What kind of a life do you want?
When people tell you that they have read Mahabharata or Ramayana, you can always inquire by asking “Which version?” because there are actually many versions — spanning several sovereign nations in modern times. The Ramayana that we watched on TV during Doordarshan is a bit different from the ones that are celebrated in Manipur or Java or Bangkok. As the geographies change, so do the perceptions. In Indonesia, Yudhisthira (Dharmaray) is given the pedestal in lores because he is the only man in Hindu mythology to walk to heaven. No other mortal managed this feat — no pun intended — so he edges the likes of Krishna and Arjuna in a lot of religious motifs, especially Batik paintings. Similarly, in parts of China where Ramayana showed up more than a thousand years ago, Sita is embellished as a divine figure — although she has distinct Mongolian features — almost at par with Rama. The latter is not really seen as her saviour. Even in Japan, Ganesha enjoys prominence but not without a linga (read: Lord Shiva) lingering (pun intended) nearby. His mouse is sorely missing too: a laptop-centric millennial treat, if you may. So, yes, as you move further away from mainland India, you’ll notice that the core of the story remains pretty much the same but the characters develop themselves attuning to the taste of the populace. Brunei might be a Shariah-friendly state today but you can’t possibly overlook the Begawan (Bhagwan, meaning ‘of highest of high’ order in Sanskrit) in its capital city. Our collective past is truly a different animal. How else can you explain this cultural spread?
As I am typing this, Brad Paisley is crooning Whiskey Lullaby out of my earphones. It’s a sad song about sadder people trying to be happy. Beneath their misplaced love for each other, you’ll notice that flaws connect us like nothing else. Sooner or later, everybody falls into their own ditch. Nobody can save them — least of all, a bottle of whiskey — because it’s a lonely fight against themselves: their understanding, their grief and most importantly, their urge. If there is a god, she must relish the idiotic tendencies exhibited by her least favourite creatures. Oh, the song has changed. Frank Sinatra is now singing ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. Feels like this too will end with a heartache.
On the first of January this year, I decided I am not going to post on Facebook anymore. As a compensation, I thought of diverting my attention to LinkedIn like all self-respecting individuals should. However, after more than 11 months of grinding content for this ‘networking’ site, I’ve realized that I am nowhere close to the influencer I was supposed to become there. I put up a short paragraph, laced with one-liners, everyday around 9 in the morning. It touches different topics like existentialism, behaviour, success, childhood, etc. and hope to change lives for good. [I am a firm believer of reading. Sometimes, all we need to do is read something at the right moment. That makes all the difference. No joke.] This guiding principle has played a part behind my observational posts. On Twitter and Instagram, I take liberty with my comedic instincts. But never with Medium and LinkedIn — I mean business. Yet, despite my disciplined approach, my reach and impressions have stayed abysmal. They read me but they don’t like me. Maybe it’s time for me to converse with people and increase my interaction. Once I do that, readers must realize that they don’t have to converse with those who don’t even put reasonably good content.
I always felt Mumbai had the most helpful people in India. This was before I moved to Mangalore. Here, they go beyond the obvious to help you out. I recently visited the local hardware store and when I asked whether they have the number of a carpenter, the guy behind the counter called three men to check who would be willing to visit me on a weekend. He didn’t have to do any of this but he did. Two weeks ago, I asked an autowallah which way is nursery, he told me that he can’t go that side as he already had a ride booked in the opposite direction. However, as a bonus, he advised me not to take an autorickshaw from the stand as they will charge more. In Gurgaon, if you went to a store and didn’t find what you were looking for, they won’t tell you clearly where you might get it from. Here, everybody is transparent about directing a potential customer to another establishment. Also, there is this strange discount thingie going on here. If my retail bill goes upwards of 50/60, I’ll get some weird discount of ₹3 or ₹4 and sometimes, even ₹10 if the bill is touching 200/300. Back in Gurgaon, they won’t let even one rupee off. Similarly, the fruits vendor and the fishmonger won’t think twice before throwing in an extra piece without charging extra. For them, building a relationship with customers is more important than giving away a little bit of freebie. Lastly, we met a fascinating cab driver who wore a mask only because it’s illegal not to. Otherwise, he keeps the volume of music so high inside his vehicle that there is “no chance coronavirus can get in”. Fascinating city. Fascinating folks.
In a parallel universe, I am an incredibly happy person who talks only about positive stuff and doesn’t hide behind dark humour. Nope, that’s not me. In PU, I am the stud who sleeps straight for eight hours, exercises every morning and is married to an amazing woman who also happens to be the mother of our triplets. There, I don’t have recurring nightmares from childhood episodes and am not a prisoner of nostalgia. Everything is so smooth that I often wonder what I did to receive such a wonderful universe, I mean, life. After a lot of thinking, I realized that in PU, I am a psychiatrist who gets paid for judging people. Like, I am least interested in solving my clients’ problems. Simply tucked in my leather-backed chair, I look at people spilling their hearts out to me. When they ask me what to do, I counter-question them by asking them how does it feel to ask me for answers. That tactic leaves them with a mind-blowing realization every single time: that universe is fake and so are our problems in this universe.
