Behind the seen

Cinema is an art form. Isn't that something we keep forgetting again and again? Too many gimmicks—ah, that's called marketing—can do that to almost anything. If you peel off the box office records, star fees, media shenanigans and other such worldly facets, cinema is bare and deceptive. All art forms are meant to delude us. Films are no different. Its ultimate purpose is to engage with strangers whom the filmmakers will never get to meet or know. That's the set canvas, be it for a stand-up comic who forces out laughter in the room or an Adele who commands silence when she performs. Audience is the ultimate common ground. Without an audience, there is no art. The tricky part being art is open to (mis)interpretations. Leonardo da Vinci might have spent 15 years at perfecting Mona Lisa but the world today is fascinated by her mysterious smile. Was this his original intention? We'll never know. What we know for sure—at least i do—is life remains meaningless no matter what. Being alive is like distracting a baby to make sure it doesn't get bored and cry. Art is the much-needed distraction here. However, the construct of cinema is unique not only because it's undoubtedly the most expensive art form out there but also because it involves so many people in its upbringing that you begin to wonder where cinema ends and reality begins. 

To help you break down this construct, let me list out a few inalienable truths about cinema:

• When you visit a cinema hall, you believe that drama is happening on the screen. You can't be wronger. The real drama is happening on the opposite side of the screen; the side where people are munching overpriced popcorns and slurping sugar-drinks. Like you and me. We are the ones who got tricked into laughing, weeping, singing, dancing, screaming... along with the movie. Those on the big screen are cold professionals who know exactly what they are doing. Unlike you and me. 
• A naive way of decoding cinema is to say that they put you in a dark room and rob you blind. Well, nobody held a gun to your head. And there can't be a greater metaphor for enlightenment when you are exposed to some never-seen-before realities in a given movie while you continue to remain hidden in the darkness of the crowd.
• Once you settle in that comfy chair, it doesn't matter whether the movie is praise-all or fuck-all. You already lost the battle at the ticket counter.
• The director is the first one to watch the movie. Even before it's made. There's no suspense in there for them. S/he somehow go through the routine of converting their vision into a reality. Challenging? Always. Boring? Maybe.
• Light might be faster than sound but horror movies scare you because of aural reasons. It's the deep frightening sounds that make a film scary. The visuals play a significantly lighter role.
• We'll never know why European (non-Anglophone) filmmakers are prone to playing obscure English songs in their movies.
• We'll never know why beautiful stories get marauded by studios in their lame attempt at making locals speak accented English instead of shooting the film in the local language.
• Like most art forms, cinema has unbearable masculinity sketched all over it. So much so even the words used in filmmaking have a bellicose tone: cut, shoot, action... as if a war is going on!
• It will strike you sooner or later that the highest rated film on IMDb, The Shawshank Redemption (1994), basically has an all-male cast.
• The masters of cinema are divided into two camps: those who love tea and those who can't do without coffee. You'll seldom come across somebody who doesn't belong to either or someone who has switched camps. 
• The masters of cinema are nowhere to be found on Twitter. 
• It's arrogant, if not stupid, of you to assume that you can understand a film in just one sitting. A process that took months, if not years, to condense into a (hourly) format merits a second sitting. Or even third.
• Korean movies are best served raw.
• Iranian movies are best served sincere. 
• You must have heard how Hindi film industry is a safe haven for money laundering. Guess what? The same is true for Hollywood. The guy who hugely funded The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) is a major fraud in the finance world—how apt! There's no such a thing as clean money in cinema unless you are an independent filmmaker who has mortgaged his house.
• Bollywood superstars (with the exception of Aamir Khan) face a strange dilemma: they can't afford to break their onscreen mould lest their fans denounce them. 
• You can't watch a movie and then refuse to call yourself a voyeur. Nope.
• Without writers, there is nothing on the table. Still, writers were rarely appreciated for their good work. So, over the past decade, we witnessed a chunk of these goodfellas move en masse to the television. Now, they are not only appreciated but also paid handsomely.
• Those who prefer the front seats want to be the first to watch the movie in the cinema hall. Nothing else can explain that lingering stress in their nape. 
• You may have never heard of Tarkvosky or his masterpieces but the finest filmmakers of our time have. And that's not it. A majority of them regard him as their ultimate inspiration. 
• Genres are for textbooks. Everybody is capable of enjoying all kinds of cinema. Just that we don't take THAT risk. 
• The nicest bit about cinema is it lets you judge it, not the other way round.
• You may have watched a movie a hundred times and may even remember all the dialogues by heart but here's the thing: if you miss the hidden symbols, which are mostly visual, you are missing the whole point.
• Cinema doesn't have a language as such but subtitles surely help.
• Expecting cinema to usher in change in our wretched society is a lot like hoping God to show up during the interval.

