Why are the squirrels screaming?
Change is the greatest force in the universe. Whether we are in agreement or not, we are bound to alter not only our appearance but also our views. With the passage of time, we either become wiser or fooler. There is no stagnancy although it might feel like we haven’t changed since 1999. In practice, we are embodying the spirit of today while soaking the juice of yesterday and leeching on the promise of tomorrow. Each one of us is different and yet we are so similar in our existence just because we change. Or to put it more succinctly, change occurs to us on its own.
Compared to a movie, a documentary reveals a lot. And this has nothing to do with fiction. Even a biopic can’t hold a candle to the rawness of a docufilm. The answers are quite ostensible: a documentary is built on the back of patience and truth whereas a movie is built inside the head of the director. Both have their merits and demerits, of course. However, given a chance, I’d rather write a screenplay than keep shooting for 4 years for a 90-minute end product. My heart doesn’t have what it takes to give so much to others.
People don’t remember the youth unless somebody died young. We are forced to think of luminaries like Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Sylvia Plath, Bhagat Singh… within the frame of their youthful light because we can’t imagine how they must have looked like in their old age. A life cut short is a story interrupted. In some ways, an angelic veneer stays on the memory of such individuals. It’s tragic and yet so relieving, free from the bondages of senility and decay. Barely 500 years ago, a majority of people on this planet wouldn’t touch the age of 50. Today, even a person from the lowest economic strata crosses 70. With the rise in medical miracles, it has become harder to appreciate youth as more and more people want to live longer. Don’t know why though. New normal leads to newer abnormalities. I thought about this while watching and reading about the celebrated opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. We remember him as the balding barrel-bodied man with heavenly voice. It’s only when we dig deeper, we come across startling images of an incredibly handsome man from Italy.
My wife is blessed as far as cooking and baking is concerned. She can create magic out of the most mundane ingredients. Despite the fact that I am least interested in food — “learn to savour and not just eat” is my wife’s popular refrain — I must admit that I have a soft corner for street food. And that can’t happen in any kitchen. One look at them spicy fare and you know it’s not hygienic enough. Be it Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore, all street food are based out of two realities: the deceit of filth and the awesomeness of palate. For instance, you can’t peek at the fingernails of the panipuriwala and enjoy the panipuri at the same time. It’s a binary decision. Only when you become one with the street food is the day you become one with the city. Otherwise, you are going to be a wealth-seeking parasite who doesn’t understand the basics of immunity. I know this because I’ve repeatedly tasted pav-bhaji from the street corners of Bombay. Nothing else can match the steaming butter layered on the grinded masala-fied pomato waiting for the pav to immerse. One bite in and you are perfectly alright with all the sorrows and shortcomings in your unmistakably pathetic life. Well, this feeling is called street food.
Do you ever look at a ‘filtered’ picture on Instagram and ask yourself, at what point does a picture stop being a picture and becomes an ornamental caricature? In my opinion, we are past the phase of authentic photography. Even some of the finest pictures from the labs of NatGeo, Discovery, Nature, etc. are so processed that it’s worth wondering what part of them is real and what part, imaginary. During olden times, the black-and-white photographs captured moments in a way that felt like the devil’s work of stealing human souls (which is also why people neither smiled in their pics nor anybody screamed ‘CHEESE’). And yet, when you look at those pre-technicolor captures, you feel like you are experiencing something irresistibly close to the truth. Maybe sepia indeed is the language of nostalgia.
The word ‘coincidence’ dangles somewhere in the middle of an accident and a myth. Either everything happens for a reason or everything happens without a reason. Finding a common ground gets a bit doozy here. I realized this theory as I met with a bike accident — there was no time to greet; it happened so quickly — while commuting to the office on a bike taxi this morning. A car banged into the bike sideway and the two-wheeler went skidding on the concrete. Amazingly enough, I held on to my phone throughout as whole episode felt like a slo-mo scene from a badly edited film. When the bike finally stopped, I noticed that my backpack has flung behind me and my right leg was under the bike. But, a big but actually, the phone was steady in my left hand and the article I was reading was still visible. I somehow got up and noticed that my palm has scraped and so has my right knee. Felt a needle-ish pain in my hip because it was the second point of collision after my right palm. Whenever you have an accident, you tend to ask yourself why it happened, but when you start assuming your accidents to be coincidences, you are left with a lot of myths of solve. And that makes life exciting.
Did you know that squirrels are nature’s messengers? No kidding. According to a recent study, they are known for alerting the small birds about the predatory birds. They are always on the watchout, not just regarding bird safety but also weather and people movement. It doesn’t make sense though given their size and place in the food chain. Posh rodents being charitable in the park? Fur from the obvious. According to another study, bee is the single most important creature on earth. However, it concedes that bees, ants and termites keep the world alive. Perhaps the nature works more intimately than we understand. Unlike us, all non-human living beings really look out for each other.
