Mission Mangalore and all that jazz
When you commit charity, who are you doing it for? Think twice before you answer. Your hint is Walter White aka Heisenberg. Got your answer? If you think you do it for others, you ought to think harder. We do whatever we do — good, bad and UP Police — for ourselves. Even the tiny act of giving away cash to beggars at traffic signals has less to do with them and more to do with your peace of mind. The impulse behind your action doesn’t arrive from the person knocking on the window of your car. There is something inside you that wants to feel better, not necessarily better about yourself, but better nonetheless. So, yeah, unbelievable as it may sound, all of us share a fine trait with the protagonist of Breaking Bad. We all do it because we want to be good at it and our end result is to feel that goodness.
In the same vein, do you worry how your charity will be used? Asking this because isn’t unreliability the main cause behind lack of charity in our country? People of different faiths are more comfortable donating to their respective places of worship than to charitable foundations because they trust gods more than their fellow humans. After all, who’s going to provide accountability? Moreover, who is going to chase accountability? To avoid this drill, people keep their charity to either themselves or their faith. Or else, imagine giving away 50 bucks to a vagrant while instructing him not to waste the money on booze or drugs. What do you think he’s going to do with so much money at his disposal? Put it in a fixed deposit? Seriously. My friend Aditya had a valid point when he said that we should ideally ask them to use our money on addiction of their choice. Their life is already difficult as it is; they need drugs/booze more than you or me. They don’t need a moral burden to carry as well. Your 50 bucks is not going to change their life. For better or worse.
My dad is quite unique. He is yet to learn how to pick up video calls on WhatsApp but has somehow figured out how to watch Kannada movies on YouTube. On average, he watches 2-3 movies in a day. Different actors, different stories, different eras. However, when I call him in the evening and ask him about the names of the movies he watched, he has no idea whatsoever. He recognizes some of the popular actors from the films but never once has he shared any movie name. I wonder how is it even possible that a person who can read Kannada script consciously avoid learning an important piece of information. The only behavioural equivalent that I can think of is me clicking on I AGREE TO THE TERMS OF SERVICE without reading a single word above it.
There has been another horrific rape-murder in india. The emphasis is on ‘another’ and not ‘horrific’ (a redundant adjective) or ‘rape’ or ‘murder’. Given the societal status of the 19-year-old victim, it’s not at all surprising how the governmental machinery in place are trying their best to cover up this event. Adding insult to mayhem, the family of the young victim weren’t even allowed to carry out the final rites. Under the darkness of last night, the law enforcement agents burned the body, with the family cordoned off. Imagine the pain of her mother grieving from a distance. Even a blind would tell you what’s going on here. Instead of focusing on bringing the upper caste perpetrators to justice, the so-called administration kept themselves busy with getting rid of the body. Evidence? What evidence? In the coming days, there will be several plot twists but none of them would result in the favour of those who experienced loss.
After years of singing paeans about Mangalore on this blog, we (the three of us) are finally moving to that coastal city next month. Details are still hazy as there is so much to do but I guess with time, we’ll get a better grip on reality. Simply put, it’s exciting as well as scary. Like the great peot and traveler Akshar advised me last week: one day at a time. At the beginning of September, we had no idea and now that we have a hint at least, we are ironing out the transition. Let’s see what happens. By the way, Palla’s right hallux dropped this morning. No joke. It just slid off her foot. As if the big toe wanted to say — “You guys can go wherever you like. I am going to stay in Gurgaon.”
All new beginnings — beningings, according to the ex-president of South Africa — have one thing in common: chaos. For a change, I’ve been a part of way too many zoom calls/phone calls over the past 10 days than I’d been throughout the lockdown phase. There have been some encouraging conversations and then there have been some utterly useless chats too. But then, that’s a normal outcome of a plan that requires us to think from a Tier-2 point-of-view. For example, yesterday, Palla was talking to a real estate agent from M’lore and at the end of call, she had to correct him that we don’t have two dogs. “The other one is my husband,” was her actual sentence in Tulu.
One of the greater challenges of the upcoming move is making Ranga travel in a train. Mind you, we are talking about a dog that has had such a traumatic past that he hasn’t been beyond 50m radius from our apartment. It’s been over four years (with us) and we’ve never once taken him to a vet either. Proper street dog thugness. In 2017, we booked a dog grooming service for him and he was so scared that he peed while those two men bathed him. Yup. Last month, we tried to introduce a puppy to him on our terrace and our old man wouldn’t even look at the young enthusiastic fellow. With his tail hidden between his furry legs and head firmly down, he just wanted to run down to our apartment. That’s how socially awkward he is. Interestingly, he is very comfortable only with women; maybe he senses deep affection in them. Anyway, going back to the train, I have several concerns. One, with the daily crowd one can expect at Delhi station, I don’t think it’d be possible for us to “walk” him, so I’ll have to lift his 28 kg load throughout. Secondly, I wonder how easy (read: difficult) will be the bureaucratic procedure to get the required permit to let him travel with us in a coupe. Thirdly, even if we manage to get him inside the coupe, the struggle would be the consequent 36 hours journey. Fourthly, I am thinking too much because I am paranoid by nature. Fifthly, maybe the scent of women on the platform/train might calm him down a bit. Who knows?
Love is a very light word. You can throw it around like petals of a flower that has already witnessed its glory. But the same principle doesn’t apply to hate. Hatred is a dark hole and that makes hate a reasonably heavy word. What has happened, at least in the English language—I haven’t seen a similar analogy in Indian languages — is we have normalized hatred in speech, even if not in essence. Which means it’s perfectly alright for a 7-year-old kid to say that she hates spinach. When in practice she doesn’t hate spinach as such; she simply doesn’t like eating spinach. There is a difference but in the flow of language, it’s quite difficult to separate the difference. Try translating it in the languages you know and you’ll notice that other languages don’t allow such intensity for such a trivial matter.
Being selfish and narcissistic, I don’t hate you. At the most, I may not think highly of you, which, by technicality, means that I won’t be caring much about you and might just ignore you. Indifference max. Hatred requires a lot of effort and time — can’t afford it at this age. On the contrary, I can make adequate attempts to like you, and if you have distinguishing skills, admire you too. After turning 30, I’ve been adopting these personal measures to make life easier for myself. Why be stuck in the binary of love and hate anyway? Besides, I am not invested enough in anybody else to hate them. I can only hate myself.
After watching an eye-opening documentary called The Social Dilemma (2020), I am convinced that Netflix is damn addictive. Although most of the concerns expressed by those good samaritans from Silicon Valley are pretty much common knowledge, it’s worth reiterating because public memory is a lot like public opinion: inconsequential. For every strand of positivity that we have in the world today, there has to be an equal number of pain points. The balanced law of shittiness. And the internet is no different. If we can do awesome stuff online, we can also destroy ourselves brilliantly there. Completely depends on how equipped an individual is, emotionally or otherwise. In my know there are some people who have quit smoking and drinking in the last 10 years but I am yet to meet somebody who went offline for good. Not one. That said, it’s necessary to talk about the dangers of addiction even if we don’t really know how to tackle the problem in the first place.
David Attenborough has taught me a lot of things but his most striking lesson remained well hidden. Kevin Systrom launched Instagram in 2010 but Attenborough waited a decade to finally join the brigade. He conclusively proved that 94 is the best age to join this wonderful platform. And in doing so, he set a world record in amassing the most number of followers within the shortest timeframe. Armed with a mission to educate us about the declining environment, his account’s purpose is without any doubt. I sincerely hope he and his team succeed in changing the minds of those who believe that climate change isn’t going to affect them.