no empathy > forced empathy

There is a lot of stuff in the air but it's certainly not empathy. That particular element is clearly missing. Which is ironic given how connected everybody is nowadays thanks to the advent of online world. Maybe the overflow of information is causing this but the numbing process is remarkable. You read about villages starving in Syria and you feel bad for a while. You then read about the famine situation in Yemen and you feel bad about that too. Then you read some other news items that makes you lose faith in humanity. But when you're done reading and reacting, you realize how little you can do to help. No, not due to lack of means but due to lack of motive. For some reason, you've taught yourself that feeling bad is tantamount to helping others. A guilt trip alone makes all the emotional payments. This might be the excuse behind people turning against jokes of late. Offensive jokes, to be precise. Especially on social media. Especially when a joke is the most useless weapon of mass destruction. Especially when we know that taking offence is the easiest thing ever. For instance, i take offence to the way you breathe. I can't stand it. But then, it's not your problem. It's mine. If a person makes an offensive joke, it doesn't come with the caveat that others should respond. In fact, the best response to such senseless expression should be absolute lack of response. Nothing craves attention as much as a joke does. A so-called offensive one, more so. When you react, what you're basically doing is letting your self-righteousness get the better of you. Offensive jokes are often eviscerated for their lack of empathy. But that's merely a matter of perception, mainly because grandstanding doesn't let the offended party think straight through their heavy emotions. Just last month, people were screaming against the Supreme Court's decision to implement national anthems in cinema halls. The reason cited for this outrage was forced patriotism. When you arouse a mob against an offensive joke, aren't you unwittingly practising forced empathy? Besides, the greatest joke is the fact that we are getting riled up a silly joke—in the Internet Age where it's in abundance—that doesn't even merit our time.

Signs, science and sighs

According to Yuval Noah Harari’s brilliant book Sapiens, the earliest human signature belongs to a person named Kushim. We are not really sure that it was a guy but going by the professional dominance men enjoyed in that era (not that a lot has changed since then; take this list—not even one woman on it) we can safely assume that Kushim was a male accountant. He signed his name centuries ago in Mesopotamia on a tablet. Isn’t a privilege? Even if the practise of taking credit or responsibility for something in text was in vogue before Kushim, only his tablets are around for posterity. No one else’s. I thought of him while watching The Accountant (2016), a movie that remains true to the art of storytelling despite so many digressions. While watching it, i was struck by how important bookkeeping is to our society. Numbers must add up whether you’re dealing with carrots or carats or for that matter, Jews. (Had it not been for the diligence showcased by Nazis in maintaining accounts, we wouldn’t have known Holocaust’s actual wickedness.) There are people who work in isolation and use calculator faster than you use your keypad and they are responsible for making every single paisa/grain/cartel accountable. Some may argue that computers are fast taking their place but that’s letting the machines get ahead of ourselves. The irony here being machines, unlike us, operate solely on our sign language.

Over and not out

There are very few jokes that i can think of and chuckle to myself. Most of the time, i watch comedians for the way they deliver a joke and i find my dose of humour in the way it’s expressed. For instance, i love it when Bill Burr laughs at his joke because i find the part when he’s unable to control his grin really funny. Similarly, i admire how Kenny Sebastian makes the most of silence before dropping the punchline. I’m a sucker for nuances. At the same time, my joke delivery sucks. I end up laughing the most while telling a joke. Very rarely do i manage to complete the intended joke. I’m usually covering my face on the table or rolling on the floor holding my loin. However (read however the way Louis CK would pronounce it), there are some jokes that i’ve come to cherish because of their solitude value. The kind which no comedian told you but you remember anyhow. The kind that doesn’t even require an audience and you can smile to yourself thinking of the hilarious scenario.

Presenting to you, ladies and gentlemen and the majority, one such piece to marvel.

People gathered outside a TV shop watching a cricket match involving India (of course; Indians are Indian cricket fan, not cricket cricket fan) and one more man joined the crowd. As is the norm, one is expected to ask what the score is. But this guy asked, “Gavaskar out ho gaya kya?” (Gavaskar is still batting or out?) To which, the surprised crowd turned their attention to the newbie and one of them replied, “Gavaskar ko out hue 25 saal ho gaye. Tu kahaan tha?” (It’s been 25 years since Gavaskar got out; he's retired now. Where were you?) The newbie matter-of-factly said, “Jail mein.” (Prison.)

