The Fancification of Life
My wife and I are as megalopolitan as the next puffed-up Delhiwallah; well-read, semi-sophisticated and just snobbish enough to sneer at people who say aloo sabzi instead of potato-au-gratin. Yet I was intrigued by that bizarrely shaped gadget in the store window. I asked the missus what it could be, but she merely shrugged her shoulders. “Why don’t you go in and ask?”
So we entered the shop. It had that peculiar reverential hush which seems to embrace the loaded shopaholic while booting out the impoverished window shopper. I diffidently approached the salesgirl – who was studying her nails with great concentration.
“Excuse me,” I said politely, “That oddly shaped thing in the show window ……. what might it be?”
She drew herself up to her full height of five-feet-nothing and looked down at me, though how she managed to do that was a mystery.
“That, Sir,” she said with unwarranted superciliousness, “Is a nail-clipper.” And then taking me to be a total bumpkin, she added in Hindi, “Is se nakhoon kate jaate hain. Nails. Cut. Karte. Hain.”
If my face could have changed colour, it would have gone from swarthy to tomato-red. I mumbled something incoherent, fled the shop, and the missus trailed behind, giggling so hard she nearly tripped over her own amusement.
Once outside, I exploded. “Why the bloody hell do they have to turn a simple nail-clipper into something that looks like it’s part of a spacecraft?”
The missus kept laughing and almost collapsed to the ground. Many passersby stopped to stare, some were perplexed, others smiled indulgently. Delhi is seldom treated to the sight of a septuagenarian losing his cool in the corridors of Connaught Place while his wife literally rolls on the floor, laughing!
This wasn’t my first humiliation at the hands of over-design. Take my recent encounter in the washroom of a fancy restaurant with something that we used to call a tap. You know – a tap? Turn handle, water flows out? Simple! Instead, there was this stainless-steel swan-cum-snake with a neck twisted in a manner that would make any contortionist jealous. No handle, no lever, no knob, no nothing! Just a gleaming question mark perched on the basin like a floating dream. I assumed it was a tap, but the thingamajig had me baffled completely. I waved my hands under it, above it, around it – nothing. I even tried whispering commands in case it was voice-activated. Again nothing! So, I sneaked out of the restroom without washing my hands.
It’s not just objects that are fancified beyond reason. There seems to be a universal tendency to convert the plain to be pretentious and to fancify vanilla to become tutti frutti. Coffee is no longer a hot black liquid to perk you up in the morn. It is now ‘single-origin Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, anaerobic natural-processed, 92-point cupping score, hand-poured at 94°C in a classic 1:16.5 ratio by a barista who has a PhD in bean metaphysics’. Our daily bread? It trespasses against common sense and masquerades as ‘heirloom-grain sourdough levain, 72-hour cold-fermented, scorched crust with artisanal scoring pattern’ – designed expressly to be Instagrammed; but certainly not to be eaten.
My seat in the budget airlines economy section is sold as ‘an ergonomically sculpted personal cocoon featuring virtual noise-cancellation, curated ambient mood illumination lighting and bespoke mouthfeel snack synergy at a modest premium’. The claptrap means nothing because I still find myself wedged between two garlic-eating hulks, with my knees jammed into the tray table. The only ‘mood lighting’ is the flickering overhead that makes me look jaundiced. And the modest premium is anything but modest!
Even water has gone posh. Ours is the generation that drank water straight from the tap, except in summers – when we drank the cool water of the earthen pot, the matka. The only ‘filtration’ we ever encountered was the chipped Royal Doulton ceramic thing in some forgotten dak bungalow, occasionally sporting a dead beetle inside it. All that is gone – replaced by ‘glacial spring essence, pH 8.4, naturally electrolyte-infused, bottled at source in Icelandic lava fields, presented in mouth-blown glass vials with wax-dipped cork.’ All for a price that could buy a small kingdom!