2020 has the worst PR image in history. No other year experienced consistent backlash on the internet through and through. So many memes, so many jokes, so many curses, so many apprehensions. Yet, when you peel off your acquired pretensions, you accept that there is nothing wrong with the year. It’s just a unit. Nothing more. Nothing less. I am actually amazed by those who scorn at astrology and numerology and other such belief systems but don’t see the irony in actually assuming that 2020 is to be blamed. Here’s a spoiler alert for you: 2021 won’t be any different. Famous people will continue to drop dead and they will trend on Twitter for 1.5 days because we love to feel deeply for those who never knew us in the first place. Later, we will move on with our boring lives before another celebrity dies an untimely death. Whatever this phrase means.
When characters from Breaking Bad started sneaking up on Better Call Saul, viewers were impressed by the well-timed crossovers. We all like to see things clean, particularly because we can’t keep things clean in real life. It’s never a straight line. Cyclical it is. Which is also the reason why I appreciate the nameless writers from the Vedic era. Don’t know how they did it but it’s ridiculously how they could encompass generations into one thick storyline. If you think Mahabharata — the world’s longest epic — is spectacularly composed, then what’s awesomer is how it intersections Ramayana. If not, what the hell is Hanuman doing in Mahabharata when he messes around with Bheema? There are many such ‘crossovers’ in these timeless stories. Somebody from Purana would suddenly appear in some other celebrated tale, with near perfect rationale and backstory. Only gods know how they managed to spin yarns in and around these extensive plots.
Some of my readers randomly send me heavy questions like ‘what is the meaning of life?’ and shit as if I am located in the freezing Himalaya with Jio internet. I mostly ignore such unsolicited philosophy. But sometimes, I humour them by saying that we are alive and that in itself is the meaning of life. The moment we die, the meaning ends. And the only way we can extend the meaning of our life by doing something that will outlast us. Planting saplings can be a brilliant idea because for decades, people will enjoy the shade of the seeds you once sowed. So, yes, I tell them doing is more necessary than all other forms of expression. I can write and write and write. I can talk and talk and talk. But things improve only when actions are undertaken. In a nutshell, the meaning of life is limited by mortality. And if you want to be immortal, then you’ll have to up your game and do the needful. Try to be nicer, kinder and helpful to people around you, so that when you pass away someday, people remember you. After all, as long as (at least) one person in the whole world remembers you, you remain immortal.
If we leave the door open, Ranga ventures out. He will walk down the stairs and will inspect every little thing in his vicinity. Once in a while, he’ll pee a little to mark his territory. Nobody has told him that’s not how realty works. If it did so, then railway tracks in Mumbai wouldn’t belong to Indian Railways. Anyhow, after loitering around on the first floor for 30 minutes, he will be running back to ground zero at full throttle. You may get confused that somebody is chasing him during this instance. My theory about his sprinting back home is a bit skewed. So, inside his 30 gm of brain, he miss Gurgaon and whenever he notices open opportunity, he ventures out pretending to be in our past address, where he could just move around whenever he liked. After being outside for a while, it dawns on him the futility of place. It doesn’t matter where you are. Venue is inconsequential. The most important thing in the world is to be closer to the one you love the most. That’s when he starts pacing up the stairs, horsing down the corridor because he has to be near his bowl.
If you think of yourself as a mediocre person, and trust me, going by sheer median average, you got to be mediocre. If not, you wouldn’t have been reading this mediocre blog anyway. Regardless, did you know that the term ‘mediocre’ comes from the Latin ‘medius’ meaning middle and ‘ocris’ meaning mountain? In other words, it means ‘halfway up a mountain’. In all fairness to our daily efforts at staying afloat, being anywhere on a mountain is a good enough start.
A friend of mine possesses a beautiful mind but he is distracted by the riches around him. He thinks that the true method of success is to emulate the wealth his peers have accumulated in a relatively short period of time. Although I’ve never been good with money. I still don’t understand taxes and slabs and investments but I know for a fact that none of it matters in the long run. So, I tried reasoning with him that money is not the destination, it’s merely a means to get things done. That’s it. You can’t build a fan on your own — at least not as conveniently as you can earn — so you buy a fan with the money you’ve got. That’s how the marketplace works. Yes, it’s also true that somebody gets richer and somebody gets poorer. But the bottomline is survival, right? In such a tight scenario, shouldn’t you be focusing on solving real problems instead of chasing imaginary numbers? Shouldn’t you be diverting your attention to finding remedies for issues that have been peering at us for decades now? Why not put your mind where the mouth is? Who knows, that’s precisely you’ll end up hitting the jackpot too? Just a thought.