Don’t know why but this silly joke cracks me up. Every single time.

Core issues

I was recently discussing how corruption is all around us. The plague has reached a point where you wonder whether it’s as essential as oxygen or it’s something that we can do without. I tend to believe that both the options could be mere possibilities. And the reason i say so has something to do with our association of corruption with politicians. Logic gets harmed when we can only imagine politics as the source of corruption. You know why? Because it’s not. Corruption is in every sphere of human influence. Politicians are maligned because they make great news. Corrupt individuals give rise to corruption. We often hear how the system is corrupt when the opposite is true. Individuals in a system are corrupt and these individuals function in coherence with their greed. More interestingly, corruption has very little to do with money. It’s essentially an exhibition of power. I can get you this or that done but there is a price to pay. Since the price can be paid in money most of the time, a signature of authority gets an appropriate tag. However, many a times, corruption creeps into a system without the individual noticing it. For example, you are being corrupt if you are using office printer to get printouts for personal use. Better still, you can be held for corruption if you are using staple pins that was ideally meant only for office use. See? That’s how the practice gets into picture but we brush it off thinking it’s not a big deal. Maybe it’s not a big deal but it makes front page headline when that practice is raised to the power of 1000 or more.

Misnomer of a colourblind

Ever heard an Indian (preferably northerner) calling a fellowperson (preferably northerner) racist for making a joke on another Indian (preferably southerner)? The joke could have been about anything ranging from unsavoury colour to weird accent to body hair. Even if you change the geographic belonging of the three characters, still the common factor would be the use of the R-word. Is it really racist of a northerner (or a southerner) to make fun of a southerner (or a northerner) with an insensitive remark? How can we determine the difference in race on the basis of the states one comes from? Especially when it’s obvious that the racial distinction in this case is based on appearance? For some inexplicable reason, darker skin tone is associated with the southern states while lighter tone is granted to the northern ones. Moreover, is it fair to say that the dark-looking Punjabis are racially distinct from their pinker neighbours? Similarly, aren’t there are fair people in south India? (No, it’s not just about the Aishwarya Rais and the Hema Malinis of the world.) Isn’t race a much deeper anthropological subject? There are too many questions here and a lot many more equations to handle. Our misguided sense of distinction, if i’m not mistaken, comes from the Britishers who ruled us. They saw us as blacks and we tamely accepted the term, overlooking the fact that many of us were wheat-ish. There was no scope for brown or grey in the colonial era; only black and white please. After our colonisers left, we turned on each other for amusement. Arts played a key role in bringing us together as countrypeople, true. It also gave birth to unchecked misrepresentation. For instance, post-independence, Bollywood kept on stereotyping the so-called Madrasis in their movies. (Calling the whole of south India Madrasis was similar to calling the whole of north India Kashmiris.) This gross caricature went on for decades to such an extent that nobody bothered to correct the powers-to-be in the Hindi film industry. There’s a very popular interview of Mehmood by Shekhar Suman where the former calls south Indian women black. Nothing wrong with that if it’s factual. Colour doesn’t determine the character of a person but the problem is in his tone: the degradation in his voice to crack wannabe jokes on the “blackness” of south Indians makes you want to call him racist. But then, there’s another problem here: his disdain for a particular skin tone doesn’t really make him a racist in India. He’s a colourist who happens to be an ignorant fool.

Begane naamkaran mein Abdullah deewana

“What's in a name? A controversy by any other name would smell as tweet.” - Shakespeare

Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan had a baby boy yesterday and decided to name him Taimur. And Twitter India lost its digital shit. In an ideal world, it’s nobody’s business what the parents name their kids. But then, we don’t live in an ideal world and Saifeena comprise a universe that fall under the label celebs. Whatever they do is going to be microscoped; something they fully understand. That’s the price of fame everybody from Hollywood to Bollywood pays. When Kimye named their child North West, there were tweets/jokes floating all around. The same happened when Beyonce and Jay Z named their ward Blue Ivy. Apparently, normal names are for normal people and celebs aren’t perceived as normal. They are considered a notch above not only in their lifestyle but also in their outlook. Which is why it’s understandable how Taimur managed to create a buzz on social media—in tandem with mass media, of course; partners in crime—to such an extent that his name trended for over 24 hours. That’s no small feat. The boy is not even a day old and he sticks to the list like magnet. Even Virat Kohli’s excellence doesn’t let him trend for a day. People’s attention keeps diverting and so do the trending topics. As far as Taimur is concerned, the initial response was a mix of aha and horror, which eventually graduated to hmm and shock and ultimately to ahem and wow. So what really triggered this extreme reaction? For one, Taimur, a variation of Timur, is a historic personality best remembered for his conquest as well as brutality. His Islamic agenda is well-documented and he figures in the top-10 list of mass murderers in recorded history. Taimur is of Turkic origin and signifies strength. It is indeed a rare name at least in Indian context. In a simplistic manner of speaking, he stood for bloodshed but then which great conqueror of the past didn’t? Mao alone was responsible for the death of over 50 million people and he wasn’t even a conqueror! Names like Darius and Xerxes are popular in Iran although both are pre-Islamic and were marked by terror. Omar is a popular name in the Muslim world and means exactly what Amar does: immortal. Similarly, a lot of Arab kids are named Saladin even though the great warrior was of Kurdish origin. Ashoka was an exception in the sense that he gave up violence after butchering villages after villages, thus ensuring his legacy is less tainted. Speaking of whom, we need to understand how significant one-word names are different from the ones with a surname attached. Famous names from history like Buddha, Paigambar, Akbar, Che, etc are words either embraced by or entrusted upon the individuals in question. You hear Mahatma, you think of Gandhiji. (You should ideally think of Phule but that’s a different debate altogether.) This might explain why you’ll still find kids named Adolf in Germany or Augusto in Chile; a different surname becomes the safety net. One-word names like Taimur or Aurangazeb are independent to the point that you automatically think of those two historic figures when you hear such names. Saifeena, in their defense albeit they don’t need to defend anything, can say that they don’t care about Timur or what he did. But that’d be a lame—no pun intended—explanation, especially for a couple that hails from an industry that binges on established names. After all, the nicest part of this pseudo-controversy is people are suddenly interested in "the most boring subject" called history.

“I hope I trend on Twitter someday.” - Timur’s last words

Pee and space

School teaches us a lot about the society we live in. But it misses out on some key lessons of life. For instance, it doesn’t bother to explain how bad breath can single-highhandedly destroy your career. Or for that matter, why being silent is a symptom of strength in today’s ecosystem. Most worryingly, modern-day schools continue to pretend as if corruption is a word from fairy tales. The world is changing so fast while our education system (is it education system or literacy system because there’s a massive difference between the two?) continues to be stuck in a time zone. Maybe that’s why it’s becoming increasingly difficult to face the uncertain future that we’ve created for ourselves. But my greatest issue with the way things are today is the absolute disregard for etiquette in toilets. No, it doesn’t matter whether the toilet is stinking rich with urea like a desi toilet is supposed to. My concern is the way men behave with the lottery system in place.

None of the schools teach the kids to go for the first or the fifth urinal if all of them are available. That way, you don’t create an awkward situation for fellowmen. Let’s say you pick 2, the next guy will have to choose 4 to maintain the much-required space in a sanitary relationship. And then the following guy who shows up will have to choose between 1, 3 and 5. None of these options bode well for any of the three people, especially if they have a medical condition that automatically shuts their peeholes if a person is standing right next to them with his dick out.

In the nick of name!

We Indians have weird nicknames. Monikers that have nothing to do with our official name. My nickname is Sunil. My family and close friends still know me by that word. Apparently, it was my first name too as my dad was a huge Gavaskar fan. So i’ve got two names that are remarkably independent. Shakti and Sunil are as similar to each other as Putin and Trudeau in global politics. There’s another category of nicknames in our subcontinent (yes, this tradition-turned-trend isn’t restricted to India alone): nicknames that sound like nicknames but have nothing to do with the original name. Like a girl named Pooja is known as Munni in her family while a boy named Sameer is more popular as Guddu in his neighbourhood. This is still alright. The third category of nicknames is purely accidental and they usually occur because of me. I am bad with names but it gets worse at times. So, there’s a colleague named Neeraj in our office but i’ve been calling him Nikhil for about two years now. (Unlike a colleague from previous office named Gaurav who told me his name wasn't Gautam!) He never bothered to correct me even once until recently. In fact, whenever i called out Nikhil, he responded. It’s like he accepted either of the following conditions or maybe both:

• According to me, Nikhil suits him better.
• He agrees with my opinion since we are living in a very opinionated world.

The hilarious bit about this confusion would happen when somebody asks him whether he has a nickname and he goes “Oh yes, somebody calls me Nikhil too!”