If the copywriters, those high priests of gobbledegook, had their way, a pencil would be ‘an analogue, non-replenishable, hand-held stylus comprising a narrow cylindrical core of graphite-clay composite encapsulated within a typically hexagonal sacrificial wooden sheath, precision-pointed via abrasion for tribological inscription on substrates’. Similarly, the fancified description of lipstick would be ‘a pigmented, anhydrous or emulsion-based colourant formulated with structuring agents like beeswax, emollients, antioxidants, preservatives, and sensory modifiers, precision-dispensed via a convenient swivel-up mechanism for optical modification of labial epidermis.’ And a spade would be called an ‘ergonomic earth-displacement implement with sustainable ash-wood haft and carbon-neutral forging!’
Sadly, fancification has turned beauty into a weapon against usefulness. Everything is elevated until it is unrecognisable—and utterly useless. To make matters worse, I must pay more for choosing the convoluted over the straightforward, the jalebi over the simple laddoo. And just when I think the jalebi can’t get more twisted, along comes the imarti—that double-coiled, syrup-soaked tortuous phenomenon — to remind me that pretension will always find a way to outdo itself!
kcverma345@gmail.com
The King of the Kitchen
It was one of those middling Tuesdays when the world can’t decide if it is winter or summer. After breakfast, I was parked on the balcony, staring at the Neem tree in the garden below. The missus, ever solicitous, mistook my reverie for distress.
“What are you brooding about now?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I replied. My ‘Nothing’ means nothing – unlike hers, which often contains a grievance or two.
“Why don’t you pick up a hobby? Something to keep you occupied,” she suggested brightly, as though hobbies could be ordered for delivery in ten minutes via Blinkit.
“Sitting on this balcony, doing nothing, keeps me occupied enough!” I protested.
She pulled that face—the one that says, “I may have married you, but I could have done better.” So, in a flash of misguided genius, I blurted, “But if you insist, I’ll take up cooking. You’ll thank me because it will also lighten your load.”
My cooking résumé was short but sparkling. Boy Scout campfires had taught me that fire is hot and food requires it. Then, in my glorious bachelor days, I gained more knowledge and, in my modest way, mastered the art of making tea. I daresay that, over the years, I even learnt how to boil an egg. I know it was not cordon bleu stuff, but it was close. Quite close.
Cooking certainly seemed the path to glory. Sitting on the balcony I daydreamt of astonishing the missus with dish after dish so divine that even the gods up on Olympus would drool over them. I pictured Sunday supplement headlines screaming: ‘Behold the King of the Kitchen! See the maestro at work, with his no-frills artistry. Witness the gleaming perfection of culinary finesse of the kitchen virtuoso who prepares divine dishes with aplomb!’
Alas, the kitchen is the fortress of the missus. Every time I tried to enter, she shooed me away like a stray cat. Patience, I told myself. Patience! Patience is the secret weapon of the retired. Opportunity knocked on the last Thursday of the month—her sacred kitty-party day. The moment the door clicked shut behind her, I slunk into the kitchen.
What a shock awaited me there! Chaos, disorder and utter anarchy! Pots and pans stacked in defiance of gravity, size, and basic logic. Spoons and forks scandalously cohabiting inside the same drawer. The chopping board without any clear indication which side was up. But the masalas! Oh, the masalas were the true horror. I was overwhelmed by the jars of mismatched sizes, labels in faded cursive, and nightmarish conflicts of labels and contents.
I abandoned any thought of cooking. Instead, I decided to make the ultimate romantic gesture: reorganise the entire kitchen into ergonomic perfection. A gift from a devoted husband to wife. A love sonnet expressed in alphabetised spice jars!
Armed with Google Lens and the indomitable Opera browser, I laboured for nearly two hours. It was deeply satisfying to arrange the containers alphabetically – agar-agar, Ajinomoto, ajwain, allspice, amchur, Anar dana, anise, asafoetida; followed by basil, bay leaf, black pepper, black salt and so on – all the way to vanilla, white pepper and zeera. I even prepared a short briefing note for enlightenment of the missus. These were helpful tips – small, but important, including how to avoid procurement asymmetry. Can you imagine holding in stock more than half a kilo of salt and, incongruously, just two grams of saffron?
Job done, I waited, barely able to suppress my excitement. I could just imagine the look of delight and gratitude on my wife’s face once she saw her reorganised kitchen. So, when she returned, I ushered her into her fortress like royalty.
