Understanding behaviour, losing identity
Some labels stick with us forever, some are temporary. For instance, you are a librarian today. Tomorrow, you might become a former librarian. Similarly, you might be the smartest person in the room. Tomorrow, you might slip down to being the ex-smartest person in the room. Labels don’t stick around for very long. Except for the few that you can’t do much about. For example, you will always be your parent’s kid, your child’s parent and your brother’s sibling, etc. Filial bonds are stronger here because they fall under the design of nature. Spousal bonds are comparatively volatile. You might be somebody’s husband today. Tomorrow, you will be the elusive ex in a strange algebraic equation.
During my stint with mid-day, I happened to meet a lot of wonderful personalities. To be honest, not a week passed by I didn’t meet somebody incredibly interesting. There were always striking stories, life lessons and a wide array for introspection. And since I was dealing with accomplished souls, trying to ask them questions that other entertainment journalists won’t bother asking, I always ended up getting worthy bytes. If there was one thing I learned from journalism, it has to be this blatant reflection: they are people like you and me. Most of the time, journalists, particularly the younger ones, forget this piece of truth, and prefer treating their subjects like demigods. Because of which, they lose out on questions that would make the ‘famous ones’ pause and think for a bit. Instead of being afraid of philosophy, journalists must embrace it, even if they are covering a superfluous industry like Bollywood. While interviewing a veteran make-up artist at her residence in Bandra, I asked her about her biggest learning in the industry. She looked out of the window, as if seeking a clue, before saying with utmost poise — “When I was working with Deepika recently, I told her that I stand in front of the mirror behind the stars, as I want them to look their best in front of the camera. But in my 30+ years in the industry, I’ve learned that stars come and go whereas I am the one who is constant standing in the mirror.”
Given my deep interest in human behaviour, I wish I could dedicate some time off to study the impact of WhatsApp on India’s ‘susceptible’ age category. In this study, I would like to see how and why WhatsApp managed to pull so many people — millions irrespective of language and geography — in and helped shape the contours of our democracy. In other words, I want to learn how WhatsApp University came into being. It’s not that only the ruling party is at the helm of these developments; even the opposition parties are quite active in their propaganda. Yet, there are bigger axes to grind. How did these people manage to overcome their Ludditeness and embrace a green icon that ironically features a landline phone? Also, with this inexplicable trust, when exactly did every one word forwarded became a paragon of probity? Why isn’t information sacred anymore? And such related corollaries. Obviously, I don’t have the mental bandwidth or the financial wherewithal to carry out this study but if you do, please go ahead. And I genuinely hope you bag the Nobel Memorial Prize (Economics) for your sincere efforts.
In the 21st century, the most expensive commodity is attention but the cheapest way to get it is diversion. If you’ve lived — there is a difference between living and staying — in India for the better part of this decade, you must have noticed how this government employs all possible techniques of diversion. Whenever there is an ostensible crisis in order, you’ll read some leader from BJP utter the most absurd of words and enjoy media attention for a while. Obviously, the media is no saner as TRP and readership is everything. The most recent specimen being Ganesh Singh, claiming in Parliament of all places, that speaking Sanskrit keeps diabetes, cholesterol at bay. Now, being a lingual soul, I appreciate his enthusiasm for a dying (not dead yet) language but what’s the point of concern without an exclamation of logic? Which is why I wonder whether there is a WhatsApp group wherein the ruling party instructs some of the most obscure leaders to make the most bizarre claims. Media is undoubtedly going on to chew on the verbal rubbish. Mission successful.
From day one, I’ve been of the opinion that nothing changes significantly in this country. We are a nation of old habits and newness scares us. If those who voted for BJP (twice) thought that the decades-old skin of Congress will be shed, they are mistaken. If anything, BJP is at an advanced stage of Congress. Somebody had to replace the dilapidated structure and Sangh Parivar ensured they were there at the right time. That’s all. Whatever our rulers are exhibiting today, they learnt it from their predecessors — be it corruption, debauchery, megalomania, etc. — and aren’t ashamed to show their teachers that they are the masters now. As a commoner, we are supposed to watch two pigs covered in mud fighting it out. It’s been a long while now and we don’t even know which pig is which. The only saving grace here is, as commoners, we didn’t push them into the mud. They did that on their own.
For the past few days, we’ve been hearing the word ‘secular’ from different channels. Apparently, our secularism is under threat. And the greatest irony in this chapter of post-independence history arrived from our neighbours. Despite being effectively Islamist in their outlook, they want India to uphold its secularism. Strange world, stranger demands. Which brings us to a very interesting question: which country in the world today is practically secular? It’s one thing to claim secularism and quite another to actually internalize it. Apart from the largely atheistic Scandinavia, the West — especially the pseudo-free world, which loves sermonizing the Third World — is barely secular in the true spirit of word. Angela Merkel belongs to a party called Christian Democratic Union and Justin Trudeau can’t imagine downsizing his Catholic faith — not even for fun on Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix show — despite being part of the Liberal Party in Canada. The same behaviour was true for Barack Obama who bent over backward to prove that he was not a Muslim. The West itself can’t fiddle (at least, politically) with the kind of secularism it hopes to see in India. Despite such hypocrisy in place, we are behaving as if we don’t know what’s going on. The current shenanigans of the government are nothing but a cunning ploy to gain political traction over the coming elections. It has hardly anything to do with our secularism. Our namesake secular status — a term we added to the Preamble much later in 1976 — can’t do without the gods because our citizens place a lot of importance on religious and caste identity. And that’s not going to change anytime.
Fear nurtures those who are brave but it devours those who aren’t. In the current scenario, the vilest of people are those who have no sympathy for others. The second prize goes to those who want to keep themselves relevant by stoking the embers of fearmongering. This species will go to any extent to ensure fear rules the street. Their modus operandi is quite basic though: build scenarios for the near future and hope for the worst. These are the very lot who pray for riots and communal tension. Instead of disseminating facts, a stream of disinformation is curated by these people so as to forecast doom. Unfortunately, they leave behind more damage than the good they can ever do. By any yardstick of knowledge, the worst thing that one can do to those in fear is make them more fearful, not brave.
Just like there isn’t one fixed idea of India, there is no cut-off on imagination either. The Right and the Left are free to wonder whatever they want, as long as they are happy with themselves. The Right can smugly imagine India to turn into a Hindu Rashtra while the Left can imagine the worst possible scenario for the minorities — which basically means Muslims and Dalits, with little to no space for Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, homosexuals, disabled, transgenders, etc. — in the country. The Right takes nourishment from perceived colonial humiliations from the past whereas the Left boosts ego with the prediction of an unavoidable crumbling of the future. Both the sides are gorgeously idiotic in their extremes. It’s only when they strike a balance within the realm of reality that they resonate with the present. Fortunately, India is big and wise enough to deal with all sorts of timelines.
The last time I attended a concert was in 2011 — Bryan Adams in Mumbai. Today, I will be attending Divine’s concert at Zomaland in Delhi. I guess I am too old to sing (rap, in this case) along with the crowd but Divine is quite unique. It’s not everyday we witness a story like his, is it? Somebody from the slums who sings about the slums, although he has logistically moved away, had to be taken notice of. No wonder he has seen a meteoric rise in acceptance, even from those who have never lived in a chawl or a basti. His lyrics are based in truth and his flow lifts him up. I hope he keeps churning out songs of struggle and inequality without falling into the rap trap of lyrical dishonesty and musical mirage.