Yellow submarine

A school bus is meant to be yellow. Not just because the colour is attractive (OK, that’s the main reason actually) but because of scientific reasons. Unlike the kids inside it, a school bus is expected to behave. You’ll rarely see it meandering on the road or jump a signal or two. It follows all the rules and maintains decorum even in the most frustrating of traffic jams. In an ideal world, fellow vehicles would let a school bus go ahead but then Indian motorists seldom allow even an ambulance that sort of special favours. One more thing is similar to a school bus and an ambulance: phone number on its back. In fact, you are encouraged to call up the number in case you notice something off. What would be interesting though is to notice a school bus misbehave for a change. Like speeding, for instance. What’d be more interesting is to call up the number only to hear, “I’m driving right now, call me later."

As fragile as democracy

Trump becoming the POTUS might be an unsavoury development for a lot of us but it's a necessary pill for democracy. Democracy might be the finest form of government but it’s definitely not infallible. History has taught, time and time again, that it's deeply rooted in human decency and it inextricably expects everyone to be wise enough to know what’s good for them. Now, the question is do people really know what’s good for them? Anyway, going back to Trump, the world looks up to the USA—not India, mind you—as the epitome of functional democracy. And when Americans can choose someone as divisive as Trump, it provides the world a much-required lesson in the fragilities of democracy. For example, last week, Austria (birthplace of Hilter) overwhelmingly rejected far-right party in a tense election. Can this choice, in some parts at least, be attributed to the outcome of US elections and more importantly, its aftermath? Can't say. People aren’t blind wherever they come from but going by the narrative of the mainstream voices, people are dumb creatures who require the arrogance of journalists/intellectuals/etc to dictate what they really desire from a political candidate. After all, a majority of those who voted for Trump overlooked his racist/misogynist/xenophobic/assholic comments and paid attention on the 'change' he promised. A change that mattered to them because it’s invested in their betterment; a change that apparently will bring jobs back to American shores and improve the conditions of working class America; a class that the rest of world tends to overlook because we are soaked in by the photoshopped glitter of Hollywood and the cultural coolness that US represents. There must be legion of studies on this topic but i’d like to assume that people always hold their economic need above EVERYTHING ELSE. Something that happened in 2014 too when Modi got a clear mandate. A majority of the commoners didn't vote for him because they wanted a temple in Ayodhya. They saw him as a harbinger of development; someone who will put the economy back on track and pull us ahead from the the countless scams that UPA1 and UPA2 shamelessly perpetuated. Going back to the burning question, people might be wrong in guessing what's good for them but more often than not, they are damn sure about the things they don’t want. Just that most of the time, we don't listen to them thanks to superiority complex despite knowing very well that democracy is all about the majority. Or in a simpler word, people.

Love and disorder

I have a (conspiracy?) theory that Jayalalithaa passed away in the afternoon of December 5 itself. According to me, they delayed the news so as to ensure that the state gets enough time to absorb what was going on. Had the breaking news been sudden and straightforward, hooliganism would have raised its ugly head. The media was full of trepidation and justifiably too given the stature JJ enjoyed in her state. I received a message, a few minutes after lunch, from a well-placed friend asking me whether i can translate a condolence message into Tamil for him. Given my admiration for Tamil, he assumed i must be well-versed in the language. I am not. It was obvious that she’d have passed away although media was playing cat-and-mouse with Apollo hospital. Maybe the people-behind-the-walls must have controlled the flow of info in this fashion: leak in the afternoon that Amma is very critical, followed by another leak suggesting she might have passed away only to deny it early evening, followed by a clarification by Apollo saying she was on life support system and finally make an official announcement at night that she has indeed departed. This yo-yo technique of uncertainty must have contributed to the orderliness that followed, leaving little space for chaos. Of course, the credit largely goes to the law enforcement agencies in Tamil Nadu, especially Chennai. But the maturity with which the communication was handled deserves a relook though there was an element of necessary deception. Maybe it’s a sign of the change in politics. The days of flaming emotions are numbered. Those types of nostalgic exhibits used to make it to the front page but the losses registered in damages to public/private properties ran into crores. And a ruling party can do well without such fanaticfare. 

Something similar happened but at a city-level when i was with mid-day. Rumours started spreading that Balasaheb had passed away on Friday. The official statement was made on Saturday. This delaying of news ensured minimum disorderliness in the city. The procession of departure was exemplary with minimum ruckus. 

This pattern also shows how the source of madness in Indian politics often emanate from the politicians themselves. No matter how much the laity loves a political figure, the majority don't engage in over-the-top expressions of grief. That job is executed by thugs employed by politicians. They are the ones who burn the buses and cars on roads in times of unrest. Common people, irrespective of whichever state they belong to, stand (and drop dead) in the queue. They seldom burn an ATM.