“Ta-daaa!”
She stared, stunned. And then she started screaming.
“Is this what you call your bloody hobby? Don’t you ever dare come near my kitchen again!”
Not quite the gratitude I had anticipated. When the missus declares war, strategic withdrawal is wisdom, not cowardice. I spent the evening beneath the Neem tree, pondering life’s injustices.
By dinner time she had simmered down. I ventured: “I was only trying to help, dear.”
“Help,” she muttered, “is washing dishes without being asked.”
“But we have Phulwanti for that.”
“Phulwanti has vanished since last week. Probably gone forever, without a word.”
So, it fell to me to be the volunteer floor-sweeper-cum-dishwasher extraordinaire.
“Think of it as your new hobby,” the missus said, eyes twinkling with pure evil.
I swept the house with great vigour and got a “Shabaash!” from the missus. “You do it so well. When you swish that broom, I can still see the power of your tennis backhand. Like in college!”
Done with sweeping, I took her frilly pink apron off the peg and attacked the dishes. From the kitchen door, the missus called my name.
I turned — click — camera flash!
“This is for my Instagram,” she declared.
Next morning, I knew something was amiss when my friend Gopu called. “You look so nice in pink,” he giggled and disconnected.
I wondered what that was about.
I checked Instagram – There was my photograph with me looking mildly surprised. The caption read – ‘#BeholdtheKingoftheKitchen! See the maestro at work in pink frilly splendour. Witness the legendary grace of this scrubbing divinity, washing dishes to gleaming perfection.’
Two thousand and forty-seven likes. Fifty-seven reposts. And rising!
It’s clear I will not find a place in the culinary hall of fame for my biryani or butter chicken. But I will certainly be immortalised – because of viral humiliation in a pink frilly apron!
Midnight Musings
It is always in the witching hours that the ghosts of the past assemble, crowding around me as regrets to torment my sleepless mind. I recall the roads not taken, the sights not seen, the words left unspoken and the hills not climbed. I agonize over what might have been but never was. The regrets surge in a sudden flood, banishing any trace of drowsiness. And suddenly I am fully awake, wondering what it was that rudely jolted me to the present from my wanderings in the past.
So, I lie in bed, uneasy in liminal wakefulness, still poised between insistent ‘what ifs’ and some half-remembered dream. A question mark hangs over what could have possibly nudged me to wakefulness.
It must have been some sound. It returns – closer now, insistent. Without warning, it swells into a deep, throaty roar. Even though muffled by the double glazing of the windows and the balcony door, it seems to be the deep growl of a motorcycle. I silently curse the unseen rider and others who tear along the straight stretch near my building, shattering the night’s fragile peace.
Motorcycles – that is another regret! When I was young, so very long ago, I had the great ambition to ride a bike that could roar like that! A Harley Davidson, perhaps, or an Indian Chief. Even a Royal Enfield Bullet would have sufficed; but none of my friends owned even that.
While I am recalling my yearning for bikes, the nightrider makes one more pass under my balcony. Though loud, the ‘Whroooom!’ is still too muffled for me to identify the machine. I wonder if it is a BMW 1000, or could it be a Kawasaki Ninja? Or is the biker a discerning rider and prefers the torque advantage of the Harley over the raw horsepower of the Kawasaki?
I don’t know where the biker lives, but it must be nearby. He comes tearing down the road, easily over a hundred kilometres per hour by the sound. He then brakes hard for the U-turn at the crossroads a kilometre away. As the machine aggressively downshifts gears for the turn and accelerates again, the decibel level shoots up further. The growling monster then races past my apartment on the opposite carriageway. Night after night, between two and four in the morning – when only devils and demons prowl – he makes five or six such manic circuits beneath my balcony.
Last Saturday, when sleep eluded me for no reason at all, I resolved to unmask the source of that confident roar. I stepped onto the balcony and waited for the ghost rider.
