Memories of the Distant Past - part 3

Alwal Tales, A Trip Down Memory Lane - part 3 of 10

Armstrong's quiet departure for Delhi in 2006 closed the final chapter in our more than 15-year-long journey as four close friends. Such a wonderful friendship was never going to happen again.

Armstrong, Sunil, Satish, and I

At the turn of the new millennium, mistaken assumptions and a negative situation foreshadowed our long-standing friendship with Sunil. These events were though not difficult to rectify but still went on to affect the friendly intimacy we had cherished in the 1990s.

To begin with, Sunil distanced himself from Armstrong and me - sparing Satish the inconvenience that followed. Second, Armstrong's move to Delhi. Also, as the years went by like they always do, the world was changing - without either of us being able to rekindle our bond with Sunil, our very convincing Tom Hanks-resembling college mate.

****

Despite the Y2K bug issue, which, after all, the considerable fanfare and bother about it turned out to be a damp squib, the year 2001, even 2000 the year before, were generally exciting for those in the IT industry and generated positive enthusiasm about the "birth of a new millennium" globally. Qualified IT engineers squashed the so-called critical bug with aplomb, served hot and fresh with the right kind of programming code, and debugged it forever.

I fondly remember: on the dazzling night between the 365th day of December 31st, 1999, and the start of the new millennium, 2000, Satish and I were dressed to the nines, riding my bike around Necklace Road and Tank Bund, celebrating New Year's Eve. It was great fun. We had a terrific time celebrating the "Millennium Celebration" while munching on hot dogs, burgers, and potato chips and chugging icy cola beverages in the Necklace Road park area.

Inevitably, umpteen "impending apocalypse" or "end of the f***ing world" scenarios were making the rounds, especially among young IT professionals like us who had access to such informatics on the Internet. Although we didn't pay heed to any of that funny BS, it was fun to laugh about while the rumour mills were at it: working overtime churning out story after story, intentionally trying to convince the gullible in return for their great amusement. 

Huge fanfare of breathless excitement was seen everywhere: on the streets, in the malls, and on primetime television, from the stroke of midnight on December 31st, 1999, to the end of 2000 and all of 2001. All of that was fantastic, but on a more emotional level, it was heartbreaking to realize that our precious friendship with Sunil was going south, deteriorating, perhaps, who knows, beyond redemption.

****

Our once- or twice-weekly meetings became sporadic, one-off at first, but soon it became clear there was little chance of recovering when he married, although his marriage in 2001 was not a great explanation for our friendship to diminish like that. Consequently, Sunil and I stopped meeting, and it was the same with Armstrong. And this ended up being an unfortunate debacle in our more than ten years of companionship with him. In any case, Sunil kept staying in touch with Satish, the "DeMello," as did we.

For my part, I cannot even remember what stupid argument—or was it an argument at all—we'd had that was worth arguing over. It still hurts now as it did then when I think of our unnecessary estrangement with Sunil. I can't help but say: if ego got in the way or something else threw a wrench in our connection. Whatever it was, losing a friend did come as a shock, as he phased himself out, gone on AWOL by himself. We tried in vain to keep our friendly relationship with him unchanged. Sunil was a friend whose loss we deeply regret.

Looking back in joy

Armstrong was the ‘centre of attraction’ in our group of four friends, someone who kept us all in good standing throughout the 1990s and beyond, the reason why his permanent shift to New Delhi and afterwards to Gurgaon (name changed to Gurugram) in the mid-2000s had left us lonely and isolated.

After he left, our days seemed to spiral into disillusionment, spotlighting our isolation. Thankfully, Satish and I kept our friendship as it ought to be: friendly and closely connected to this day. Having married and had two children, he now seems a little perturbed by his happy marital life. But he's doing fine, progressing in line with the expectations of his proud bourgeois family of four happy souls. We get together now and then for old times' sake, but even that is becoming less and less common.

When we met every other day, especially on Sunday evenings, to sit on the two puliyas (our old "rock"), our friendship was a lively and vibrant experience that we were proud to own and protect. In the early 1990s, we were a fabulous foursome bunch that never missed an opportunity to make the most of things. Lately, however, I've been wondering what went wrong between Sunil and us all those years ago when our once-close friendship suddenly became distant and less conversational. Was it ego, which develops with age and then fades as we move on with our lives and later realize we never had it in the first place? It appears our friendship has already lost some of its earlier intensity and innocence, even though there was something we couldn't quite pinpoint that would have allowed us to address the problem ourselves and move on. Understandable. Since those times have long disappeared into the solitude of our once-cherished college years, we'll not easily find them again. Unless we consciously recall them and search the deeper, rarer parts of our former lives that we left behind for the few fragments of seemingly infallible memories. There's not always another time. No matter where you live, what you do, or how hard you try to block them out, you can't stop remembering those times when your heart was more passionate and eager to experience life as it came.

****

They say all good things must come to an end. Our close friendship, once intimately known, took a dismaying turn with the usher of the digit '2' and a triplet of '0's' (zeros or noughties) fastened to it: 2000 or '00s, the first leap year of the 21st century, right on the dot!

Unfortunately, it's one of the bitter realities of life that even a group of four friends will have to face sooner or later. Do friendships end? Yes, they do, don't they? They come to an end, are abandoned, or are left behind, thus consigning them to the past. Many may avoid dwelling on the past, but I don't. The future for them is too formidable a task to tackle first, followed by the luxury of deep leisurely reflection if necessary. Only if necessary, else they take care to avoid it. For me, however, nothing from the days gone by is prosaic, everything's divine. (Does this imply that the ‘future’ (whatever that conveys) should take precedence by forsaking friendship altogether? Or was it misdirected ennui that torpedoed everything as far as our friendship was concerned?) And while it may be true in a rapidly changing world, I didn't think any of my friends wanted to face one of the many actualities of the postmillennial lifestyle of the 2000s, which is to be in a state of continual bafflement or something like being on the cusp of things. This unique condition of not knowing what to do applies to people like us. It's a matter of the previous-generation thing convincing some of us not to change our share of memories (of our glorious days of friendship spent on the unforgettable residential campus of Trishul Park) while thinking about whether or not our future should take precedence.

(Conjecturally: even if the future looks promising, the past is a veritable gold mine of delights, life lessons, and the bittersweet ache of heartfelt recollections that you know even the heavens will shower you with flowers of love if you dwell in the sacred portals of your distant past. It may sound preachy, but it is true.)

The future will come, and we'll grow old, but the past, the past is never gone because it's anchored in our memory; it's always present within us, like a memorable yesterday that's not entirely forgotten, but which we fondly remember while living in the present. But, to state the obvious, the past doesn't come back to you unless you think about it and reminisce about it nostalgically. And then we must look to the future, which is always coming.

****

Sunil’s falling out with us in 2000 or 2001 meant that our relationship would not have had to end but required minimal interaction at that time (with the chance of mending it in the not-so-distant future). That was encouraging.

We'd no conflicts, verbal fights, or arguments over anything that would have kept us from staying in touch with each other over supposedly hurt feelings, of which the four of us were sure there was no rhyme or reason. (But perhaps Sunil's erudite sarcasm has turned out to be a fly in the ointment!) In the final years, however, Armstrong and I kept hoping that things would settle down before he relocated to Delhi. But, alas, it didn't. We could allow this to happen despite being vividly aware that having friends is one of life's greatest joys and that losing even one of them is like losing a part of your soul for all time as you journey through life. Those were sad times.

Gradually, our newly acquired convictions melted away slowly and unheeded in the emotional milieu of our beloved roots, born in a kinder, and I'd say, more thoughtful generation of the 1990s. It was a small matter to haul them into the ever-changing post-1990s coals of the future. As a generation, we were dreamers but were far more persistent in our thoughts than today's wistful jet-set post-Millennials give credit for, but it's a different story that things did not work for us the way we'd have liked; it's okay if it didn't always. 

For all we know, today's jet-setting generation, the Gen-Zs, is more emotionally driven than we Gen-X dreamers were back then. For that reason, I deeply rue that we let our friendship end that way, which isn't a pleasant thought to broach or brood over now, and life is a harsh mistress whose effects you sometimes can't handle. Sometimes life forces you to face its many facts and truths one way or another. Perhaps, I'm overestimating the present scenario in as much as our 1990s era; if so, give me my old days back, and I'll be happy. Only that the old days they're gone!

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Dedication: This essay is dedicated to three of my closest friends from my college days of the distant unforgettable era of the early 1990s - Armstrong, Satish, and Sunil who sadly passed away. What beautiful days they were. Memories are all we have now.

Read ‘Remembering: Going to The Dhabas with Friends - part 1’, the first part of this essay.
Also read, ‘An Abundance of Tasty Memories - part 2’ the second part of this essay.

An Abundance of Tasty Memories - part 2

Alwal Tales, A Trip Down Memory Lane - part 2 of 10

Satish's idea of fun was to invite friends over and share the wonderfully spicy and flavourful cuisines made by him; he never compromised when it came to enjoying meals with friends. He could always make something tastier than any of us possibly could. Cooking was none of our fortes. Except for Satish, no one excelled like a gourmet culinarian!

He produced raw mango pickles at home every year during the scorching summer, painstakingly preserving them in two large earthen jars that he knew would last for his family of three all year round. Whenever we, individually or together, visited him at his always-welcoming home, a home full of delectable, tangiest home-cooked cuisine prepared by our long-time friend, we'd constantly drool over what he would serve us next. Sunil, Armstrong, and I knew where to head for good food during Ganesh or Ugadi celebrations; it was as if we'd head straight to Ganesh’s—er—Satish's house.

