Hidden in plain sight
Inside your heart, you might be a global citizen but your passport is there to remind you about our daily realities. All poetic hokum aside, this world is fractured into political boundaries for convenience’s sake. If a country is low on the list of powerful passports today, it might grow wealthy and turn the tide tomorrow. Take a look at Vietnam’s recent leap, or Singapore’s historic stride over the last 50 years. So, it’s only a matter of time and effort for a nation (and its people) to catch up with the rest of the geography. Prosperity, shared prosperity to be concise, is what matters in the long run. Goodness attracts goodness and rot deepens rot. And this distinction should stay in the mind of those who perceive borders as an instrument of division. If anything history has taught us, it’s this: humans destroy the planet as a decoy to avoid destroying themselves. As foolish as this notion is, it’s still far better than the imaginary world of a global citizen.
I haven’t traveled much. I read a lot and stay hungry to know more but I haven’t been in the sun much. Although I’ve been to almost all the states in mainland India, my passport got stamped only twice, and that too more than 7 years ago. Once for a trip to Bangkok to attend — believe it or not, a conference on the freedom of speech and expression on the Internet — and another on a press junket to Colombo. Both were extremely pleasant and memorable but quite short in length. When you belong to a vast nation like India, with its endless supply of human beings, you tend to feel like the smaller countries can’t possibly surprise you. Well, you are mistaken. I was beyond shocked in Thailand as well as Sri Lanka. I don’t know what’s wrong with their citizens but they don’t defecate in the open.
When somebody says they don’t like the way you think, they are being figurative. What they mean to suggest is they don’t like the way you talk or express yourself in public. Yes, from the initial reaction, it seems like they are attacking your thought process. It’s only when you calm down and remove the verbal layers, you realize that they are actually at loggerheads with the way in which you display your thoughts. To give you an example, nowadays, bigotry is in the air. Those you assumed to be benign — a rather distressing word for a person who doesn’t have a strong opinion — are suddenly alright with adding their two paise on sensational topics. This massive change in behaviour has brought us to a phase where opinions are worth less than ever before. Earlier, expertise was a prerequisite. Not anymore; everybody has an opinion, and that too a strong one, on everything. If you care for my opinion, I think this isn’t as worrisome as the fact that we are finally figuring out the real reason we dislike so many and a lot than required. After all, when you dislike somebody for their thoughts, you are being abstractly cute. You don’t like the way that person thinks — which basically means that person thinks differently from you — despite the fact that thinking is a very, very private process.
On one side of our scale, we are blessed with abundance of all the things we care about. One the other side, we are cursed with abandonment by all that we don’t care about. My heart goes out to the latter. When you get something as a birthday gift, it means so much to you. Not because you are receptive to the material manifestation of feelings but because social norms dictate that you appreciate gestures. However, as the months pass by, that gift begins to collect dust and bad vibes. In the sea filled with a million examples of abandonment, forgotten birthday gifts are a tiny drop. What it highlights though is our constant swinging between the two As. Sadly, it’s not little stuff we leave behind. Sometimes, for causes beyond our realm, we end up abandoning people as well as places — never to return.
There was a stage in my younger days when I was very keen on pursuing economics. If it weren’t my allergy to mathematics, I’d have actually made something out of a degree/s in economics. Anyhow, as of now, the more I read about economics, the more I respect the contribution economists make in the field of philosophy. As clichéd as it may sound, economists are relevant to a society only as long as the latter believes in economy without understanding it. Every year, there are groundbreaking pieces in journals published by people who never make it to primetime TV but their conspicuous relevance underpins the work they really do. From what I’ve understood this discipline, a major difference between a philosopher and an economist lies in what they seek: the former is chasing all the questions while the latter remains in the pursuit of the answers. Fortunately, neither succeed in their respective endeavour.
Speaking of my favourite discipline, how long before we get sucked into the nadir of stagflation. Simply put, who is going to save our economy? Those who are supposed to govern (not rule) us either don’t understand what’s going on or are so consumed by power that they don’t want to understand what is going to go on. When a nation of our size doesn’t come up with creative solutions for age-old problems, it reflects on the complex numbers. And going by what we are seeing currently, all of us ought to be on the same page — even if it’s burning. In all fairness, Indian economy will ultimately look like a frog waiting for a princess to kiss it so that it can turn her into a frogress.
For quite a long while, there has been a constant splurge of misinformation regarding the power of social media. Apparently, it makes us who we aren’t in real life: hidden in plain sight behind the barrage of hashtags and filters is our true self. Or, for instance, I don’t think or talk like this when I am offline? Sorry to disappoint you but it’s too late to have this kind of analysis. Our generation, aided by the influx of smartphones and data and an extra opposable thumb called the backspace button, has designed a lifestyle which extends to our avatars on Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and ilk. That said, nothing exposes a person more effectively than Twitter. Although I’ve never been to a stripclub, there is no stripper greater than Twitter. It strips others of their disguises and shows them for who they are — human weaknesses and warts and all. Others may call it vile. I call it natural progression.
Why is shower thoughts a thing but shitty thoughts aren’t? Let me explain. If the ideas you strike while taking a bath counts, then what about those that happen when you’re taking a dump? Both are ideas at the end of the sentence, and they reached their destination because of the support system in place — only the direction of water flow was opposite. Moreover, showers are noisy and disturbing. Nothing can practically beat the calm you feel when you are seated on the commode with the cold white clay pressed against the back of your thighs. With a strict no-phone policy (not because I am anti-technology but because I’ve forgotten my phone in there before), I must admit that my finest thoughts have come from such silent retreats. Also, it’s a very humbling and vulnerable experience to sit there, no? Imagine the rebels attacking Donald Trump when he’s busy shit-posting in his washroom. Capische? The more we talk about it, the less it feels like. Which is why I feel there is nothing more democratic than taking a shit.