From my penthouse vantage, the view was serene. The streetlamps splashed circles of light on the deserted road, stretching into the distance. A solitary dog limped along, sniffing the base of each lamppost. The traffic lights at the crossroads were blinking amber. On the footpath of the far carriageway, a lumpy bundle of rags and blankets lay huddled. Perhaps it was a beggar, the same one who seeks alms at our condo gate, sleeping perilously close to speeding traffic.
Standing alone on a balcony in the middle of the night can be a strangely metaphysical experience. The silence invites philosophy: listing regrets, counting small mercies. After midnight, odd thoughts rise unbidden from forgotten corners of the mind, half-dreams corrupted by wakefulness. Gazing at the beggar huddled by the roadside, I recalled an old, bitter aphorism: if the poor were paid to die for the rich, they might finally earn a decent living.
I was still lost in these strange thoughts when I heard the growl of the approaching nightrider. With a jolt, I realised it was not a motorcycle at all. It was a car. It came with a rush, and I saw that it was a short, squat road-hugging monster, built for brutal power. It flashed past below: low, wide, predatory. A Lamborghini, almost certainly the Revuelto.
The car shot past under my balcony, then screeched a kilometre away as it did a U-turn, before thundering back on the opposite side, missing the bundled sleeper by mere inches. Headlights flared again moments later, this time on my side of the road. I stood transfixed as the machine completed five frenzied laps at ferocious speed, each pass more aggressive than the last, before vanishing with a final growl.
I remained on the balcony long after the sound had faded, reflecting on regrets and improbable mercies.
I wondered whether the beggar, wrapped in his thin rags by the roadside, ever silently thanked fate that no speeding car had ever veered onto the pavement.
I wondered whether the owner of that Lamborghini ever regretted the purchase – never having the guts to drive the high-performance machine.
I wondered whether he regretted the absence of an endless straight road where his dear son could race the car at 300 km/h.
I even wondered whether some desperate driver somewhere regretted that the Richie Rich Baba had not struck the sleeper – for then he could have claimed to be at the wheel, and Baba’s Daddy Ji would have provided generous compensation to him for taking the rap.
That balcony is indeed a strange place. In the dead of night, it breeds the strangest thoughts!
kcverma345@gmail.com
On Oldifying : Cato Maior de Senectute
It was one of those lazy Sunday mornings in winter when the fog refuses to lift, the newspaper arrives damp, and the ache in the bones dissipates only by lunch time. I was on the balcony, second mug of Darjeeling turning lukewarm, pretending to read the editorial while actually monitoring the cute neighbour walking her dog in the park below. Life, for the moment, was tolerable.
Suddenly, Gopu burst into our home, muttering oaths and curses.
“He used the U-word! Twice! Deliberately!”
I lowered my mug carefully. “Calm down, Gopu. Who used the what word?” I asked.
“The liftman! That cheeky blighter. He called me ‘Uncle’! Twice!”
The trouble with old age is that when it comes, if at all it comes, it comes just once. Most people who grow old have no prior experience in growing old. So they remain either unaware or in denial about it. I don’t claim to have more experience than any other old man, but I certainly claim a percipience that is lacking in most oldies, especially those like my friend Gopu.
“You are getting along in years,” I said reasonably. “Whether you like it or not, people will notice your grey hair and that shuffling gait.”
“Hmmpfff,” was all that he said.
“Oh, come now, Gopu! Accept you are becoming an old man. Embrace everything that comes with age – being called ‘uncle’, irritability, forgetfulness, wrinkles, dentures. Vague aches and pains. And even a bit of incontinence!”
He only looked grumpier.
“I am not old!”
I patiently explained. “A tree grows older, but it does not become old. On the other hand, you and I? Well, as we grow older, we become old. This process should rightly be called ‘oldification’. You and I are oldifying. Understood?”
Gopu continued to be resentful. “I may be growing older. But I’m certainly not oldifying, as you call it.”
“Make no mistake, my friend. You might not recognise the signs, but you’re certainly oldifying. In my case the earliest sign was the frequency with which I started losing my temper. This was more noticeable on the road, where all the rascals are in cahoots, plotting to drive me crazy. Everyone is against me – the inveterate honker who keeps tootling his horn; the dangerous motorcycle rider, talking on his cell phone, hell-bent on committing suicide; and the mad guy who cuts in front of my car without warning. Even the matron who crawls along at 20 mph in the fast lane is part of the conspiracy.”
