Why Mowgli looks Japanese, etc.
When abnormal becomes normal, we tend to forget what abnormality looks like. This is what has happened with the internet clampdown in Kashmir, which has lasted for over 6 months. Winter arrived, and so did the snowfall but the political detention continued and on top of that, the communication blockade didn’t budge an inch. In December itself, the internet shutdown recorded to be the longest ever in a democracy. Those who have lived in the shadow of modern age would agree that access to the internet is equivalent to access to the world at large. When your wifi goes down, even for a few minutes, you feel helpless and restless at the same time. You show your true self as you fully acknowledge that the peace of mind and the speed of internet are interrelated. And yet, if you feel everything is alright with the northernmost territory of India, then your looking glass is in dire need of clarity.
As you must have learned by now, yours truly is back to (online) chess albeit with a few changes in approach and style. For starters, I don’t obsess with scores and ratings in the manner I did before. No more maintaining a month-end tally of different formats. Defeat sucks but I don’t carry the pall of a loss to my bed. I get over it way too quickly — it’s almost worrying given my paranoid self — as before I even realize it, I am back to winning streaks. A perfect sync of highs and lows on the chequered board; attached and yet detached to the sport. Having said that, it hurts me no end when I lose a game due to weak internet signals, particularly when I am leading by a margin before disconnectivity destroys my calm. Losing is one thing but losing on technicalities is a fucking disgrace. I wonder whether Magnus Carlsen ever lost an online game—in banter chess, more so — because of bad internet. Would love to see his angelic face wrap itself in wrath during such an instance.
Not all teachers are oceans of wisdom.
Not all poets have the remedy to a heartache.
Not all farmers get to consume fresh produce.
Not all architects own a beautiful house.
Not all students gargle in the fountain of knowledge.
Not all children bring the ray of joy to their parents.
Not all artists know what they are doing with their art.
Not all writers taste the level of prose they deserve.
Not all politicians wake up with a pair of horns.
Not all soldiers have in them what it takes.
Not all businesspersons have in them what it gives.
Not all of us are who we think we are.
Not all of us can be who we think we aren’t.
After watching the awkwardly named Mewvie, The Motion Picture for Your Cat (2019) on Netflix, I am convinced that dogs are the greatest content creators of this era. If you are as old as I am on the internet, you must remember Henri, the French cat. He was, amongst other things, a testament to cats’ immense popularity in the online world. They started with inspiring mean memes before gradually progressing to win hearts with their evil aloofness. But somehow, the plot twisted by the end of the first decade of the 21st century and we started seeing more and more dog-related content on social media — not just on Twitter or Instagram but also Tumblr and Reddit — with focus mainly on the two most adorable breeds: labradors and golden retrievers. Over time, it has become obvious who has won the content race. The only consolation for the pet lovers being the race won’t end anytime soon. Unless you wish to believe what I prophesied in this 2017 blog post.
Sorry to constantly circle back to cars just because I am learning how to drive but I ought to admit that I regret not acquiring this skill earlier in life. A part of me has nothing but disdain for motorists because the data shows that public transport is a long-term solution whereas individual car ownership ruins our planet systematically. Also, cars are not really great at solving our space and fuel problems. Apparently, one car lane can only carry 2,000 people per hour while the same lane carries a whopping 14,000 on bikes (both motored and otherwise). Moreover, cars sit idle 96% of the time and takes a lot of space for no reason other than being a costly tin box. On the brighter side, I’ve finally learned how to park, both frontal as well in reverse. Small mercies. And my immediate goal is to drop someone home in my car from the airport without killing them.
One of the most enjoyable human pursuits is observing discernible changes in people around you. Somebody who used to be uptight a few summers ago is now the first to share a joke on a whatsapp group. Somebody who used to drop casual — although there is nothing casual about it — sexist remarks in a gathering is now highly conscious about not letting others do it. Somebody who didn’t care two rolls about cinema has become the go-to person to confer what to consume on Netflix/Prime/Hotstar/etc. over the weekend. Somebody who was miserably stingy has transformed into this person who’s the first to contribute to collective endeavours. And so on. Yet, nothing can beat the change you notice in your pet. For instance, Ranga was never coy about barking at any of the above specimens but of late, he has become conscious about the range of his howl. It’s almost like he is embarrassed of barking at folks who turn out to be completely harmless. For someone who doesn’t wear underwear, Ranga has developed a lot of shame.
Japanese people are incredible as well as ridiculous at the same time. A feat unparalleled in any of the other modern nation-states. Just when you are drowning in the awesomeness of their culture and attitude towards life, you’ll learn something absolutely creepy about their society. Moreover, Japanese sounds like the language of those who are tired of living longer than required but are too polite about it. So many stark contrasts that it makes your pupils dilate. And while we are on the topic of strangeness, what’s up with Japanese animators? Why do they make the seemingly Japanese characters appear so European — with blonde hair, blue eyes and whatnot — as if World War II never ended? And to make things worse, they made our desi boy Mowgli look so damn Japanese? What the fuck was that all about? They had one job.
