked opponent offers you a draw but you reject it only to lose the game later. There is no quick fix for such a distinct case of continuous disarray. My peers are learning from the best of YouTube videos and masterclass books and their ratings are in upswing while I make sordid personal notes, which really aren’t helping. In all honesty, stubbornness deserves decline.
Justin Timberlake promised to bring sexy back. Obama promised to bring hope back. Modi promised to bring vikas back. All these men failed miserably. If history has taught us anything, nobody can bring anything back unless there is a collective desire to welcome. Which is also why I am glad nobody promised to bring non-fashionable stuff like philosophy and poetry back. On first glance, our planet is bleeding — our species is solely responsible for the multiple wounds — and an overdose of koan and haiku is exactly what might deliver us toward the next phase of evolution. Overdose, because of the glaring shortage in supply, not demand.
Last week, my amma visited north India for the first time in her life. Impressed with the tidiness of Delhi metro, she said she didn’t expect it to be so clean. I quipped on the absence of fellow Mumbaikars in the capital city. Of course, it was a shortsighted response because even Mumbai metro is neat except at the points where the commuters transition from locals to metro. It’s not that we desis can’t keep public properties nice. We just don’t want to because we don’t care about others. Our lack of empathy supersedes our common sense. And massive projects like these prove that people will behave if there is a precedent in place.