“All the rogues on the road are against me too. But that’s not because I am old!” protested Gopu.
“Aha!” said I, “There you are! You have certainly oldified. Tell me, aren’t you increasingly disappointed with the world? Trains run late, samosas aren’t crispy enough, children are ill-mannered? In our day, the coffee was stronger, the movies cleaner, the politicians more honest! Everything was so much better, no?”
“Of course!” said Gopu.
“Listen carefully. You should be aware that this is an imperfect world and it is only the oldified who get annoyed about it. You are old if you are angered by wrongly parked cars and people jumping queues. Or inconsiderate women talking loudly. Or men wearing loud clothes. Or that mongrel down the street, incessantly yapping at nothing. Even terms like ad nauseum!”
Gopu took some time to digest this wisdom. “My problem is that the number of things that irritate me grows and grows. Unending advertisements on news channels, slow service in restaurants, the way young people wear low hip jeans, the impertinent angle of the watchman’s cap. Everything!”
The missus jumped into the fray. “Welcome to old age, Gopu! You should now look out for more signs of oldifying. Muttering and grumbling are pucca signs. Giving unsolicited advice is another,” she said. “If you hand out advice to total strangers oftener than twice a week, you are officially antique. If you shout advice to TV anchors or film characters, then you have arrived! Soon you will start feeling that the winter is colder and the rainy season wetter than it used to be. Your language has probably already changed, and you are using more ‘Oldspeak’. You often start sentences with ‘When I was ….’. And you say, ‘I am thinking’ when you mean ‘I am confused.’”
“And caution!” I added, “Caution is not a virtue, it’s a red flag! You don’t have to hesitate so much before crossing the road. You don’t need to recheck five times if you have locked the door. You don’t really need to ask yourself twice whether you have taken your morning medicines.”
“Do you get the feeling that people are deliberately talking softly only to irritate you? Do you feel the music is always played too loudly? Do you think the doctor looks too young?”
“Yes! Oh my God, yes!” said Gopu in despair. “You mean to say no matter how young I feel, I am oldifying? And I will have to bear irritability, forgetfulness, grey hair, baldness and dentures?”
“Incontinence. Don’t forget incontinence!” I added, mischievously.
“Oh no! This is so, so depressing. I won’t have it!”
I kept looking at him silently for a long while. Then with a smile I asked, “Can you offer me a more desirable alternative?”
The Condominium Order Changeth
“Why didn’t you ever win a gallantry medal?” asked the missus, apropos of absolutely nothing.
“Eh?” It took me a solid five seconds to register the question. Then I paused my morning bhajans playlist, fished out the earbuds, and dramatically removed my spectacles to give the impression that I was all ears.
I explained, very patiently and very carefully. “They say bravery is not the absence of fear. It’s overcoming fear despite knowing the risks. You must be either insanely courageous or gloriously stupid to pull off genuine gallantry. And even then, there’s a fifty-fifty chance the authorities won’t pin a medal on you but just label you as ‘that idiot’ and move on.”
“So why didn’t you get one?” she pressed. “You were gallant enough back in college – opening doors, spreading your coat over puddles like a modern-day Walter Raleigh for every girl in our class.”
“Now where exactly is this interrogation headed?” I asked, sensing danger. “There’s a world of difference between chivalry and medal-level stupidity.”
“Then why no medal? You’re stupid enough,” she finessed triumphantly. Game, set and match!
I didn’t want to start another world war before my second cup of chai, so I tried to close the discussion. “Does it even matter? Plenty of my friends got those medals. Fat lot of good it did them!”
“Oh really?” Her eyes lit up wickedly. “Didn’t that useless Gopu say medal winners get free train tickets for themselves and spouses? Plus, income-tax concessions?”
Suddenly we were in completely new territory. I hadn’t realized she was keeping a secret dossier on gallantry medal perks.
“Let’s go by train to Goa this summer,” she declared. “I love the Konkan views. Just borrow Gopu’s medal to book the tickets. We’ll travel free – both of us!”