Delish, Divine, and Dulcet

In the dhaba, the Butter Paneer Masala dish, usually served as the main course meal, would be hailed. Satish, the only vegetarian among eaters of meat like us and a skilled preparer of good homemade dishes like Pulihora (lemon rice), Bagara Rice, Lentil-Tomato Dal, and Veg Biryani, including Ugadi Pachidi and Payasam as liquid desserts, would generally drool over its lusciously smooth, mildly creamy sweet gravy. Good choice, though.

So everyone takes several spoonfuls of Butter Paneer Masala and rejoices in unison, complimenting the great taste the dish is known to transmit to the taste buds. We'd also choose the classic Kadai Paneer (cooked with capsicums and paprika in pure desi ghee; even the waiter would wax eloquent about it!) from the menu.

Other gravies and curries, such as Kadai Chicken or dreadfully hot but intensely tasty Ginger Chicken, would also be hailed, depending on one's mood. Sunil and Armstrong would take a swig from their tall glasses of cold beer and feel satisfied while Satish and I sipped our chilled colas and munched on the soft paneer cutlet. (Thank goodness, upselling or cross-selling business tactics don't get bandied about by the cordon bleu chefs in the highway dhabas, where such fantastic dishes get prepared, or you'd feel awkward choosing something you don't want. I bet no MasterChef can even come close to matching them!).

Hot made-to-order cuisines were placed one by one in the centre of the table, including Butter Chicken (which used to be my favourite once and still is), Chicken Roganjosh, Zeera Rice, and several bowls of side dishes with runny curd and Hyderabadi-style Salaan gravy, (served as accompaniments to the non-vegan entrees). And finally, a crock of green salad consisting of onion rings, chopped cucumbers, green bell capsicum rings, and a thinly sliced round of carrot discs enclosing green chillies and cut lemons nicely stacked in the centre of the large steel plate.

(Occasionally, we'd finish our meal with an ice cream dessert like butterscotch or strawberry laced with a pint of vanilla on the top of the scoops or just with a glass of Lassi. But we usually skipped desserts, not bothering much, because after eating so much, we wanted to get home as soon as possible.

Instead, we'd walk to the nearby corner and get Meetha Paan (made from betel leaves) in either the Kalkatta or Benaras varieties from a tiny paan shop, which is almost always open. Then after a few jokes and a little banter later and munching on the fruity, nutty, and aromatic paan as we rode our motorcycles slowly home from the interstate highway to the suburban township where we resided.

Those indulgent bachelor days have passed us by, long since disappeared into the seventh heaven of our memories which feel so far away now, never again to exist in our lives.)

A Nostalgic Look Back in Time

Being here at Zee Family Dhaba today, after many years, feels like a nostalgic look back in time: at the melancholy aftermath of our youth, when we enjoyed the sweet little misadventures, miseries, hardships, or even harboured secret crushes that our earlier lives so often brought.

The simple perspectives gave you equal parts hope and dread, ensuring that all your dreams slowly but surely came true were once the norm. Today, it's very different; nothing that this heart wants to desire.

I (still a hopeless teetotaller) propose a toast to the happy memories of our younger years, long since faded to an unsung, untold story: which will never get looked up in any browser of the world because not even a pixel exists out there, nor should it. Save this quaint little thing. And nor will anyone come to know it when our two biddoos swigged their beers and said out loud: Cheers! or Sayonara.

Who, tell me, cares about personal histories written on the fly these days? (While, perhaps, this small-town story of ours would be lovingly recalled and not simply skipped from the adolescent pages, not least by the four friends in this story, we must go on with the times and work towards the future.) Memories last for a lifetime; they may, like flowers, wilt a little, supplanting our imagination with radio silence, but they're so much dearer and more precious that they bring back to our minds and hearts the days when we were younger, bright and beautiful.

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” ― Jane Austen

An afterthought: Nothing from the present century interests me; not even a visit to a dhaba today will brighten (or make me forget) the aching remembrances of the great times we shared with close companions in the past.

Goodness! How the years go by in this world of unusual, rapid changes and strange happenings. Everything is so different now. The 1990s golden era, the heydays of our friendship, is long gone. It was a memorable era that still nourishes our lives, a unique gift that time bestowed on us.

We'll never see or hear from them again. We’ve to admit to ourselves this harsh reality: the need to prioritise while looking forward to a reachable future, comparable to the habit of carrying on in the colourful theatre of life, pursuing distant professions, discrediting old relations, angst-ridden interregnums, changing our long-held perspectives despite missing the good old days with each passing day.

We had to go to other separate destinations, as life frequently obliges, so no one other than us can relate to our time of the 1990s, which is now a personal history on its last legs.

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick

Dedication: I dedicate this essay to Armstrong, Satish, and Sunil, who's sadly passed away - three of my dear friends, like peas in a pod, since our college days in the early 1990s. Our memories will always speak for our true friendship.

Click here -> 'Remembering: Going to The Dhabas with Friends, part 1' to read part 1 of this essay.

Remembering: Going to The Dhabas with Friends - part 1

Alwal Tales, A Trip Down Memory Lane - part 1 of 10

I've come to a dhaba, a roadside eatery on the Medchal highway, which I haven't visited for a long time.

****

In the impossibly distant years of the late 1990s, dining (with bachelor pals) at one of the popular roadside dhabas was considered the golden age of adda-making and having fun eating great food. Back then, honouring special occasions, birthdays, going out on new year's eve, or generally having a good time at an expense that does not pinch your pocket much was an in thing - and maybe it still is. However, it'll have been a long time since I last ate at a dhaba on the National Highway, which is not far off away from home.

Let this be said: A dhaba is a welcoming place to spend, as they say, quality time with friends and family. Especially at night, when the atmosphere outdoors is mellow, the food is well and temptingly delicious, prepared and placed on the table in front of you in an ambiance reminiscent of a garden. All you've to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy some delectable cuisines and beverages while taking in the sights and sounds of the world.

Celebrate at a lower price while enjoying an atmosphere of open-air ambiance beneath the night-time sky sprinkled with stars shining down on you while you can laugh away all your worries, if you've any, for a bit. Seeing the happy smiles of your friends, you feel lucky to be with them and grateful that you have been given this chance to be happy and feel blessed. The ideal time to go out with friends and enjoy good food at the dhaba is late in the evening, around (7-ish?) during the colder seasons of the year. You can go at any time throughout the year; there's no set time. Full disclosure: Highly recommended. DOO DABHA DOO! DHABA DABBA DOO!

The people of my vintage and the good times are long gone and will not likely come again. 'Likely' is still a word of hope for me, but I know those times aren't returning to how things were before, and how could they? Aye, the era of the nineties and the society we belonged to are gone evermore: laid over with another space and time that the digital rainstorm of the new millennium has brought forcefully into our midst. That sweet, old-world charm is a thing of the past. Now it's the new, boastful, swaggering age of digital commerce, with online apps like Cwiggy piggy, Tomato romato, and hordes of other curry house owners encouraging home delivery of food from unknown restaurants nearby.

Almost nothing remains of our generation's time in the 1990s; even our beloved, era-defining circle of friends is not around anymore, having fallen victim to the blinding changes that the globalised, polarised, free-market trading world has dealt us. I can't imagine not having my earlier times today in the present. Where have all the good times gone? I still long for them, our era of simple-mindedness. It's hard to believe how quickly time has flown, taking our friendship with it. (At times, I ponder the futility of sitting alone and writing when all I've to look forward to is ageing and dying...)

We were four best friends

Once upon a time, there were four best friends: Armstrong Selvaraj (finance and accounting professional), Sunil Bhale (medical representative), Satish Kumar (finance and accounting professional), and me (IT professional). We loved going to the dhabas together: astride on our Splendour motorbikes in anticipation of good food and bonhomie.

“Needed a friend

And the way I feel now I guess I'll be with you 'til the end

Guess I'm on my way

I'm mighty glad you stayed”

- Song by Lionel Richie, Stuck On You

We four were not exactly foodies back then. But Satish could, more or less, be called a gastronomist's foodie if you don't mind too much the fact that he is your simple, dare I say, overweight chunky from the neighbourhood! “ALWALOSAURUS!” was the name we serendipitously found for the bulky mickey among us. Naturally, we couldn't help but laugh, and the name stuck.

Happily, each of us had nicknames we seldom used with each other. "Taadi Chettu" was promptly given to me by Satish, "Babu Moshai" by who else... Armstrong. "Sulli Garu," "Saadu," or just "Bhale" was Sunil's stack of crowning glories he could not quite get off him, and particularly the first nickname hit way below the belt! And the specific epithet "Tirunelveli Halwai" stuck with Armstrong like an oily stain that faded but was not gone. Satish had another slightly contumelious sobriquet: "Satti Pindi." We hardly ever used that slightly condescending nickname, preferring his given name Satish instead.

[In the 1986-87 school year, our class teacher Mrs. Sebastian mam (from the now defunct St. John’s High School) - who believed ear twisting and pinching were acceptable forms of punishment - had inadvertently interfered with the original spelling of his name and changed it from Satish to 'Sateesh' on his transfer certificate. He had the option to correct the spelling back to the original one, but he didn't. Probably he thought it would bring a bad omen if he did! And since then, an altered 'Sateesh' (with a double 'e') became his formal/official first name and not 'Satish' with just a single 'i' in between, as the spelling should have been. The original name, with the correct spelling, does matter; never mind the pronunciation in his case. But he understandably chose not to pursue it further than run from pillar to post to reclaim his original, correctly spelled name. And that was that.]