That wall of validation

Kind words go a long way, right? Not really. They go only as long as you want them to. Seems to me we are raring for the sort of validation we’ll never receive, be it offline or online, from strangers. The assortment of words that was poetic as well as genuine continue to allude us. Now they’ve devolved into something else. Maybe that’s why words of appreciation from family and friends are either taken for granted or not given enough weightage. So we end up hunting in the darkest of corners: social media. A tiny piece of the Internet which unwittingly calls for more anti-social and much more media. It’s a skewed system already. But that’s also what makes the whole hunt worthwhile. If not, why would you be elated on scoring 500 RTs when you know that’s too low a figure to make ANY difference to anything? The real world is too big. Plain arithmetic notwithstanding, the desire to get appreciated for one’s talent—be it good haikus or bad jokes or excellent riffing—is fast becoming the hallmark of our generation. So much so it has turned into a rarity to come across folks who don’t get this online craze at all. You can either admire such creatures or exude utter disdain for their ignorance. The worst type are those who don’t even feel the urge to click a selfie. C’mon!

PS. Going back to validation, how much do you appreciate that Uber driver or Jugnoo autowallah who showed up on time and dropped you safe and sound(less)? Don’t you think he too would have a better day ahead if some words of appreciation fall on his eardrums? The funny bit being he is connected to you through an online creation too—an app, nonetheless—but he’s doing a great job at it.

Cardiac acquital

Your heart is an idiot. It makes you do everything you weren't supposed to. The most despicable bit being it keeps you alive. Pump. Pump. Pump. Shock. Pump. Sneeze. Pump. Pump. It doesn't give up on you, now, does it? As bloody as it is, the heart emoji paints a rosy picture of something that is—pardon my Italian—mafially gross. Blame it on the poets. Poetry has a way of painting an image that doesn't stick to reality. Heartbreak. Heartache. Heartthrob. No disrespect to pancreas, liver, spleen or lungs but heart received a preference. The Aztecs used to rip beating hearts out of captives and presented them to sun god. Of course, the sun god didn't care for such kind gestures. It had bigger things to do with time and space. On the contrary, humans continued to stay fascinated by a tick-tock machine inside us. In some ways, it's a practical reaction to an organ that is so consistent with its music. Even your stomach grumbles whenever it feels like. There's no set pattern in there. Perhaps heart deserves the attention it gets. For what it's worth, every single breath you take is a tribute to an orchestra called life.

Errata: Your heart is an idiotic musician.

War is a horrible joke

It’s 2016 and there are more than enough warmongers amongst us. The worst revelation being the otherwise calm folks who vent their deepest angst on social media. To them, war is a solution, not a problem. It’s sad how people can jump to a fatal conclusion like that. Slow down a bit. What’s the most barbaric thing you can think of? Whatever your guess, war comprises almost every fucked-up thing imaginable. Just that we don’t get to experience any of it from the sideline. Glory, honour, patriotism, etc. are some of the words decorated with war, conveniently overlooking the fact that war is nothing but our collective failure at employing our greatest asset: words. Sometimes, even kids grow up thinking that there is an enemy out there, all thanks to the conversations shining on the W-word. If only somebody told the kid what the ground reality is like; how overzealous young men tend to lose their bellicose thrill within a few days of entering the war zone. There’s no fun in smelling blood and shit. It doesn’t take long to realize that they are basically going through crap to entertain the ego of the powers-to-be. Regardless, they are expected to shoot at people they’ve never met before; people they have nothing against personally. No wonder WW1 witnessed soldiers—on both sides—shooting over their so-called enemies’ helmets. If there can be a miracle on the battlefield—no, Hitler surviving WW1 wasn’t a miracle, that was pure fate—this phenomenon was it. Excessive exposure to bullets makes one weary and brings out the kindest as well as wildest out of you. Soldiers are known to act out of character in their blood-stained uniforms. Speaking of which, it’s often ignored how war becomes synonymous with rape. There isn’t a war in human history which didn’t record soldiers violating the womenfolk from the other side. We don’t have to go to WW2 to check how it ended with the Russian soldiers raping German women; it happened in Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently in Syria. The price of conflict is often borne by those who have the least to do with it. Unfortunately, we neither talk about it nor acknowledge we don’t have the capacity to make our children see how things are. How words like ransacked, seized, defeated, captured, annexed in their history books have broader implications. And there is nothing glorious about them.