Ever since Madam Sitharaman snatched away the 50% senior concession, we have had to abandon the romance of trains for cattle-class discomfort in budget airlines. I patiently explained to my wife that a finance minister ruthless enough to axe the oldies’ discount was unlikely to be hoodwinked by a borrowed gallantry medal.
“Fine, if borrowing won’t work, ask Gopu to gift it to you,” she ordered. “He’s a bit of a rotter, but if you ask nicely, maybe he’ll hand over his medal to you. File your tax return, book the Goa tickets, then gift the medal back. Problem solved!”
“Just because you say something dear, the universe won’t start working that way.”
But she was already in huff mode. “I’m going to the terrace for some sun,” she declared and stormed up the stairs like a miffed Queen of Hearts.
For those who might not know, we live in a fancy high-rise condo. Our so-called ‘penthouse’ comes with a private handkerchief-sized terrace, while several neighbours’ terraces are the size of badminton courts.
I trailed after the missus to apologize, but she had already lost interest in the medal saga. Instead, she was now focused on Mrs. Tomar’s adjoining terrace, where the lady was serenely pouring mustard oil into pickle jars.
“I want that oil,” the missus declared.
“We have litres of the stuff in the kitchen,” I pointed out. “Isn’t there a commandment about not coveting thy neighbor’s achar ka tel?”
But logic was no match for her sudden thirst for oil and real estate ambitions. “Not just the Tomar’s oil – I also want the terraces of the Haris and Dixits. Right now, anyone can leap from their terraces to ours. That’s a threat to our safety – and to the entire society!”
I marvelled at the rapidity with which an initial hankering after a medal had blossomed into territorial ambitions amid psychotic security concerns. I tried explaining that forcible terrace annexation would invite censure from the RWA faster than a noisy party complaint. But the missus must have attended Lady Macbeth’s lectures on Basic Persuasion because she countered, “Have you forgotten that in the last condo AGM, when it was so patronizingly decided to give representation to ladies, I was elected the Parking Overseer & Terrace Usage Supervisor – POTUS for short – for a four-year term? Only when we annex the additional terraces will the area under my control justify my designation as POTUS!
She was on a roll now. “Let the Tomars, Dixits and Haris whine to the RWA. We’ll just ignore them. Their uncooperative attitude is destabilizing the entire condo balance of power. Any other apartment owners who speak up in their favour will be fined!”
“Fined? What kind of a fine?” I asked.
“They will not be allowed any Zomato or Swiggy deliveries unless they give ten percent of the order to us. If the RWA intervenes, we will simply stop paying maintenance and launch our own WAR – the Welfare of All Residents. Which will be great. So great! I will be President for Life. Obviously! We will limit membership to those that deposit one lakh rupees upfront. No deposit, no entry. Their problem, not ours.”
All said and done, my wife’s mavericky behaviour has earned us cautious respect from other residents so far. But I dread to think what would happen to the world if some addlebrained megalomaniac state leader got inspired by the missus and started behaving like her!
kcverma345@gmail.com
The Republic of Trivia & Whataboutery
Year after year, for decades, I went to Rajpath (nee Kingsway) for the Republic Day Parade. I came to associate 26th January with cold foggy mornings, milling crowds smelling of damp wool and patriotism, and those cruel wooden benches that imprinted slat patterns on your behind. Yet, from the moment the first helicopter rained rose petals till the last fighter jet scrammed into the heavens with an ear-splitting roar, I forgot my numb derriere. And when the band struck up the national anthem, my heart swelled with unearned pride, and I stood up straight – all misty-eyed and patriotic.
Gradually age, laziness, and a prudent fear of frostbite caught up. I decided the live telecast was invented for people like me: fiercely patriotic and equally lethargic. Why freeze on Kartavya Path (nee Rajpath) when you can cheer the Pilani girls’ band from the comfort of your home? Why jostle at India Gate when you can “Ooh” and “Aah” sipping tea seated in your armchair?