Armstrong, however, loved calling him "DEMELLO", a nickname inspired, I believe, by the brilliant character actor Satish Shah - our friend Satish's namesake - who played an excellent role in the Hindi cult comedy Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron.

Although we all had different careers, the simple joy of companionship and bonding over food brought us closer together. Giving each other nicknames was naturally part of the excitement of being buddies, obviously enjoyable in and of itself. Whenever we met Satish, the subject of food would come up, which it often did, and Armstrong would never miss saying, “Gas hi gas…!” and giggling as he revolved his palm on his much-vaunted, much-gorged, rumble-grumble ‘Ganesh-like’ belly. Satish was as cool as a Tibetan Lama would smile away.

We always had a lot of fun there - feasting on delicious gourmet food sometimes on a warm summer day (in March) or a chilly winter night on the last day of the year: December 31st (New Year's eve), breathing fresh air, which is scarcely possible nowadays, and finally the drinks (mostly just beer for the two sober biddoos, Armstrong Halwai and Bhale Sunil).

To celebrate our birthdays in February, March, August, and September, as well as on December 31st—new year’s eve—we would go either to the Chandni Dhaba, Baisakhi, Taj, or Deewan Dhaba at least four times a year. We'd ride our motorcycles far out on the National Highway that passes through the state to reach our old hangout spots and enjoy the rich aroma and tastes of dhaba-style food. My old memories still haunt me.

Satish and I are non-committals - or for want of a more sensible term - non-drinkers or abstainers and generally stick to Thums Up (often) or Pepsi with the same zeal as Armstrong and Sunil, who usually down two shots each of Vodka first. Then after, they would drink (heartily and greedily) Kingfisher or something called Budweiser draught beer, usually just lager, I think, from tall glasses filled up to the frothy brim and roar not very loudly: Down the hatch! Cheers! Sayonara!

Satish was the first to dig in, quickly ordering his monotonous standard from the menu card provided by the friendly server/helper/waitperson as things got set with the two of us on either side of the plastic table. The Veg Manchuria platter, with several toothpicks sticking out of the saucy chunks neatly arranged on the plate, together with gleaming triangles of Garlic and Butter Naan or Rumali Roti, was always his first choice for a mouth-watering feast when occasions like this come but seldom. He'd also hail for a plate of Spring Rolls and four bottles of Thums Up to the wait guy, who was already so gladdened to have to place so many orders!

Also ordered were Tandoori Rotis. We would have one each of these almost-always crisp and chewy rotis while using a fork to eat the Chicken Sheek Kebab served on every plate except Satish's, who, being a stickler for vegetarianism, and never having tasted meat or fish, would gladly eat eggs, thanks to his expert eggetarian notion that it's actually a vegetarian food and not non-vegetarian as most people seem to think! To each their own. Anyway, the taste (of all the dishes served in the dhabas) was nothing short of a Wow effect.

However, Satish, the super "foodie" among us, must be satisfied and replete after eating the cuisines for our excursion to the dhaba a complete success. If not, "Houston, we have a problem!" It would be difficult for all three of us to console him if the food wasn't as good as last time. All the way home while riding pillion, he would complain into our ears, "You know, Butter Panner Masala wasn't up to the mark as it ought to have been. The gravy was too watery; don't you think?"

Before we'd even finished eating the appetizers, the waiter would be called back to our table and asked to take our orders for the main course dishes. (At the same time, we would covertly tally how many chewing motions our friend Satish's jaws would need to masticate the naans and paneer!) It was a lot of fun while the four of us dined in a spacious corner that only a good dhaba could provide.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Dedication: The three of my closest friends from the extraordinary era of our college days in the 1990s—S. Armstrong, Satish Kumar, and the late Sunil Bhale—are the subject of this article. I dedicate it to them with all my heart.

It meant a lot to me—and a lot to us—that we were continually on each other's sides for more than ten years as friends. Whenever we had spare time, we sat on the two puliyas (our old ‘rocks’) - one close to my place and the other just a few walks away from Armstrong's quarters. Sunil would bring his father's old, sputtering, smoke-burping Bajaj scooter to take around Trishul Park residential campus as I rode my MTB bicycle. I still remember how much fun we had talking, debating, or pulling each other's legs. It puts a smile on my face. (During those days, Raju and his lovely family often would cross my mind; Raju was more than just a close friend back in the 1980s, an era of fondly remembered relationships, cricket, and discoveries: moments long gone now). Oh! Where have those days gone?

Rabindra Sangeet: The Music for The Soul

The Music for The Soul

Rabindra Sangeet (or Tagore songs) is essential listening for anyone interested in understanding poignant, heart-warming musical poetry that transcends physicality and embraces the themes of spiritually inherent Bengali folk music. Sublime melodies rich in expressions of romanticism, pure Indian classical Baul singing genre, among other cultural forms of art.

The classical and romantic oeuvre of Tagore songs is a gift that keeps giving. Having a quiet corner in my life, during my growing-up years, when I discovered its timeless lyrical quality and the essence of its magical brilliance that still touches my soul, my life changed in ways that seemed less chaotic and more controlled. That's when a brand new cassette of mellifluous Rabindra Sangeet came my way, and I became a lifelong fan of Tagore's poetry ever since.

Listening to Gurudev's songs has become a kind of personal religion. Released back in the day in 1993, Akash Bhara Surjo Tara, an album containing some of the most mesmerizing Tagore songs recorded, all of them sung solo by Prasun Mukherjee, has always been my favourite collection.

"Aakash bhora surjo taara, bishwobhara praan,
Taahari maajhkhaane aami payechhi mor sthaan"

and another inspiring gem:

“Boro aasha kore esechhi go kaachhe deke lawo,
Phirayo na janoni”

(Renowned singing legends, a constellation of singers has sung Rabindra Sangeet melodiously and beautifully, including Hemanta Mukherjee, Suchitra Mitra, Kanika Bandyopadhyay, Srikanto Acharya, Indranil Sen, Srabani Sen, Indrani Sen, and even one of the great exponents of Hindi film songs Kishore Kumar.)

The great bard Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's poetic language explores themes of love, romance, nostalgia, devotion to nature in all her myriad forms, reflection, yearning, scenic beauty, and being human. His songs have an enchanting attribute that heals wounds and brings solace to the heart: a seamless flow of emotions and feelings that's hard to be away from its beauty that sinks deep within the soul. Close your eyes and listen to the flow of beautiful poetry that offers nothing but a blissful experience.

“Prem esechhilo nihshabdocharone.
Taai swapno mone holo taare –
Dei ni taahare aason”

Bhalobashi bhalobashi, Pagla hawa badol dine, Amar hiyar majhe, Sokhi bhabana kahare bole, Ei korechho bhalo, and many other songs are among the most versatile. The inherent romanticism of the songs, sung by contemporary Bengali exponents with soulful renditions of ragas and melodies, heals like no other to a Bengali man like me.

A perfectly carved rhythm of music is this one:

“Jodi prem dile na praane
Keno bhorer aakash bhore dile emon gaane gaane?”

And,

“Je raate mor duwarguli bhaanglo jhare
Jaani naai to tumi ele aamar ghare”

Rabindra sangeet fits any mood. Because they are so serenely lovely, Tagore songs and poetry capture the true essence of life, making it better, not bitter, more enjoyable, and more rewarding to listen to or read. Worth living for every moment blessed with the sublime beauty of poetry, musicality, and hymnic sound, over 2,000 Tagore songs exist. It isn’t the first time I’ve considered spending the rest of my life indoors (early retirement then? Why not?) listening to the music I enjoy (and reading books the great Bard wrote).

“Ebaar tor mora gaange baan esechhe,
joy maa bole bhaasa tori”

and another that takes my heart away:

“Sei bhaalo sei bhaalo, aamare na hoy na jaano
Dure giye noi dukkho debe, kaachhe keno laaje laajano”

and,

“Charano dhorite diyo go aamare, niyo na, niyo saraye
Jibon maron sukh dukh diye, bokkhe dhoribo jaraye”

Rabindra Sangeet is a treasure divine that this owner of a lonely beating heart, which once fell in love with the strangeness of its essence and secret yearning set to music, had learned to relinquish control to it. It draws you in at first listen. Include also some unmissable must-hear vintage Hindi, Telugu, and Bengali film songs from before the turn of the twenty-first century.

And I believe that this in and of itself is proof of true salvation.

By Arindam Moulick

Let’s Not Deny God - part 3

In the long haul of human existence on the planet, it scarcely matters how contemporary or trendily modern we are as long as we don't turn out to be God-denying bad losers or some huffy over-exploitative species that brought nature's vengeance on itself. It’s a human folly!

The bottom line is - Life is tough, but so am I. So I'm not going to grin and bear it as if it would get better by doing the donkey work. Nope. Accordingly, the moral justification for why I'm progressively at ease in the trashy modern society is thus: Hamstrung, as I remind myself: What to do … that's how things are. I'm not an apologist, but that's life - with all its flaws and foibles running helter-skelter in morbid fear of panic, disillusionment, and hopelessness. It’s a gift and a curse rolled into one.