Political beings

I used to be one of those who blamed politicians for everything that’s wrong with our society. This was before i wised up a bit. The so-called apolitical people do a lot of damage in the name of fencesitting. Turns out blaming politicians—or in that vein, politics—is like blaming oxygen for slowly killing us. Politics is everywhere around us. It begins in the kindergarten playground where kids form their own little groups. It never ends though. We are, for lack of a finer term, political beings. The sooner we accept it, the better. For some reason (let’s call it ignorance), we tend to associate politics and politicians only with corruption and debauchery. When we do that, we are only asserting our unwillingness to make a difference by staying unaware. It’s quite similar to standing on the side of the road ostracizing the monsoon for causing an accident instead of helping the guy whose motorcycle slid. Moreover, the weather isn’t in our control but our future certainly is. Being aware of the guys who are running for office and the kind of work they are doing at the local level could be a good start. But then, we don’t even want to know who the corporator in our neighbourhood is, let alone confront him/her on issues that is close to your heart. We only want to crack jokes on the NaMos, RaGas and Kejris of the world. Democracy might not be perfect but it has proved again and again why it’s the least of all evil systems out there. If people show as much interest in knowing/discussing the powers-to-be at a level that’s closer to home, we’ll certainly reach a stage where the government would consist of people who genuinely care. Right now, it’s defined by people who stand in the queue because they don’t have a voice and are so helpless that they feel only a ballot or a bribe can change their lives for better. And that’s the political order we should be aiming against.

Show me the money!

Maybe it's a good time to talk about money. Black, white, colored, all sorts. There are some lessons i learnt after moving to Gurgaon. Back in Bombay, i didn't care much for money mainly because i didn't have expenses. When you're living with your family, you don't care about raashan. I barely went out or had any habits to support. There were magazines to buy, Internet bills to pay, film festivals/cultural events to attend, occasional weekend Chinese with Tushar and Anu. That's it. Maybe that's why i could take a 50% salary cut to try myself at journalism. I was touching 25 then and was offered 13K a month. Not a huge amount when you consider i didn't get any conveyance from the publication, not for the travels required, nope for the calls dialled. After the deductions, less than 10K reached my pocket. But then, i got myself some proud bylines. Lots of them, actually, for someone who never went to an esteemed J-school. Also, experience. Loads of that too. By the time i gave up journalism, after spending close to 3.5 years, i was back at the very salary i quit my previous job!

That was then. I'm a bit wiser now.

The thing about money is it requires understanding. Not very different from the way we deal with kids. They are unpredictable. My friend, Rudra, once told me that one of the reasons i'll remain gareeb is because i'm afraid of money. I didn't gauge the depth of that statement. He was right. When you have remarkably low income, you somehow find comfort in that zone. You look at people with higher income and the troubles they've added to their list by buying a house or a car on loan. You see that they have willingly become a slave to the bank. You begin to see those aspects (at least i did) as avoidable headaches. Irrevocably, you get stuck in your zone. And before you acknowledge it, you are getting old and starting to feel sorry for yourself because not a week goes by you don't compare your fate with the kids you grew up with. They are doing great—not merely going by their FB pics—while you are nearing 30 and neither have a career nor savings.

Savings. That's the word.

How does one save money? If you ask an expert, they'll drain out the difference between save and invest. Since i'm not an expert, i feel saving can be done better when you set your priorities right. Where is your money going? If i find myself in an accident tomorrow, will i be able to get through without disrupting others' lives? Which hill station am i visiting next? Do you want to retire in a mansion? Maintaining a diary about expenses (daily/weekly/monthly) helps. I don't earn a lot (more on that later) so whatever i get gets divided equally into brackets. Precisely how i want things to be for now. Let's put it this way: I neither feel bad about shelling out ₹20 extra to an autowallah/sabziwallah nor do i get robbed by malls. I'm at ease. I do my bits here and there from time to time for people and the environment. I miss participating in sapling projects though but i'm sure my current state of health won't permit it either.

Money happens to be a psychological trick and it's interesting how much imagination it captures. What's more in store is the endless pursuit of it. There's no such a thing as enough when it comes to income. Precisely why we should have a second income flow. It could be anything from freelancing to baking to anything else that you're good at and won't need more than a few hours a day/week. That amount fortifies your future. I've been planning to write a book since my late-teens. At this rate, it seems like a distant dream. However, if i manage to get something going for myself in the field of writing, then i might be able to sustain better. Buy insurances, maybe? Fixed deposits, too? Who knows? A steadier flow of income makes you imaginative. 

Until a month ago, i was the only earning member from my family back in Bombay. When you are in a position like i was, you are constantly reminded of your responsibilities. You can't randomly leave your job and pursue your distant dream. You try to settle with as much caution as possible. I look at some of my colleagues who can't do without parties and excessive spending. So much so their online retail therapy doesn't pause. They can afford that because their families don't look forward to their month-end deposits. Things are different for different people. Also, you decide your value in the market and the sooner you realize this, the better. If not, chances are you'll feel lost in the rat race to be financially secure because that's a bloody oxymoron.

