To new beningings
Maybe we don’t understand this world because it’s not meant to be understood. Maybe it’s an emotion at best and is supposed to be felt while we are still alive. All the strange things that unfold here on a daily basis can be a clue to how little we’ve managed to scratch the surface. To give you a recent example: for years, chess grandmasters have been trying to boost the popularity of chess in India. But to all the efforts poured in, the most a layman can think of when asked about a chess legend is Viswanathan Anand. Sultan Khan? Who’s that? However, thanks to the lockdown that followed COVID-19, the popularity of online chess has soared like never before and you can boil this internet phenomenon down to one comedian: Samay Raina. Yes, a comedian who doesn’t even fully grasp the technical beauty of chess. He barely knows five openings and is a funny patzer. But then, he was able to do what even the most well-versed in chess couldn’t: making fellow commoners fall in love with an addictive sport. No small feat.
If only one could capture the relief joblessness brings.
If only one could release the terror joblessness brings.
I’ve been working non-stop since I dropped out of college. With hardly a break in between, that’s pretty much a long streak from the September of 2007. In fact, my current unemployed status is remarkable (to me) on various levels. For one, I’ve finally understood the difference between a job and an opportunity. Job is what you seek. Opportunity is what seeks you. There are subtle differences between the two. The common factor being the desire to create your own responsibilities without having to peacock around during interviews. You can opt for a good job at any given point of time but you must wait for the right opportunity.
When somebody says “I want a perfect body”, what is the person implying? Is he hoping to hit the gym and carve out abs from his tyre of a belly? Or does he expect to find a lover who has the most attractive contour with all the curves at the right place? As you can see, English is a fascinating language and its suggestive ambiguity is what adds to its culture of (inadvertent) allure. For the record, if I were to make the above statement, it’d only be in respect to my long-held dream of building a washboard on my body. Others’ bodies are their problem.
The relationship shared by a creator and the client — article used is apropos to how important the latter is in this ecosystem — is filled with mystique. Both the parties strongly believe that they know best and there is little to no doubt about any of the requirements. Amazing clarity. But as the project picks up pace and with time, it’s interesting to note the sheer amount of dependency. The creator might have God complex but he is nothing without a client. The client might have Mafia Syndrome but he is nothing without a creator. And at the end of the day, it becomes obvious why there are so many back and forth. The creator knows what he wants (money in his salary account) whereas the client doesn’t know what he wants except perfection. Hence the endless iterations.
I love very few things as deeply as the sound of a good laugh. If somebody is laughing loudly, I am assured that they don’t have any immediate sorrows to deal with because loud laughters don’t hide sadness. They reveal mirth. At least that’s what I tell myself. Some inherently funny people around me, like Vivek, make me laugh like that all the time. However, it’s understandable why people find laughter annoying. Yes, it is noise to some extent and lacks the silent decency of a smile. Yet, it is a natural affirmation that humans can take it upon themselves to rise above their sorrows. Perhaps that explains the hollowness of the moment when a laughter drags to an end and fills the room with now-what unease.
If you noticed the moon last night, you would be impressed to know that that piece of the universe had been visited by only 12 people in history. That’s it. 12. The most exclusive club of all time. And what’s more — each one of these dozen lunar apostles were white. As if asserting the whiteness of the moon. There are many wonderful stories from each trip but my favourite has to be the one from Apollo 16. During that mission, astronaut Ken Mattingly lost his wedding ring. According to his fellow astronaut Charles Duke Jr., it apparently floated off somewhere and Ken spent all his spare time on the 11-day trip trying to find it. Long story short, a wedding ring, the symbol of marital completion, is still aimlessly floating in the space.
Little kids are so damn entertaining nowadays. A 6-year-old daughter of my friends recently said, “Well, I can’t read” when her twin brother accused her of cheating during a round of pictionary. At her age, I don’t think I’d ever come up with such a great comeback. Similarly, I overheard a 5-year-old daughter of our neighbours asking her father how come trees don’t go to school. He could only respond, “The bus isn’t big enough for them to get in.” A few steps later, the same kid looked at some teens playing basketball and screamed, “Good luck, boys!” That was the single coolest thing I witnessed in 2020. And I’ve spent a lot of time consuming kewl content on Instagram. To top it up, she noticed a pair of security guards by the gate and said, “Namaste, security uncle.” How does so much awesomeness contain within such a tiny head?
Canadians are cliched to be nice. Like impossibly nice. During World War II, PoWs in Canadian prisoner of war camps were so well treated that many of them didn’t want to leave when the war ended. Recently, there was a viral video of road rage in Ontario (or was it Toronto?) where a guy gets down from his car and angrily walks up to the truck in front of him and clears the heap of snow hiding its number plate. Levels. Such instances remind us that humans are like any other animal from a pack: we care for each other. One doesn’t necessarily have to hail from Canada to look out for each other. Just that we often put ourselves on the fast lane in the mad spell of reaching nowhere in particular.
Feels like yesterday that Obama was trying hard to stay calm and not shout at those who implied that he might be a closet Muslim. So much so he went around reminding everyone that he is a practising Christian. Approval ratings depended on it. Remember? Good times. Turns out the confusion occurred because of his first name. Barack. Which is basically a Semitic word, with a background in Hebrew mythology. It is also spelled as Barak and Baraq, and even the Islamic greeting ‘Mubarak’ has similar roots. Those who doubted his religious orientation wouldn’t have bothered to read a bit on the web of etymology. A name is not just a name. It’s a long river of identities — some mixed and some missed.
Next week would be my last in Gurgaon. I have no regrets about moving north. It was a brilliant decision and has only left me wiser and kinder. Goes without saying that there were so many things I could have done better but if time permits, I must be able to cover grounds later. Every time I tell someone that we are moving to Mangalore, the instant reaction is somewhere between awe and surprise. Nobody leaves a tier-1 city for a tier-2 city unless retirement is around the corner. And I am far from declaring my innings. Haven’t done shit. However, the fact that my wife and I could at least build on our cherished goal to move there makes me confident. Having no big plans is a plan too, right? To paraphrase the great Zuma, here’s to new beningings.
Almost every country goes through a revolution. If you sit down to timeline the events, you’d be amazed by how similar socio-economic tendencies lead to a full-blown revolution. Thanks to a question from a weekend quiz, I’ve been piqued by the Portuguese revolution. It happened in 1910 and changed the country forever. The monarchy that ruled the Iberian country for centuries had to leave and a new republic was instated. But then, new ideas often attract newer anxieties. As a result, between 1910 and 1926, Portugal had 45 governments. Therefore, you can’t change the way change is supposed to take place.
About 10 countries don’t have a river. Europe might be super-rich backed by centuries of colonial plunder but there are still five countries there which can’t boast of an airport. Similarly, Iceland is the only European country that doesn’t have a railway network yet. On the natural side, 15 countries in the world don’t have a mountain. They literally don’t know what it feels to be on top of the world. Much more tragic are the 45 countries across the globe that don’t have a beach. I can relate to their angst because I’ve seen how excited Dilliwallahs are about their debut visit to Goa. Oh by the way, there are 31 countries that don’t have a standing army. Winners. Lastly, there are only seven countries who don’t have a single World Heritage Site. Losers.