I let go of that lousy old phobia, confident that everything would be fine and when the morning comes, this, too, shall pass: the population would not explode, global warming would stop, cancel culture is only going through a phase, hatred and violence emanating from socio-religious constructs is the thing of the past, corporate greed - no one remembers it anymore, it ceased to exist, et cetera, et cetera; stupid me. How can I be so silly? Only, nothing subsides ever, I now know; everything co-exists for all time to come: love and hatred, war and peace, friends and foe. What am I thinking? Whatever. I usually tend to take it easy, taking comfort in the feeling that I needn't burn my coals over the things that aren't mine to break my head on. Friends will always be friends; love is in my heart; and peace...? You tell me. What good is it to rant and rave that leaves a sour taste in your mouth? No good. Sure, I've learned to curb my enthusiasm.

But still, what worries me (as a citizen of the world) is the irreversible phenomenon of climate change involving geological and climatological factors together threaten to annihilate all habitats and species that inhabit them. It is a matter of grave concern that confronts us intellectually, morally, and physically in today's complex and interconnected world.

Terrorism is another; criminal violence flourishes in the insane, twisted minds that slay innocents. Bombs go off; mass shooting incidents; gangland warfare; separatist militancy propagating hateful ideologies - brutal and barbarous acts of terror, violence, and murder they commit all over the globe. There's no life anymore in the world. We are not going into a world 'where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.'

Exacerbated by society's greedy and insatiable desire for unlimited economic progress has forever fallen foul of our way of life on the planet. And of all the living species on this lone rock we call Earth, needless to point out, human beings - born free and equal and all that - are the main culprits. The climate crisis our planet is facing is not going to go away. Sadly, we're unable or don't learn from the follies we commit; our relentless capacity for stupidity is for everyone to see. Not knowing anything better yet, we keep committing mistakes one after the other that takes sustainable vitality for life away from our planet, each day being a miracle to witness.

Everywhere people are going feral about making personal economic gains in ways that plunder the delicate balance of our ecosystem. Human influence is the original culprit, driving the sixth mass extinction: the result of the 'original sin.' We, humans, are wretched things. We are terrible species.

And not sure of what to do next, I continue onward unmindfully, philosophizing the Live and Let Live ethic. It's preferable to having wolves snarling at your door, I say!

It feels transgressive to say this, but could there be a more accessible, affordable, or sustainable alternative to our current way of life that isn't bad for our countryside or even our cities? It is possible: it's a humungous Leap of Faith scenario that needs reconsideration on a personal level, and we all are bound to come face to face with it, today or tomorrow.

The question is: Are we ready yet to let such a thing come about? Putting it slightly differently - Is there a more readily available, reasonably priced, or environmentally friendly way of living that is not detrimental to our rural or urban areas? Population growth is unsustainable. We are too many on this hot, flat, and crowded planet. We are beleaguered; I hope not beyond any hope of recovery.

Leaving it up to God

Everything is in God's hands. While this phrase may give the impression that I have an escapist perspective on things that don't work for me and that placing everything in His/her hands is the best way to postpone or something along those lines, I am not. Absolutely not.

I believe my personal belief system, which is proudly and steadfastly religious or, better yet, a moral protest against podium politicians, phoney babas, and yammering fake godmen that we frequently encounter these days, is what I believe gives me the confidence I need to run the race of life.

Having faith is to trust in God. Therefore, apart from reading the Holy Trinity's psychologically-intense works of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, and Maa Sarada Devi, reading the treasure trove of Vedic literature available from the ISKCON society has a soothing influence on me. It enables me to significantly curb my relatively thrifty living standards in little but meaningful ways. There's only one life to live, and it is worth living to the fullest.

[Reading books, books, and more books is, in my opinion, the secret to living a better life. I enjoy reading any book that piques my interest, including badly-written populist mind-candy, so I don't pretend to be a discerning literary snob (no one asks me to, I know). I read everything, even if it's just passably written amusing fluff. But I digress.]

The world has seen it all; maybe that’s why we call ourselves modern or even post-modern. Whatever we may think of ourselves, all that remains for us is to look up to God in prayerful reverence for divine direction and guidance so that we all live longer on the only hospitable planet we know and call home.

Only Gods of Earth, not interplanetary travel to some desolate old rock or a stellar remnant where Gods do not exist, can save humankind from impending extinction. Even though the laws of physics have a lot to offer to humanity and are, perhaps, far from exhausting their potential, it has reached the fundamental limits of what these laws can do for us on this beleaguered planet - home of the super accomplished humans! - given the limited resources available. Although these issues are worthy of deep contemplation maybe, I'm certainly not putting money on physics; not yet. Sorry Large Hadron Collider!

Unrealistic expectations from science that belies God are humanity's full-blown hopelessness in the face of natural calamities. Humanity's full-blown desperation and complete pessimism in the clear and present danger of catastrophic disasters are directly related to unrealistic expectations from our petty rationalistic science that deny God. Or humanity's full-fledged pessimism is a result of cultivating unrealistic expectations emanating from new-age scientific milieus such as Robotics and AI. The virtual/digital reigns supreme over the divine! (This is nothing but vulgarisation of science to make it work for profit-seeking commercial business interest and unbridled capitalism at the expense of environmental degradation caused by some powerful corporate entities the world has ever known.) I'm not against science, nor am I willing to be blamed as an anti-science alarmist. All I am saying is that I'm concerned about science-related blunders that we cause at the expense of human truth. That is all.

Whatever you'd like to speak or have your notions about this subject which is one of immediate consequence, one thing is clear - our faith in God should be unwavering. Period. We need to start correcting our ways urgently: lessen or find alternatives to our unsustainable logic of extractivism, rethink our predatory capitalist economic models suffocating the delicate ecosystem of life. We must engage with our planet to save it from ‘Climate Armageddon,’ which may be impossible to evade. While we engage with our ecosystem in a way that works for it, let's not forget our boundless faith in the universal God. It'd be sacrilegious if we go the way of Satan. Good things will eventually come about if we realize we can no longer play God but continue to seek to be His subject, His creation in His image.

Tailpiece: If change is the new paradigm, perspective, the new constant, or whatever you want to call it, so be it. Do not resist change, but hate it (with all the bile you could come up with). The old way was better, better for our planet.

Living well is all about doing things reasonably well, but who decides what is reasonable? (The operative phrase here is 'reasonably'). You'll be OK if you incorporate that change into your everyday routine. Change is something you despise, not something you resist or avoid. The change will come whatever you may think about it. And there's no point in being petulant about things you cannot possibly have in your life. Change sometimes reduces their importance so that you'd stop yourself from continuing to want them. That's the unsettling beauty of change, and that's why it is so proudly constant.

When the sun rises, so does the moon at night. Stars shine in the darkness above what we call heaven, and so forth. The birds might still sing tomorrow, and the plants might grow into trees in a habitat where we humans have evolved to live (despite encroaching on their world as an overwhelming dominant coexisting species!). But destructively. It has been the way the world has operated for millennia. That, I believe, is sufficient reason to quit complaining and get back into the symbiotic swing of things - but be mindful that we need to do more to help the planet without warming up its climate any further, even by another degree.

Three words can best describe life: Life goes on. But will it, though? Even so, given the option between denial and having faith, I choose faith. So I leave it up to God.

(Concluded)

By Arindam Moulick

End of part 3 (of 3)

Click here -> Kafkaesque Modernity - part 2 to read part 2 of the above essay.
Click here -> Discordant Notes - part 1 to read part 1 of the above essay.

Kafkaesque Modernity - part 2

Accepting 'modernity' as a Rabelaisian parody of anatomically modern human existence stemming from recent out-of-Africa (or Harappan or Mesopotamian civilizations) migration is the only way I can think of to deal with the confusing human conviction known as 'modernity.'

So, like everyone else, I marched on in the military parade of existence, marching left, right, left ... left, right, left, while embracing the human situation the way it currently is (and has always been) for all evolutionary purposes, as it were.

Oh! Our species' ever-expanding sense of techno-optimism - digital technology primed with robotic AI and Machine Learning - is pushing human society towards the brink of a dangerous politically-inclined hegemonic cooperation lethally manipulated by aggressive desi strongmen and too-big-to-fail corporate powerhouses, wherein the binary world of machines identified as zeros and ones has begun to dominate the human narrative. I don't know: people these days seem easily more inclined to dislike each other than had been noticed before in the history of humanity. Talk about technology causing schisms in our society; the social fabric metaphor is bound to assume an alien meaning or un-weave to elicit far-reaching implications no one can handle!

One day we'll all be gone, but I don't want to get entrapped in the dangerous tyranny of digital binaries: the slimy-green ones and zeros.

Forsooth, I had no complaints about the kind of lifestyle we lead with its climate-warming decadence at the heart of it - the kind I mean of the greenhouse gas emissions, the global warming we have never before witnessed. But I do now and feel heavy in my heart, responsible, and concerned whenever I reflect on the phenomenon of the rapid heating of the Earth's climate system that causes increased flooding, sea-level rise, heat waves, and diseases, particularly the zoonotic kind. Today, I have nothing but complaints about how we humankind live now, and these problems will not disappear in the foreseeable future.

[Parenthetically - All that is wanted is a radical shift in perspective, perhaps a further genetic drift in the direction that makes conscience sense for all adapted species to thrive on our blue planet and for us to stop trying to be God.

