What are you obsessed with?
While reading about American slavery system, I learned some ghastly methods practised by the South to keep their “properties” in line. Apart from forcing the blacks to toil to their maximum potential — we need to understand that they were treated inhumanely because they weren’t seen as humans in the first place — they were subjected to routine harassment techniques in order to deprive them of their individuality. The most striking piece of information revolved around the consequences of trying to commit suicide. Let’s say, a black person (child or adult) decided to end their life and they failed at killing themselves, what do you think will happen? Well, their owner would set bad examples out of them to ensure that the fellow slaves wouldn’t possibly imagine being dead. Which translated to misery of unforeseen levels. The message was clear: they can’t check out whenever they feel like. Suicide was a privilege. Black lives mattered, you see, but not in the context of 2020.
Jonathan Ive is obsessed with design. Martin Scorsese is obsessed with crime. Haruki Murakami is obsessed with nostalgia. Roger Federer is obsessed with records. Nigella Lawson is obsessed with hacks. Arnab Goswami is obsessed with chaos. Bill Gates is obsessed with saving the world. Antonio Radić is obsessed with Mikhail Tal. This list carries on. What’s interesting to note here is these people have found something within their lifetime that they enjoy being obsessed with. Not sure whether it’s a blessing or a curse but the fact that they are known for their pursuits is cool enough validation to continue being obsessed.
Unlike me, my mother sings. Mostly devotional songs. To her credit, there is something relaxing about her guttural voice. Last week, my brother recorded her and posted a video on our family group. It was a Kannada song about Vitthala (a form of Lord Vishnu) and the lyrics were supercute. As a remnant of Bhakti tradition, you’ll come across such musical pieces where a human converses with gods at the same plane. Although my spoken Kannada is below basic category, I understood the meaning behind the words: whoever wrote the lyrics is asking Vitthala to stop looking for places to stay in. It doesn’t stop there. The song pushes the envelope by saying that instead of residing in a temple that will be empty eventually, why not choose the devotee’s heart? The point being, this heart has more than enough space for everyone — the mortals as well as the gods.
Women leaders have shown again and again — be it in prosperous New Zealand or resilient Rwanda — that they know what they are doing. Perhaps it’s time to acknowledge that policy-making needs a female touch of empathy. Not to generalize but what’s the harm in doing something else for a change? The old ways aren’t working. This despite glaring examples from the past, featuring level-headed women taking charge and implementing benevolent policies. From Hatshepsut (the longest serving female pharaoh) to Wu Zetian (China’s only female empress) to Keladi Chennamma (the first Indian queen to rise against the Portuguese), we aren’t bereft of leading examples. All we need to do is draw inspiration and gain perception.
Although we’ve been living in isolation for over a month now, it’s not really that difficult. When you have your essentials covered, you are not suffering at all. Conversely, life has been extremely difficult for those sections of the society who don’t have financial stability. They are ones who were caught off-guard by the recent developments in our country as they don’t enjoy socio-economic cushions in place. Isolation comes at a price. Speaking of which, I recently read about a family who were found living in complete isolation in a Siberian forest. Turns out, at that point, they hadn’t seen another human being for 40 years. World War II started and ended and the Cold War was going on but this family of 6 were on a different trip altogether. If that wasn’t mindblowing enough, the youngest (and the last surviving member of that family) is 76 years old now and continues to live in isolation in Siberia.
Do you ever think of a lost trend and miss it? I do. For instance, it’s been ages since we’ve seen somebody from the public throw shoes at politicians. Maybe it’s not cool anymore to use your footwear as a weapon when you can go online and post garbage under your favourite politician’s posts. But for good old days’ sake, I can’t help but wonder what happened to the other shoe once the leather missile was launched? Wouldn’t it be odd to call oneself a shoeless rebel, let alone, wear only one shoe?