For the last few years, the missus and I have turned Republic Day into a private viewing experience. This year my friend Gopu dropped in just as I switched the TV on. The missus was obviously miffed, so I feigned my usual innocent look. Did I dare confess that I had invited him? Certainly not! But Gopu is such fun and he enlivens even the drabbest programme with his clever comments. Moreover, my devious plan was to use his presence as an excuse for a celebratory pint before lunch.
Soon the first helicopter appeared, complete with rose petals; and then the Presidential entourage. As the national anthem started, I stood up – ramrod straight, chest out, stomach in. The familiar lump appeared in my throat.
“Sentimental old fool,” muttered the missus, sotto voce, so Gopu wouldn’t hear.
The parade started and we watched it with half interest – half ennui; typical of the way people watch the Republic Day Parade on TV. Gopu provided intermittent commentary worthy of Jasdev Singh, reincarnated as a stand-up comic.
When Parliament House appeared on the screen, he pounced. “Have you read the Constituent Assembly debates? Dr. Ambedkar and H.V. Kamath had more than one dispute on semantics, with Ambedkar terming Kamath’s objections as ‘mere quibbling’. And our Parliament has inherited this tradition and raised it to championship-level quibbling.”
The missus bristled. “How dare you insult our hallowed Parliament on Republic Day!”
“Especially on Republic Day!” Gopu shot back. “When is it a better time to ask if we actually have Justice, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? Or do we have just excellent slogans? No one talks about freedom of expression, belief or faith. No one mentions dignity of the individual. Where is the equality of opportunity?”
I tried to play peacemaker. “Come on, brother, don’t be so brutal to the Republic.”
But Gopu was in a combative mood. “We live in the Republic of Trivia and Whataboutery. We have a moribund Judiciary. A venal Executive that executes mostly scams. A media that’s basically on sale. And a vapid Legislature that has made itself irrelevant with self-goals like the anti-defection law and walkouts. Parliament certainly illustrates Parkinson’s Law of Triviality: ignore the nuclear reactor and spend three days debating whether the national song is being sung properly.”
The missus, a loyal soldier of the government, tried defence. “What about all the progress we have made? The GDP figures? The forex reserves? The startups? What about our ancient wisdom that is like a beacon to the world?”
Gopu reacted heatedly. “See? See? This is just the kind of whataboutery that we excel at! In a land which has a serious governance deficit, entertainment and obfuscation fill the vacuum. The Republic of Trivia thrives on diversion. The public – that forgotten part of the Republic – is more worried about alien invasions than unemployment or the economy. The people overlook the subversion and collapse of institutions when a saffron-clad shyster tells them to wear a Rudrakh to become rich. The national discourse is nothing but shrill screaming and shouting. The Constitution? Whether you acknowledge it or not, it is a dead document.”
I had seldom seen this mordant side of Gopu. “What did you have for breakfast?” I asked. “You sound like a terrible old prune. At least today, rejoice! Celebrate!”
This only seemed to incense Gopu.
“Rejoice? Celebrate? What is there to celebrate? I don’t even get safe water to drink! I don’t have clean air to breathe! Corruption is so institutionalised it’s practically a cultural heritage. Even in our temples of worship and learning. Gold is stolen from Sabrimala. Crores of laddoos are made in Tirupati with spurious ghee. Universities demand bribes to appoint lecturers. Nothing gets done without payoffs.”
Because of the heated discussions, we hardly noticed the many floats that went past the saluting base. Before we knew it, it was time for the President to leave; the band struck up the national anthem. I stood up again, lump in throat.
“Sentimental old fool!” teased Gopu.
I waited for the last notes to die before I said softly, “Yes, Gopu, sentimental! And not completely disillusioned. Not yet.”
Gopu raised an imaginary glass. “To the Republic then,” he said. “May it one day be worthy of the fools who still stand for its anthem.”
kcverma345@gmail.com
Homo Taciturnus vs the Persistent Petty Prattler
Everyone has their secret fears, dreads, and bugbears. And their paranoid behaviour always has some magnificent name like Omphalophobia or Nomophobia. Me? I suffer from something so exquisitely exotic that medical science has collectively given up and I have had to do what any self-respecting neurotic would do: invent my own Latin-sounding names for my disorder. My pathological dread of small talk is now called Blathablustaphobia! And in the aggravated form, it is termed Prattledamnicosis!