Not so easy, is it? Can we not stop trying to predict and control the future by letting Mother Nature take us all biologically forward? Why has it become so difficult for us to let Nature take its course? Human society is at a precipice, our future imperilled. I hope we don't succumb to our utopic vision of an Artificial Intelligence, AI-created reality undermining Nature and our morals long-dead.]

I'm aware I live a privileged lifestyle while poor people sleep rough and the streets outside my home pile with rubbish. Everyone knows no one can carry on their lives as if nothing is going to happen to our planet. Nature will not forgive our belligerent ways of existence, that is certain. I don't know … if our unbridled capacity of global supply-demand economic growth and expansion will have to find sustainable means to keep proceeding further for all species to survive.

I've fostered a veritable oversupply of litanies ranging from global to local to 'glocal’: widespread issues of capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism, and ecological calamities that never cease to astonish me nowadays. Some of these things we created for ourselves so that we get to prosper economically are, in a sense, straining social cohesiveness and leading to a complete collapse of the rule of law in a supposedly well-functioning contemporary human society. Only I did not understand these things as I ought to have. It's preferable to realize something belatedly than not at all. (Is it true that I'm still here? On occasions like this, I catch myself brooding. A penny for my thoughts!).

A change in perspective

Now is the time for some fun: Everything is hard-hitting, Uriah Heepish, and toadying psychoanalytical make-believe that's identified with the trappings of the modern utopia of life, which is a typical human compulsion swearing by intelligent design over the natural evolutionary process. (Hooray for that?).

Regardless of the unresolved concerns, I can firmly state that I've ethically and karmically afforded democratic free will. Getting used to life's challenging and confusing realities will, I hope, become less of a burden in the future, now that I am fast approaching the juxtaposition of middle age, the age of 50: irretrievably surrendering my brain, hair, health, skin, eyes, and more at its nebulous altar. It's difficult to grow accustomed to the profound implications of grief and loss, but life teaches you how to cope with such actualities. I am ready to live again in the complete sense of the word, despite everything (even the daily domestic harangue one must endure).

While you chew on that, I steered away from that imaginary truck I used to uselessly hold on to certain things that this life has offered. Don't we all become unwitting representatives of the ultimate guilty party known as humanity if the surmise that modern life is still rubbish is a plausible argument? We, culture-bearing upright-walking species, are causing our own extinction by keeping the vestigial tail-like thing securely and invisibly fixed between the pair of legs that began wandering the Earth 315,000 years ago and exploiting nature beyond its generosity. Welcome to the 21st century. 

Modern life is challenging. It's one large Kafkaesque bureaucratic agency that we continually submit to and live in complaisance to its whims and fancies, a litany of promises, and lack of performance.

There is now a palpable sense of worry-free freedom and adaptability, as well as a sense of relaxing complexity, in my risk-averse 'modern' thinking. I assume it's just survival instincts kicking in in good measure. Be that as it may, it is almost impossible to avoid being too risk-averse in the current scenario of war, death, and destruction. As a result, we keep moving forward unmindfully, pulverised by forces beyond our control. No matter how many arrivals of one potential crisis after another, most of the human populace continues to get tormented by the troubling realities of our day. 

We - the people claiming squatters right here and forever stuck in squalid apartments - can hope to weather adequately and satisfactorily all of these if, and only if, we track down ways to stop over-exploiting nature and put a tab on our breeding potential - the explosion of the human population that craves nothing but materialistic ideals. 

One thing is clear: the conventional concept of a development index (trillion-dollar economy! Yeah, what next?) in terms of a capitalist world economy should go if humanity is to survive on Earth. This wild ride ain’t forever.

(To be continued)

By Arindam Moulick

End of part 2 (of 3)

Read part 1 of the above essay: Discordant Notes - part 1

Discordant Notes - part 1

The modern world - or as we proudly refer to it, global society - is unjust. It's a tragedy in which all protagonists of our human society have fallen victim to disasters that no one knows how to handle. Where are we heading? Mars or oblivion?

It’s a bone-hard world out there: wracked by the bloodhound fury of human indifference, insensitivity, unpleasantness, rudeness, online trolling, scariness, or any other phrase you can think of to describe the decadent and ultimately a tragic way of ‘extractivist’ carnivalesque human existence on our poor earth.

And on top of that - the darkest chapters of history and indeed of our own time - do not forget the split-second dangers offered by fake news, mis-/dis-/mal-information, hate speech, propaganda, despotic ‘personality cult politics’ of today, violent extremism (intentionally or unintentionally done) to the society. And future pathogens that are just as transmissible and deadly as the coronavirus that causes COVID has been.

Basically, it’s still a matter of survival

I'm not a fan of the retrograde, back-to-nature movement, which advocates embracing millennia-old customs and eating like hunter-gatherers. I’m merely attempting to reorient (or rail against?) myself to disco-fuelled revels of modern existence, or its lack thereof, in a broad brushstroke of generalities without, I hope, coming across as overly privileged as a human species.

First and foremost, here's a very recognisable trope: It’s my life. In fact, it is a tenacious old-school phrase that is still perfectly acceptable to use (but not boast about, mind you; boasting is sometimes stupid, sometimes blithe, usually both, therefore erratic), yet is totally out of sync with today's realities of life in a social milieu where asking for help almost always equals failure. The truth is, you have ceased to exist as a living thing but merely do as prey for global adverts. In a globalised world, your higgledy-piggledy life is no longer yours. Not a bad life, ye?!

The contemporary world is becoming increasingly smaller and indifferent, and change is painfully constant, affecting us in countless unusual ways that, though the problems are solved, destroy the human conscience, loyalties, and moralities. Such is the so-called 'modern' life befouled by chauvinists and a relentless march for material gains that annihilates our planet.

Remember, the world is your oyster? Everyone has a right of place or a spot of earth in it you can call your own. But not fake news or pandemic-scale viruses; they don’t. Certainly not. The fact is that there's far too much disruption nowadays, a sense of malaise as we seem to be beset by disappointments on a regular basis, causing everyone to become anxious and depressive, even blood pressure-intensifying restlessness and burdensomeness that kills you slowly but surely. Peaceful coexistence can never be possible, a reality that is no less than a shock for people known for their progressive worldview. It's depressing thinking about how close we have come to possible human extinction; a near-future event no one can escape. Not even in some pockets of rich, upper-middle-class locales or at some places if you are lucky enough to spot to make it your own or reside there with our ever-present preoccupations with “money, fame, and image.” Given our neurological addiction to technology (of all kinds), such 'places' seem pointlessly utopian: they're merely feel-good rumours, wishful thinking, bits of gossip, and a make-believe interim. Or it's a fight-or-flight situation that wreaks havoc with our way of life at every turn. Regardless of where you live, you cannot escape anything, anyone, anymore. The delicate balance of life, eh? The truth is, it’s no longer your life.

Funnily enough, I thought we might need an urgent ALIEN INTERVENTION from outer space to set us humans and our petty little business of life in clear perspective!

Office politics - a way of life

Sure, the nitty-gritty matters; the finer points; the specifics; the small nuances; the minute details; the brass tacks - you get the idea. (Way back in the late 1990s, a former colleague would always advise (shout out?) from the office rooftop, "BE SPECIFIC... BE SPECIFIC" whenever opportunity strikes. After all, he wasn't using those phrases to convey their meaning for nothing. However, he was correct). So the secret is to be more precise, to speak in greater depth so that people can understand you better. Details matter, but the half-baked ones become inconsiderable. In other words: Subtleties matter and the silly ones become immaterial.

But it took me a while to comprehend the oft-used classic phraseologies like -

 

EAT OR BE EATEN; 

START AFRESH;

WEASEL OUT;

BALLS!, and 

REBOOT YOUR LIFE, MAN!; 

WHAT’S THE MATTER PAL, CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE?;

THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT; 

GET A LIFE, 

when uttered in professional settings.

Perused by pushy, aggressive management bullies in the private, corporate world, this kind of overbold management argot got me thinking in a questioning way. Soon after, I began pitching it to people at an organization where I once used to work as if I were a nerd (not yet a wizard, ahem ... ahem) who had just finished reading Harry Potter the day before yesterday. Maybe, I’m guilty as charged. However, these afore-mentioned phraseologies (part of ‘office politics’) used to the 'freshers,' or 'new joinees’ (Johnnies…? - as some people wrongly refer to new IT recruits that join the company) creates a negative impression. New IT recruits with white-collar jobs allow the ego-driven ‘smart bullies' of the firm with a false sense of entitlement (the feelings of power!) and faux credibility, all in the hope of feeling ‘better- positioned’ in their team (or turning themselves into holier-than-thou show-offs that start to act condescendingly with their new bakras, scapegoats) and call the shots. Such is their audacity. A Hindi proverb fits well in this context, “Mushkil waqt mein gadhe ko bhi baap banana parta hai”. (Roughly translated: In the worst of times, you need to acknowledge a donkey as your boss!). There have been such occasions, yes.

Unfortunately, no one realizes how to be a decent boss, a supervisor, or a great manager these days, so get yourself taught some office politics and stop being guilty-conscious about being a poor employee. Maybe good bosses don’t exist. There are exceptions, perhaps. No BS (bulls**t).

You may consider yourself an unsung tech maverick or something, sacrificing weekends, working outrageous hours, dealing with a shattered sense of work-life balance, and other horrible woes, but do not offer your kidney to your supervisory managers. It is neither asked nor required.