Not to demean the finest efforts so far, but there has not been a good chess movie yet. Forget superlatives, we haven’t seen a fairly decent one. There could be many reasons why this is so — ranging from lack of sincere interest in chess to collaborating with screenwriters who simply can’t capture the essence of this beautiful game the way Raging Bull (1980) did with boxing, The Miracle (2004) did for ice hockey, or The Wrestler (2008) did on WWE. Yes, there are limitations in chess. Unlike contact sports, built on visible tempo between two or more people on the screen, chess is a silent enterprise of clashing ideas. However, it’s ridiculous to create an excuse for the G-factor here. And by that, I mean the chess movies fail to capture the essence of a genius at work. If you haven’t watched Pawn Sacrifice (2014), do watch it tonight. You’ll understand what I’m talking about. Yes, I concede that it’s well nigh impossible to replicate the beauty of brains but then that didn’t stop us from coming up with remarkable films like Amadeus (1984) and A Beautiful Mind (2001). Remember how there were intense scenes showcasing Russell Crowe scribbling complex equations on the glass window or a volatile Tom Hulce furiously scribbling musical notes? Exactly. Those emotions ought to be expressed somehow in a chess movie.
Have you picked up a new skill of late? Have you tried your hand at cooking? Or got yourself through some online course? Creative writing? Calligraphy? Did you at least start focusing on your body? Anything new? If you haven’t, it’s not late. Take your time but do give yourself a second chance at adopting something for the first time. It’s important that we don’t turn into an old engine. With new knowledge, we build newer perspectives. And the power of the internet can’t be wasted on useless streaming. Set new challenges and overcome them. Before lockdown happened, we said we didn’t have the time to learn new things. Now, during the lockdown, we’ve realized that time was never the issue.
Contrary to the western concept of linearity, the eastern schools of philosophy rely a lot on the cyclical nature of being. What is wrong today will be right tomorrow, what is called day now would be night later, vidhi and vidhan of fate/destiny, yin and yang of tides, and so on and so forth. The conclusion being, the cycle has to complete somehow. Except when it comes to washing one’s clothes. Since I am heavily independent nowadays, I’ve learned that the cycle of laundry neither ends nor completes. It starts with whatever you are wearing today. They will get dirty by tomorrow, meaning they need to be washed sooner than later. For washing, you’ll have to soak them in detergent overnight, or a few hours in advance. And then you’ll wash them with your hands. You see, the cycle is not ending; it’s only getting prolonged. After washing, you’ll have to dry them in the sun. Later, the dried clothes will have to be folded and kept inside the closet. At this moment, you’ll be pleased to see that the cycle has come to an end. But no, the clothes you are wearing then want you to continue with the cycle.
I mentioned the art of obsession earlier and it won’t be incorrect to suggest that I am obsessed with chess. After recently sitting through a Kasparov masterclass, I finally understood (technically) why my improvement remains hampered. Quite obvious, actually: my groundwork is ridiculously weak. I am big on theories and low on practicality. It’s more about knowing what not to do in panic and less about what to do in confidence. Once you learn this by heart, there is no looking back. And chess is for those who want to see things move. Besides, moving on is the only true way of life. When you dig a layer on the characters of a chessboard, you’ll acknowledge why this is so. Chess is an amalgamation of nature. There are animals (elephants and camels) working in tandem with humans of different classes (royalty and soldiers). Where else do you see such an orchestra unfold?
Although I’ve written an extensive post on Irrfan Khan’s life and death, it doesn’t mean that I’ve outgrown the tragedy. He is constantly wandering in the maze of my mind and I’d be remiss if I don’t add to the conclusion I’d painted in the aforementioned blog post. After making it live, I called my amma to check whether she knew about his demise — she isn’t active on the news front — and I was mildly delighted to hear what she had to say in Tulu: “Aay baari edde jana ge tha?” (Wasn’t he a very good man?) Hearing this from somebody who doesn’t care about Hindi cinema came across a breath of sweet air. After all, in the end, a person has to be decent because everything else about him can be debatable.
The preponderance of negativity must be defeated at personal scale. And how do you do that? By raising the storm of positivity. For reasons more cynical than existential, people tend to be bitter as they consider positive vibes to be inherent symptoms of weakness. Yes, the world is ending and we are changing irreversibly but it doesn’t mean that we overlook what’s important. People aren’t waiting for you to die so that they can say nice things about you. No, that’s not how it works. It’s imperative, more than ever before, to let others know what’s good about them. They anyway know — people around them keep letting them — how bad they are at something. A tiny compliment can go a long way in spreading the web of niceness.