I have suffered Blathablustaphobia since prep school. My fear of small talk usually gives rise to a queasy feeling but when placed in circumstances where I perceive no escape, I develop acute Prattledamnicosis – which almost chokes me.
There are many situations in which my escape routes are cut off. Living in a high rise, I am terrified about being trapped in the lift with anyone, especially a PPP- a Persistent, Petty Prattler. These are the pestilences who have a frantic compulsion to chat. I always step cautiously into a lift, lest there be some PPP lying in wait inside. I gingerly enter. The doors close. Breathing too loudly feels like a sin. Then I relax, because there is no one else in the lift. But the relief is short-lived. Another resident enters the lift on the very next floor.
“Going up, are we?” he asks cheerily, as if the lift could go sideways too. In response to such asinine observations, I have taken to whispering in a conspiratorial manner: “No, I am taking this lift to Connaught Place. But don’t tell anyone, otherwise people will stop using the Metro.”
That reply leaves the chatty blighter totally confused and he spends the rest of the ride trying to decide whether I am joking or if he should alert security.
Trains are awful, because they are the favourite breeding grounds for PPPs. Whenever I must travel by train, I make sure I have a book to read. Almost certainly, some old fogey in the opposite berth will start my cross-examination: “Name? Caste? Ancestral village? Salary? Wife’s job? Designation?” It is then that I open my book and bury my nose in it. If the interrogator persists, I adopt that old Baba Ramdev gambit – the Bhramari Pranayama. I hum so loudly that the bumblebee buzz drowns out all sounds; even the clackity-click of the wheels. It also unnerves the old fogey, who wisely decides to not provoke an obvious looney.
The deadliest traps of all are aeroplanes, where I am literally strapped down for the small-talk brutalisation. When I am lucky, the seat next to mine is occupied by some hyperactive little monster who keeps fidgeting, screaming, and throwing up. Instead, I get saddled with some chirpy old woman or a talkative uncleji who wants to know why I am going where and for what purpose. Trapped in my seat, with nowhere to escape, I rely on my constant friends – headphones! They don’t even have to be plugged into anything— I just wear them and point emphatically at my ears whenever the PPP tries to strike up a conversation. It usually works!
Doctors’ waiting rooms should be sacred temples of quiet misery, of silent reflection, dreadful anticipation and earnest prayer. Yet I invariably run into some nonchalant blighter who treats it as yet another stage for practicing his prattling skills. This pest tries his damnedest to scare me to death by sharing his WhatsApp gyan.
And there is invariably another nincompoop, a graduate of the Internet College of Medical Sciences, who wants to play a game called ‘Guess My Disease.’ Just last week, while I was waiting to see my doctor about a nagging pain in my ankle, one such medical graduate stared intently at me.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You are here to consult the doctor!”
I nodded noncommittally, though I was sorely tempted to say that I had come to audition for ‘Indian Idol’. I just hoped my silence would defeat his craving for small talk and make him shut up. The Internet graduate totally misunderstood my reticence and assumed I was embarrassed because of some unmentionable affliction. He stared at me, as if mentally subjecting me to a total body scan. Then, visibly brightening, he declared, “Aha! You must then be here for treatment of haemorrhoids, right?”
He then launched into a comprehensive narration about his wife’s uncle’s cousin’s son, who had a miraculous recovery from a severe case of an identical condition. The extraordinary result was due to the 5G therapy, consisting of guzzling gallons of goat milk with ginger and garlic. By the time it was my turn to see the doctor, I had quite forgotten what I had come to see him about.
If you too suffer from Prattledamnicosis, know you’re not alone. Stay strong! Utter not a word! Silence is golden! No power can force you to converse about nothing with people you don’t know, don’t care about, and will probably never meet again. Like me, rebel against expectations of society! Refuse to respond to banal remarks in lifts, in coffee shops, at weddings, and every other situation where silence would be a wonderful alternative. And keep praying that, one day, small talk will be outlawed as a crime against humanity.