All that counts is that you make yourself proud by continuing to do the good work; that is the bottom line - loud and clear. Make the best of the situation. There’s no shortage of toxic bosses out there. But the good ones are of a rarer premium ilk altogether. Consider yourself lucky if you report to the best possible boss in the world, unfortunate if you get a micro-managing hawk! A good 60 to 75 percent of managers are unsuitable for leadership roles, yet this breed is in charge of everything at work. Still, you have to make your boss look good. Yeah, yeah, better for your career.

While I have your attention, I’d want to say something. ‘Clever bullies’ and ‘Johnny-come-latelies’ of the corporate workplace are, shall we say, two opposing arcs of the office politics spectrum wherein the former bunch believes it is ideologically more superior than the other and thus has the right of way by seniority and experience, while the latter bunch, always play-nice ones, keeps working bearing their grudging insinuations with a humble, boss-fearing grin! That has always been the status quo, the norm, wherever you work. (Freshers manage to look like maladjusted souls searching for professional excellence that takes a long time coming).

Other smarty-pantses too exist, a possible sub-species that advance their agenda at the expense of others, such as Gossip Hounds, Know-It-Alls, ‘Cold-War’ Fanatics, and a swarm of ‘Cowpokes,’ who are always present in any office setting anywhere in the world. Yet another species of constantly squirming Always-Feel-Superior, self-serving sages that are most obvious in any office environment. At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, virtually every organization has office politics. Dealing with such scenarios can be off-putting for most people who have to tread on the hypocritical bleeding edge of workplace politics at the workplace. You cannot sit out office politics. You’ll eventually come face to face with its insanity at some point or the other. It’s a given. Yes, it's a nastier situation, and there's no other option than to confront it head-on or royally ignore it if you can afford to. I say, simply create a better version of office politics to cope with the type of office politics you are dealing with because if you don’t do politics, politics will do you. That’s how corporate life is usually characterized, it grinds up so many.

Inference: It appears true that high-performing jerks care more about power, money, and status, and that's why they tend to perform well at work. Sacrificing time for work is their forte. If status, power, and money aren't your mojo, you should ship out and start receiving LinkedIn notifications or find something else to do. Perhaps corporate life isn't for you.

Remember, if your things begin to hit the fan, you could become an HR nightmare, a candidate to be dispensed ASAP. I hope there’ll be a change in this scenario that works in everyone’s favour.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

End of part 1 (of 3)

Troubling Realities

Fortunately - and miraculously! - despite whatever is going on in the world, not to mention our vital preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic right now, a new kind of worry-free living that is slowly regaining a sense of freedom and flexibility by coming out of the circumstances of social disintegration and collapse accompanied by dread and anxiety.

In the face of worldwide public health crises, humanitarian crises, climate change crises, even spiritual crises, and so forth, and all those lost years of unnecessary human annihilation we suddenly found ourselves in, are silently taking shape into familiar conformities in the current year also. Will the pandemic ever go away? No one can say. The humanitarian crisis continues as the deadly C-virus ravages our Earth bringing down ‘you reap what you sow’ retribution on us. Justly so.

(It only gets worse from here. Or in a warming world, it has already gotten worse.)

Yet all is not lost, but will we prevail?

Thank heavens, a sense of simplifying complexity is lingering around in my risk-averse mind. I hope that the COVID ramifications we all are tackling now in our day-to-day life will cease. Probably that is what people mean when they say survival of the fittest of the fastest to come into the world! Signs that people are beginning to feel secure about the survivability of the still so proud, very mod-looking, hip, and happening, global human species!

Conversely, it's pointless to display such weak egotism because humankind is rapidly changing in appearance, both physically and intellectually. Ha ha ha… The entrapments of modern life are altering the contour of our skulls. Not only that, but scientists claim that our elbows are shrinking, our bones are weakening: becoming more fragile, and so on. I shudder thinking that who knows what the COVID-19 virus has wrought in the human genome.

We are becoming lonely, stressed, anxious, and mentally ill too. Thanks to chasing the ever-shrinking availability of jobs and opportunities, relocation from one economic zone to another, individualism, capitalism, neoliberalism, not to forget the compendium of constantly changing technology, and proliferation of social media, websites, and apps. Some of these are good to have, but ...

All of these issues, and others, will become (or have already become) not Epidemic but Pandemic-scale challenges. (What are we going to consider, if not these?). To put it simply, if you're worried sick about your ‘cyber-cute’ photos that you keep posting on your numerous online social media profiles, then it’s a sign of depression. Or partake in your dalliances with various social media feeds a dozen times during the day, you are setting yourself up for an increased risk of physical and mental health ailments that will push you down in the dumps for good. Some people even enjoy making their friends (and others) envious of their lives by uploading glossy photos of their expensive possessions, vacations in exotic foreign locales, great parties, soirees, and doing this and doing that frequently. I don't like holding my mobile phone in the air to record the proceedings or taking umpteen photos from different angles (with the attendant lure of the phone's flash mechanism) when attending a music or a fun gathering, or a marriage function where you most certainly will catch sight of drone cameras hovering over your head filming the wedding scenes. Every person is entitled to their tastes and preferences. In other words, different strokes for different folks. It happens all the time; nothing new about it.

Probably I’d put some of these ideas in my writings: stuff that gets into the long-winding write-ups on my blog site (https://arindammoulick.blogspot.com/) and, speaking in this context, and that is as far as I am willing to go, characterize me by the place I live in, by the family I love, and by the friends I'd like to keep. Having ‘agendas’ that sum up to zero, I am essentially an agenda-free person. If anything, love and happiness (and reading books) are the only two agendas at the top of my priority list. (If I’m not reading, I’m buying books. And if I’m reading, well, I’m reading the books I bought). It’s not complicated. All other things boil down to narcissistic bourgeois money-grubbing middle-class mumbo jumbo. Isn’t the imagined past much better than the hegemonic narrative of the present society? I certainly do think so.

My standard response to all unsolicited offers of bank loans on low-interest rates or plots of land available to buy, or scads of social media invites to ‘upvote’ or ‘like,’ ‘share’ or ‘subscribe to’ is a curt: “Not Interested.” Conversely, I am not in the habit of “fitting in.” It’s like literally stepping into a cesspool of instinctual gratification, which I keep a healthy distance from, and why would a person in the right frame of mind yield to those worthless temptations? (All the carnage these people create on social media, my God!). Being a self-sufficing human, I can get away with so much when I am polite and respectful. Being in the habit of keeping a healthy distance away from uncharitable elements of our society does help too. That is also why I favour justifying realities, not the apparent troubling ones that kick below the belt. Social media can muddle up your mind if you’re not attentively careful. Haha. Laugh out loud, please. Let’s believe, for a moment, that social media is just about okay to be used, then use it only once in a blue moon, just for the sake of it and as little as possible. Stay low-key, and leave the rest to the imagination. More than half of your problems get solved. It’s disarming.

Furthermore, if it needs emphasizing ad infinitum, here it is: Any praises you receive on social media are, most often than not, pointless untruths, damned lies. If there are any exceptions, they are minuscule.

Finding a balance

If you have high levels of social dissatisfaction and unhappiness, life will become problematic to get adjusted. While not all screen time is all that bad, where the line gets drawn to keep all possible delinquencies in check is open to debate? Striking a balance between online and offline, as it were, will be a deciding factor in living a decent modern/social life in the future.

In order to live a respectable modern/social life, it will be necessary to strike a balance between online and offline, as it were.

Sure the modern world is lovely in many ways, even a liberating and beautiful idea to a large extent. But it’s the individual (not individualism) to decide if modernity has psychologically and physically disturbing effects on you and what you do to set it right from time to time. The world as we know it still requires a robust cultural dosage of EQUALITY amongst all citizens of the modern world. That’s a troubling reality. Be that as it may, never set yourself unrealistic expectations. So, say cheese and smile, and do not use a smartphone camera to capture it! Smile, a big happy smile, for yourself. Yeeees, that’s more like it.

Mind, you can’t help being risk-averse enough in the day and age of cyber-cute absurdity today. So slam on regardless, as it doesn’t matter how modern or not so modern you are or what others expect you to be. What matters more is, on the contrary, how much shit you can take in life and still survive the kind of life you usher. First off, don’t give a hoot for rewards and recognition or any unmet expectation from the deceptively modern world. Given all the personal and professional hazards involved, they don't do anything for you other than inflate your ego, making you feel overly self-important. Such an attitude will do a world of good to you; if you can beat back your sensitivity to any perceived inequality, slight, or grievance of your habitual existence amongst your fellow human beings. Second off, be back with your family and friends, and you will be fine for a new day, every day. Time passes amiably by for those who get encompassed by love and consideration for others. So, Hakuna Matata! No worries.

Tailpiece: Thankfully, I am progressively becoming more at ease now, gradually coming to grips with my feelings despite whatever is happening around our damaged world. It’s because I strive to be a man of no hurt.

Why am I constantly on the lookout for messages from friends and family on my WhatsApp these days, first thing in the morning! Perhaps, modern life is doing that to me. Sigh! Sigh!

I could continue rambling, but that’s pretty much the gist of my, I assure you, fast receding pet aversions.

By Arindam Moulick

Written November ’21 & March 2022

A Farewell to Emojis

A quick note on emojis, emoticons, bitmojis, and smileys

What we allude to as ‘modern life’ is, in my modest opinion, an obsequious psychoanalytic fiction or make-believe realm, if you will, and in which a wide range of emojis, emoticons, and smiley faces call the shots.