PS. No matter what, pay your taxes because a pyre made of black money is a fucking disgrace.

We need to talk about Caste

There’s a famous quote vis-a-vis Indian politics and election: “Indians don’t cast their votes; they vote their castes.”

The only problem with the above statement is nothing’s going to change unless we address the core issue of our society. Caste, whether you like it or not, is incredibly strong. It's beyond religion. In fact, much stickier than that. Cluelessness only makes it stronger. Especially if you grew up in urban India and never bothered to know why the labourers in the city generally belong to the downtrodden caste or for that matter, where your maid/help comes from, then you—and not the institutions in place—are partly to be blamed for your ignorance. The burden of privilege ensures that you stay away from the C-word. So much so you don’t even want to talk about it. Your excuse could be anything from “It’s irrelevant!” (Yes, it’s irrelevant because the generations that preceded you made sure of that but if you’re going to discuss the conditions in our country, you better do your homework) to “It makes me uncomfortable!” (Well, that proves the extent of your comfort more than anything else, sweetheart). The point being, not talking about something by calling it regressive is giving too much power to the regressiveness of the subject. Caste is all around us. It’s so prevalent that if you can notice the pattern, it’s almost there all around you be it urban or rural India. So why talk about it? And what difference would it make? Words are a powerful tool, if backed by facts and data. It can be a weapon of mass destruction too, if backed by falsehood and propaganda. That said, if we—the ones who have the voice to make a gradual difference—don’t try to understand the correlation between a person’s caste and his profession (or the lack of it), then who is going to? The politicians? Well, they are busy exploiting our ignorance for close to seven decades now. If we don’t sit up and see how caste affects the entire subcontinent—yes, it’s not limited to only India as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also have a steady caste system in order—that’s a major chunk of 1.68 billion people on the planet—then we are only fooling ourselves. If we’re going to stay aloof instead of digging deeper (like we do with the trends/memes that catch our imagination on the Internet) into the surface of a disease that has been making our society hollow for ages, then what’s the point in criticizing caste politics?

Ride and prejudice

PR is everything nowadays. Hardly anybody cares about the truth anymore. You neither have the time nor the patience required for it. Which is why you rely on labels. You jump to conclusions. You don't want to read fat books but would call someone fat without even knowing the person. Labels. We've come a long way from Stone Age (which was actually Wood Age because our ancestors did more kaarigari with wooden objects compared to stone) to Label Age. We throw words at others without giving them the benefit of doubt. The same benefit of doubt that we easily give ourselves or the ones we like. For instance, there has always been a growing resentment against Dilliwallahs for being too flashy about their wealth. This is a perfect case of blanket banality because we don't know for sure whether a majority of the residents are like that. Yet, we tend to smear the entire city with one stroke of prejudice. When i was in Mumbai, i used to hear a lot of incidents where young women don't offer their seats to the elder ones; which isn't the case in the general (there's no gents compartment) dabba. More often than not, you'll see young men giving up their seats for the older guys. Again, how are we supposed to declare a broadband judgement without an empirical data to support our bias?

PS. On our way to Anand Vihar (Delhi), my wife offered her seat to an older lady. She gracefully declined the offer before inquisitively commenting to her husband standing next to her: "She can't be from here?"

The birth of homesickness

If you're asked which is the greatest revolution of all time and you don't reply "That's an easy one. Agricultural Revolution," i'll judge you. Not for your answer—whatever that is, from Industrial Revolution to French Revolution to Russian Revolution to Digital Revolution—but for the grave injustice of misinformation. It'd be like missing the field for a grain. Agricultural Revolution (that happened 12000 years ago) is the reason we are where we are today as a world. Before our ancestors found out the reason to settle down, they were hunters who constantly moved from one place to another. It was the charm of agriculture that sowed the seeds of civilization. If not, we'd still be moving around like a lot of non-agriculturist tribes still do. Although i don't see anything wrong with that, it's worth imagining how our planet would have looked like if our foremothers refused to reside by the rivers. Movement was always there but still, agriculture helped us multiply faster in one particular location bestowing on us a sense of identity and belonging. The hunters were the restless souls who discovered the dark/cold unknown (read: Americas and Australia) so everything took place for a bigger plan—well? Those who wanted to settle settled while those who desired to travel traveled. Whatever be the end result, i strongly feel that we weren't meant to have a monogamous relationship with a place. But then, Agricultural Revolution ensured that we stick to one place for the sake of food and security. Maybe that's why we find it so hard to move on.