I am filled with fears but most of my fears are pyrrhic as I am mostly, apart from lizards, afraid of the unknown. Like, whenever I get a call from my Bombay-based brother, I am scared that he will relay bad news. At work in the morning, I tend to imagine my remote-working wife slip in the bathroom (this is also why I wipe down the floor dry after bath). Similarly, I worry about the worst and those thoughts manifest themselves during the most unsuspecting moments. After granting a lot of thoughts to this subject, this is what I’ve concluded: more than anything else, I am more afraid of reaching a point I don’t feel anything at all. That would be a heinous development and I genuinely hope it doesn’t unfold ever.
It’s nice to see Bong Joon-ho receiving so much adulation across the media. Fortunately, he is not your run-of-the-mill director; his career has come a long way from Host (2006) to Parasite (2019). Here is a guy who enjoys writing as much as directing, and his body of work agrees to the nexus between a blank page and an empty lens. For example, every single shot in Parasite is carefully drawn out, with hidden meanings and angles that you would miss in one watch. Along with the much-needed derision for capitalism that is increasing the chasm between the rich and poor, his movies are programmed to remind you that deep down, irrespective of our physical geographies, our mind is already conquered by the giant system in place. But then, Korean cinema likes to keep it real. No guns and pistols please, hand us the hammers and knives. It’s the Academy’s shame that they couldn’t/didn’t honour even one Korean movie in the last 30 years. Forget winning the gong, they didn’t even nominate one Korean film before Parasite took home four golden statuettes.
I wanted to review Parasite (2019) separately as a blog post but decided against it as it’d be less of a review and more of a spoiler train. This movie is filled with brilliant shots and executions, every second frame is like a ruse for your phone wallpaper. Backed with splendid music and inch-perfect production, you will be left pondering about so many things at once. Although the common theme of this Korean masterpiece is one’s love for the family, whichever strata of the society you hail from, there are so many questions it poses so eloquently. How exactly are the poor any different from the rich when ambition is moot? Who do you save first during a deluge, your child or your neighbour’s kid? When you don’t understand the system, how exactly are you going to fight it? What does the word ‘respect’ mean to a culture that lays so much emphasis on gratitude? And so on. By the end of the movie, you’ll understand why reading a review here doesn’t make sense.
A human brain is prone to believe that it’s the smartest freaking thing in the whole universe. Such arrogance can only be attributed to a species ill-equipped with only 5 senses — we can’t even note colours that other species do and cooks up a colour (magenta) that doesn’t even exist in nature — but the desire to annihilate whatever it doesn’t have the strength to understand. I recently watched a video of a chimpanzee remembering numbers like it’s nobody’s business. Stunning stuff. In comparison, we might add to the space dust by launching space shuttles but I wonder how much we really understand ourselves. Think about it. You are so close to yourself and yet you don’t know you. Maybe this has something to do with the way our brain is wired. Turns out we have a supercomputer inserted in our skull but it’s not fast enough to experience the actual present moment. Everything we experience is already in the past. We are indeed tools of the past.
Nothing surprises me anymore, besides the fact that a lot of the crazy news surprises a lot of people. I am immune to surprises now. Wait a minute. Except nature. Nature is something that keeps me dangled in awe. Everything from the way birds learn about the approaching storm to ants greeting each other in a straight line amazes me. Why on earth crows conduct a noisy funeral for the dead crow on the ground? Because nature dictates them to. Just like elephants are known to lay branches on the departed member of the family before trumpeting in unison. Nature is all about balance. If there is a breezy nice day today, it has to be compensated by a dull gloomy day later, and vice versa. Humans, armed with the experiences collected over centuries, have managed to manipulate nature to some extent but at the very essence, we are nothing but participles given to the whims of nature. I still can’t get over my recent learnings on social media about the natural bond shared by a mother and her child. Did you know that a mother’s breast milk will change when a nursing baby has a cold or fever to provide a different nutrient mix to aid in faster healing? Turns out the milk glands receive the signal in fluid transfer during nursing. And if this isn’t epic enough, the glands on a new mother’s areola secrete oil (that smells like amniotic fluid) that serves to help comfort a child during breastfeeding right after they are born. It helps the baby learn that even though it might appear like an altogether different setting, s/he is still close to the person who harboured her/him in for several months. If only we could learn one thing from nature: the art of caring without making any noise.
Technically speaking, I am a published writer now. One of my short stories got published recently in a book titled Unread 2020. This project, helmed by Platform For Artists, features an anthology comprising 99 stories by hitherto unpublished writers. The 100th page is supposed to be symbolically empty. I am happy to be a part of this. However, I won’t be satisfied until I come up with a full-fledged book. Not sure what it’s going to be about though. I already know who I am going to dedicate it to: to all the dreamers who refused to wake up. Dreams, to me, are marvelous streets of an undocumented city. There I get to meet people I don’t meet in the real world, and do things I don’t think I’ll be able to here. On top of it, the sun is always shining there, as if I am miraculously cured of my solar migraine. The only trouble is you can’t decide who you are going to stumble upon when your eyes are tight shut and you are floating in a subconscious state. Let’s say, I want to meet you in my dreams tonight but it’s not going to happen as we have no control whatsoever. And in case you don’t want me to see you in my dreams, then there’s not much you do about it either. Besides, who are you to decide the screenplay of my dreams?