These and other delightful pictorial icons are currently the new punctuation marks, symbolizing new language norms while complementing our sentiments and articulation in the umpteen messages we send every day. At times everything in life can seem hard-hitting and make-believe, but thanks to the benefit of 3,460 emojis, which allow us to express our thoughts freely, complexities like human emotion can be alleviated (or help to soften the blow). Emojis are currently the opiate of the masses (or of the socio-digitally-acquainted users).

More than just cute little pictures, emojis (of various types) have taken over the world. These modern-day hieroglyphics have become a new lingua franca (or a new body language, so to speak) of the digital age, the era we all are living in.

Mostly they come with a yellow face and a big grin and can express Anger, Shock, or Laugh rolling on the floor. Or give cadence to the expression of Lust, Smiling Face, Kick, Kiss, Punch, even doing a jolly High-Five, or just acting reverently with Folded Hands while joining both palms together doing a flawless Namaste. (Perhaps more hygienic than a handshake?). You may digitally Clap or Slap someone resoundingly (no one will complain) because it is just a harmless suggestive emoji you'd sent across! (Or you might digitally get a tight one in return!). You can share Sparkles, Red Hearts, or straightaway avoid wearing pants and create welcome distractions while working coolly from home: WFH (Work From Home), a series of emoji-esque designs debuts during this pandemic season - an emoji with a mask on! Check it out. Either make a Sad Face to reflect on life amid the deadly viral disease or tap on a Loudly Crying Face to send. The choice is, of course, yours.

I’d say, have fun freely and indulgently while it lasts. But soon, the hyperbole will wear off due to constant use, and it has already started to feel insincere. These miniature self-emotive characters that have come to inhabit your text messages and social media feeds may soon be a thing of the past, obsolete bombast. With constant internet immersion and using it hundreds of times a day, I’m afraid it will deem uncool to use them, despite being the narcotics of the digitally well-connected. (Well, to each his own.)

While I'm no chief emoji officer (CEO!) to predict the new-age unpredictable or put you off your emoji party, teens and twenty-somethings (Gen Z-ers) are crazily using an increasing number of emojis. Nearly with the result of making their messages confused and loaded with uncontrolled gunk, almost to the point of making their messages unreadable - all in the quest of having to express themselves freely and lavishly. For people of the older generation or Millennial stock, emojis are slowly, if not already have been, becoming an off-limits territory. For them, emojis used to be cool, but now not anymore.

I continue to use them. But I'm starting to use lesser and lesser because these delightfully cute yellow smiley faces end up magnifying, overstating, and overemphasising even messages that are easy to read or comprehend. These smileys and pictograms need not fill in ‘emotional cues’ in the typed messages because I do not want them to. I think from here on, using it sparingly and conscientiously is the way forward. As it turns out, the choice of words is more important than trusting in some fancy, extravagant pack of emoticons to do it for your lack of writing proficiency. And oh, the latest trend in town is the Coronavirus Emoji, and yes, it comes complete with the medical mask on! And, I confess, it really looks so cool!

The initial tech appeal has worn off, as far as I am concerned.

By Arindam Moulick

Age of Anguish

I've long since surrendered to my own free will, or freedom of thought, and grown accustomed to my fair share of the tricky and complicated realities that this age - this so-called era of predictable unpredictability, globalization, and its discontents - happens to dump down on me.

After all, Oscar Wilde was spot on when he said, "Life is too important to be taken seriously.” So what’s the point of taking life so seriously? Humanity has never been awesome.

Men will be men; women will be women. But women (I doff my hat) have an entirely different dimension to understanding life that men barely comprehend. In their domain, questions never get modelled because answers abound in the Lord’s genius masterwork: the institution of lady, which is womanhood (of distinctively feminine nature). Questions lost their relevance, but answers have gained their meaning at once in the realm of the feminine ethnicity, which is better positioned than the masculine temperament. If men were angels, there would be no crime, no 9/11 or 26/11 horror, no ego clashes, or fists flying. Better angels are women. Catfights are more incredibly charitable and generous than fight-to-the-finish blood spills and butt-kicking psycho-comedy of dogfights that jingoistic men are so inclined to get involved in, physically and mentally (without much gumption).

Men, driven by jealousy and irrational competitiveness and working in the service of the patriarchy, like seeking the destruction of their rivals, real or imagined. We’ve already lost control. One is not implying that men have, ipso facto, proven themselves as unnecessary and violent and that they are at fault. Women - the so-called inferior sex -, on the other hand, are different and better, and they are more likely to "pay attention to the details." Frankly, they are better rulers and administrators. So step aside Jedi Knight in Shining Armour. Make way for the beautiful maidens that launch a thousand ships! (Maybe, men deserve a more accurate depiction than this. That is our hope, but only time will tell if it comes true.)

Meanwhile...

[Welcome, women of the modern world. Shape our collective future, save our planet Earth. Why don't women rule the world? When women are at the helm of affairs: economic, political, and personal, societies perform better. Every nation should have a woman as the topmost leader; the world would be more peaceful and harmonious, with less violence and instability. Women (of any class or race) should take charge. Women should inherit the Earth and liberate men instead. Show them the way!]

Our world is unprepared

Despite all of the issues and non-issues, modern life is convenient and comfortable, albeit a little stuck up at the moment, thanks to the worldwide pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) and its lethal variants. This highly transmissible Wuhan-born (in China) export variety has changed human life more rapidly than centuries of civilization could. (This pandemic is a direct consequence of the population explosion and worldwide economic globalization fallout).

To put it delicately: Women are better off than men in most aspects of humanity, but men continue to be worse off than women in terms of closing the gender gap because women still are paid less than men. Gender equality is a core tenet enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The pandemic is the new mother of invention, masked up and sanitized - as evidenced by the italicized statement I just made! The coronavirus fallout, no question.

It doesn’t matter if I understand everything about modern life or not. Understanding it is for another time, not now. Being naïve or overly intelligent in the hard bargain of life’s give-and-take situations helps. And in the “Age of Anything-Can-Happen,” all that brouhaha shouldn't become a stress factor if I am broad-minded enough, thick-skinned, and adaptable to a considerable extent possible. Although this trait may come across to be one of compromising, playing second fiddle, or at best a consolation prize, it isn’t so. I mean, I believe compromise is understanding, whereas outlier success is often cruel and violent achieved over other people’s dead desires, wants, and ambitions have gone sour. Your approach to achieving the success you seek will regularly kill relationships and ruin family and friendships, Netflix or no Pepfiz! Modern life does provide many and varied choices but far little joy. Indigestion, acidity, and heartburn included. It’s an age of anything can happen, remember?

Do I feel pensioned off already? I figure I do, which is all right, I suppose. What is there to worry about? I’m okay with any modest encomium that comes my way. Our planet has limited resources, so I am not hard to please. Time brings experience as age wisdom; I can handle that as well. Not a problem. Experience educates and so I can utilize that aspect of life with full gusto. No one is stopping me from doing that. Perhaps age is catching up with me because I am getting middle-aged and all that these days. Being peevish is pardonable, then? I guess so. (But some people take umbrage deliberately. One cannot help them much if they do. That means they have more lessons to learn. I, on the contrary, would like to think that I have a little less to learn compared to their share of lessons). It comes with the retirement annuity package as an unavoidable extra, so there are no complaints. Am I dealing with a middle-aged crisis? Not technically, but practically, I think.

Getting older sounds good, in any case; it sounds superior, helpful, and full of hindsight, if not wisdom. That's a compelling enough proposition for me to consider, as it may force me to think hard and long about how my life will unfold in the future. I'll be able to get away somewhere soon where I can break free from my self-fulfilling spiral of gloom and finally appreciate the joys of living freely, even as I try to make sense of modern life, that's all. Life is still beautiful.

Having said that, I can cheerfully declare that I have arrived at the unavoidable conclusion that modern life is rubbish. But of course, it does have some advantages. So is it too much to come to terms with its reality? I believe that a large part of life is gastroenterological and perspectival psychology. Eat, Pray, Love. Remember the adage? Having read that book (a long time back), I've learned to deduce as much from its contents.

[Gyaan session: Life is precious and shouldn't be undermined or squandered amid blunders, nor should it be prone to constant bouts of grandiose delusions. How can you tell if you're falling into one of these traps? That is simple: Inquire with your parents; check with your educators, spiritual gurus, or even close friends to see if they can help you further. If you can seek help, you will be better off in life. Without looking weak, always ask for an answer. Don't live your life all by yourself since everyone who loves you has a stake in it. Always remember: People know more than you do. You'll undoubtedly receive responses to the questions you should be posing. So, ask for help that you might need.]

Fortunately, I am beginning to pursue my continual learning process - by reading, writing, travelling, and calling up long-lost friends. Endeavours like these (in the company of family and friends) give me a lot of joy that I hope will not stop to last for a lifetime. That joy is life-affirming and is contagious enough for everyone to share it freely and be happy. It’s a creative purification of the soul. I can't speak for others, but I believe I am gradually slowly gravitating towards a socialist lifestyle, as I find myself being comfortably frugal, somewhat conservative, and a little bit modern to a certain degree. My simple logic is this: Just hang in there, buddy.

