Why everybody needs a break
Some words, once uttered, never escape the ambit of time. They are stuck there for eternity. You might forget everything else that happened on that day but you’ll remember the words, how they were expressed and what was originally intended. You might move on from that moment but those words don’t. We seldom get to experience this with any other facet of human communication. To this day, I remember a conversation I had as a young boy with my grandma while she was gutting a fish. I asked her whether god lives in the temple and she informed me that devara (god) stays in our manas (heart). To which I questioned, “Then who lives in the temple?” Wise and calm as always, she replied, “Our manas.”
One of the most redundant questions in world has to be “How can anybody be afraid of reptiles?” — particularly when we all know by now that it takes a special kind of skin to not be revolted by creatures who slither. Anyhow, I want to rise above this prejudice against fellow beings and not be afraid of them. Basically, I have a dream of living in a world where I am not startled by lizards. If anything, I’ll keep my head down and not look up because I know they are there near the bulb, searching for their next meal. In all the possible combination of realities, it doesn’t make sense for a member of a species that is indubitably the worst thing to have happened to this planet to be afraid of a toothless being. Also, it doesn’t escape me how they are equally scared of us. To me, they are creepy and scary. For them, I am just another human, somebody their mother warned against even before they hatched out of their eggs.
Last week, on Mother’s Day, I posted some tiny paragraphs on Instagram about my amma. I usually stick to short one-liner-ish copies but May 12th was an exception. Within a few minutes, the hearts started rolling in and it was really sweet of people to share their emotions with me. However, I later had a conversation with my brother and re-realized that parents suffer a lot silently because of their children. They never let their kids know while they are at it because carrying the yoke of responsibility is of great essence (for them). Due to these unexpressed weight of expectations, sometimes, they grow bitter too. And somewhere down the end of line, if they are lucky enough, parents turn into grandparents and learn to forgive themselves for being so ruthless with themselves not very long ago.
My dad comes across as a person well versed in the ways of the world. But on closer inspection, he can be naive and unidimensional. Last week, he asked his sons whom should vote for this election! Time and tide has indeed changed. What hasn’t changed though is the curios of his past. He was the one who used to encourage us (Sai and I) to read newspapers when we were barely crossing primary school. For an autodidact who scarcely managed to read English — although he was fluent in Tulu, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati — he was quite clear about discipline and diligence. And I’d be remiss to not highlight his respect for Inglis, the language because through his experiences, he has understood how important it is to speak the ‘tongue of progress’. Maybe that’s why he still continues to lay emphasis on appearance and hygiene too. He must have picked these characteristics from his love for cinema (he wouldn’t miss a Hollywood movie although they were released months delayed) during his younger days in Bombay. I am just hypothesizing here but it’s amazing how the so-called illiterates of our country, having grown in the shadow of nascent independence, learned so much on their own. There is an old image of his along with his wife in our showcase. He is wearing a tie in it; one of those proper knot ones, and boasts of a thick moustache too. It was much later I learnt that he wore a tie for the first time (and so far, last) in his life only because his friend forced the newly married to click a picture in a nearby studio.
Poets romanticize the idea of pain and death, not because they are verbal despots or sentimental sadists, but because poems can ease us in to subjects otherwise considered taboo for a normal conversation. The poets gave us the language to think in, not just speak out. Yet, most of the people around us exhibit an incurable allergy to poetry. Songs? Yes, please. Poems? Heck, no. It’s nobody’s fault though. Poetry is a noble pursuit anyway and mere mortals don’t deserve its ephemeral nectar.
When in love, promise a lot more than you can deliver. For instance, say that you’re going to be there for the person in life as well as death. But then, nobody wants to die either. So, let’s just assume that we are going to live forever, cool? And if that’s too much to ask for, how about employing a caveat that we’re not going to let the other die alone. Nothing is more contagious than loneliness — don’t worry, sweetheart, I am going to be there for you. That’s why I feel a bit less for those couples who die together in a plane crash. They at least got the opportunity to hold each other’s hands in their final moments. Imagine how it must have been for those who were stuck with absolute strangers in a plane bound to implode.
Not to sullen this blog post any further but I wonder whether taking a sabbatical is essential for everyone. In the vulnerable economy that we breathe and the toxic lifestyles we’ve come to cherish, one can only stop when they are running out of options. Left to our device, we’ll continue pushing our threshold of abuse; both physical and mental, but mostly mental. So, again, the questions remain: Does everybody take a break? Is it necessary? If not, why are we so worried all the time? If yes, are we sleepless because we are worried or are we worried because we are sleepless? Which one is it? Also, do serial killers sleep well? In the same vein, do they scoot of to their villages to take a break from all the killings, so that they can start afresh with a renewed spirit?