Getting rid of the imaginary truck in my head that used to cloud my sense of humour and (well)-being wasn't easy. For reasons more of personal nature, I was undecided if modern or traditional living is preferable for living a happy life without many bills to pay. That, however, is no longer the case. Some contend that modern life isn't necessarily unpleasant; rather, it is how individuals perceive it. If you believe your life is silly and pointless, there's no point in living an unsatisfying, foolish life. Is this how things are supposed to turn out? I'm not sure. I'm still wary of this way of thinking, but I feel a lot less unmoored than I used to. I am hoping it's a step forward, an improvement.

I'm concerned about our Mother Earth: our only home in the cosmic system of our universe. Is it really so critical to our thinking whether our lifestyles are modern or not, now when the vestigial tail-like artefact had got firmly entrenched between the so-called scandalously modern human beings' legs (pun intended)? Everything in the twenty-first century is the same: we're all doomed.

Dismal analogies aside, life is for living, and living your life as it comes is what counts. It makes no difference whether the time passes quickly or technological change is accelerating it. Or is it the ‘accelerative thrust’ that is responsible for it? (According to Alvin Toffler, an American futurologist, in his book "Future Shock"). You will continue to be happy if you can make your life perfectly ordinary. In other words, the key to living a happy life is to be humble, helpful, and understanding towards everyone at all times. The daily work grind, traffic jams, inflation, and everyday family drama are all part of the routine business of life that triggers a fight-or-flight response to it.

Being especially good in behaviour around individuals who have an uncaring attitude towards others may be encouraged to learn something good, positive, from your sense of virtue. Get slightly more thick-skinned. Does it have a preachy undertone to it? Seem to be sermonising? Is it undoable? I sincerely hope not. But it’s entirely up to you: the individual concerned, who is the conduit for the enigmatic concept of what it means to be a good human being.

Let’s allow ourselves to become accustomed to not winning our daily battles, then life will be peaceful, and everything will be fine. It is as simple as it sounds.

I’m done with the pandemic.

The End.

By Arindam Moulick

End of Part III of III

Written October ‘21 to February 2022.

The Sublime Persuasion of Love

I remember the day (circa 1998) when I stumbled and nearly fell into a roadside pothole (full of sloppy water leaked from a burst pipe) while commuting to work in delightful anticipation of a romantic lunch with a girl I was meeting for the first time in the latter half of the day.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as I walked past the lift and began up the green marbled stairs to my office on the 5th floor of the golden-hued balsam brown TSR Towers to log in for work. (The distinctive tony colour of the office building on Raj Bhavan Road, which seemed to emanate grace and elegance, cannot be forgotten).

Imagine how a round brown patch in the wrong place could have wrecked my lovely luncheon with a special someone later that day at Alex's Kitchen just off Liberty Road in Hyderabad, a secret haven for the town's love birds going on a blind date. Even though I arrived on the dot, dressed up and ready to impress, she was already waiting for me, which was nice. Her friends were present, and as I parked my Splendor, I thought it was likely that they were meeting up after a long time: she introduced me to a person named, Diwakar and to another girl from her gangly close-knit circle of at least five kindred souls having fun reconnecting after a long time, who, I believe, was her ‘best friend’. If you’ve ever wanted to see (with your eyes) how real-life mimics art, this is undoubtedly one such rare occasion you might want to pinch yourself while allowing yourself such treats: a group of buddies straight out of a Ruskin Bond or Danielle Steele novel.

[I couldn't help but feel envious of her friends' intimate camaraderie as I stood outside after lunch conversing with my special someone, trying to say our byes and promising to meet again. After a little while, I waved and rode back to my office on Raj Bhavan Road, thoroughly smitten with her love.]

The restaurant was her choice, a great choice. I remember feeling an immediate, intense intimacy with her as though we were in a continuous dreamscape as the afternoon turned into a romantic evening of quiet conversation and companionship. It was worthy of boasting about with my friends and watching them envy me. Like a moth to a flame, I shyly approached my blind date, and seeing her up close (and personal) for the first time was like a dream come true, even as my heart sang out to her.

Frenetic tellers of tales like Dickens, and Hardy, often remark about female beauty from the male perspective of a virtuous young person (generally male) by saying, “Congratulations! She is splendid!” in classic English Literature. Indeed, she was splendid! We met outside our rendezvous point's entrance steps, walked in, and sat at our table: not discreetly positioned as we would've liked, but the ample space in the room made for a lovely atmosphere, a beautiful ambiance, softly lit and welcoming.

We talked about things that mattered to us. The first part of our conversation focused on popular musical romance films like Dil Toh Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, and their catchy songs that marked the high point of the late 1990s era. (These films were dazzling, magical, happy-go-lucky, swirling romances that were so much about the '90s era hit parade that no one even talks about them now in post-millennial times. They've been, more or less, completely forgotten, fading into the distant past, paving the way for despicable genre-specific, so-called 'realistic portrayals' of Hindi films that today's techno-wizardry has spawned like a... morass amongst filmgoers.)

“Woh pehli baar jab hum mile,
     Hathon mein haath jab hum chale”

Before we moved on to other topics, we couldn't help but bring up Titanic, a film from the previous year. That fascinating masterpiece and undeniably impressive, a celluloid love story to remember for a long time, which become both her and my new favourite. Coincidentally, that day, we’d exchanged Titanic-themed greeting cards.

We had great fun, so much so that some of our food was in danger of getting cold. I thought, in my nervousness, I might by accident drop either my fork or my spoon (thank God chopsticks weren’t the norm to use), or who knows, might upend the whole tumbler of water along with the bottles of cold sauces ricocheting on my lap…! She was a classic ‘90s girl, just as I’d like to think I am: 90's boy. I was blown away by her impeccable table manners - an exemplar she was. She was warm, engaging, easy to talk to, and (just as I had believed before meeting her) spoke well. We had a lot in common. She was almost exactly what I thought she'd be. Her pretty face lit up when she talked - it was the vibe, a personalizing sensation conscious of the time, of the space that existed only between the two of us to experience. I tried to be as sweet, intelligent, and charming as I believed I was capable of being, and I think I succeeded nicely, for she was smiling a lot which made it easy for me to smile back. We were innocent of feeling the way we did, and it was natural of us to do so as we sat somewhere between prose and poetry that such a meaningful occasion calls for it. She had no pretences or illusions about our rendezvous that day, nor did she put on unnecessary veneer that would have been meaningless to us newly anointed love-smitten love birds - permanently confirming our love in a single meeting. We were an original couple: old-fashioned romantics having no preconceived notions about love. We chatted and joked, keeping it brief and casual: shared a few anecdotes about our college days, family, and the simple things of life as we ate our food. (We took some time hobnobbing before we paused to look at the menu and order the Chinese house specials, Fried Rice and Szechuan Chicken with spicily flavoured spaghetti sauce on the side. We ate a little, but we spoke a lot. The food, of course, was so tasty!

“Jaadu hai… tera hi jaadu…
    Jo mere dil pe chhane laga
Jaadu hai tera hi jaadu
   Jo mere dil pe chhane laga”

I didn’t want to leave her company, and I think we were both a bit floored by the experience, perhaps enamoured with each other, so much so that we wanted to see our relationship blossom further. Or, as they say, take it to the next level. From the moment we first spoke, she had my interest. She seemed like quite a sweet person, and we had great chemistry. I was immediately intrigued by her euphonious voice, the perfectly tailored pastel-hued salwar suit she wore, which looked like it came straight out of a special edition of Vogue, and her US-bound plans to study Engineering. She knew what she wanted out of life. In all honesty, I felt like planting a small kissy on her cheek, but I shied away to avoid being embarrassed in a local or a national newspaper! She was blushing, and so was I. As crazy as this sounds, it felt miraculous to me: sitting and talking with a beautiful girl at the diner and thinking I could never be so lucky, and how could I be so lucky? Oh, my God, this spectral beauty right here is my date, and I am wooing her. The entire luncheon felt like a dream come true, a dream half-fulfilled. Unfortunately, it was a one-time thing, a sweet little romance that lasted but briefly.

As I see the distant past reflecting the memories of our time and as the meaning of the words written here sink in, we would've loved each other forever. Love remains as deep and warm as it ever was. It still manages to bloom, albeit with a touch of melancholy and sadness returning now and again, perhaps to remind me that things have changed and I should move on despite the heartache it still causes. And why am I remembering those times now? What's the point? The point is: Love is eternal, that's why. My heart will go on..., for as long as I live (for the person I miss). Despite the loss, the unquenchable hope remains. Nonetheless, she must travel her path, and I mine. That's the criterion in the world everyone has to follow.

Years passed as time travelled for twenty-five long years, but we never could see each other again. Hers was a love of a sublime persuasion I had the privilege of knowing and belonging to her. All my feelings remain as they are.

Thank heavens I didn't trip over that kerbside crater on my way to work that day because it would've wrecked my rendezvous with “Lekhatee” (L.T.). When I think about this long-ago love story, I can still feel my heart race as she reminds me of my former successes, self-confidence, dreams, goals, hopes, and aspirations. I wish I could get down on one knee immediately after. Adieu, my love... till our paths cross again.

“Chupke se…, chupke se…
    Raat ki chaadar tale
Chaand ki bhi aahat na ho,
   Baadal ke peechhe chale”

By Arindam Moulick

Dedication: I dedicate this memoir to L.T. with love and heart. Before I met her in person, I was familiar with her voice. As I look down on the landscape of loss, longing, and the altitude of almost twenty-five years, it's another day of thinking of you. The heart does go on.