Sign o' the times

A bit of a homage. And since it does feel like closure, I will get back to it at the end.

What have I got to say today about the world? I had an usual holiday (weekend) which is to say that I did nothing much. I read, I listened to music and I looked for interesting books and bits which is what I do. And I was glad to do that. I read today's Mint lounge (link to the piece that most appealed to me here, but do read the entire set) and I owe a bit of gratitude to the editors and writers who made the issue happen. As these things are designed to do, I essentially spent the rest of the morning morose and mopey and melancholy. I know that I will probably never go back to the place where I grew up but I know I will always miss it. What Nehruvian socialism left a significant section of our middle-class generation with would be memories of growing up in townships that sprouted around industrial developments, the public sector undertakings that even today form a massive part of the infrastructural backbone of our country. A childhood spent near enough to the countryside to take in yearly floods, kalboishakhis, starry nights, prickly yet scented grass you walked barefoot on, massive rivers and long rides in unreliable public transport. You ever feel that you could never really envy anyone too much? I only envy myself, in the childhood and the lazy joy I had without knowing what I had. What would you promise me? I had books, I had sunshine, I had cold foggy mornings, I had hours understanding whatever I wished to, I had everything I had imagined of. The only thing that makes me sad, and it does make me incredibly sad, is that I will never return that place out of time, and I won't be able to make someone else understand what I felt, or how I happy I was or that I can't make someone experience it. Thick glasses, childhood drama, teenage angst, all these things remain indelibly tied with the experience of the place itself. But then we all make our own memories and maybe that's how it is supposed to be, each experience colored in the shade we infuse it with. I just wish then that I could relive them sometimes you know? Not in a Total Recall kind of way (that's another fantasy and that just not me), but on weekends like this I really want to just escape into my head. A solitary retreat of happiness and warmth. Tell me you don't want that. Tell me you can promise me more than that.

A billion and quite a bit more. That's how many people are crammed in, ass to cheek, in this country of ours. A hardscrabble battle to grow food in a country that depends so pathetically on the monsoons should be unacceptable. Two years of below average rainfall and drought like situations in four-five states already is shameful. We are living in a world teetering on the brink. And we as a country are going to be so woefully underprepared. This is going to be different from the times when greed/corruption/poor governance (all synonyms really) killed people (like the famine in 1943). Think of a world which is just not enough to meet the requirements of all its people. Simple pigeon hole principle. Some of us, quite a lot of us, are going to be nonviable. Its weird isn't it. We are consuming more and more, growing bigger and fatter and more conceited and demanding, all the while picking up speed and rushing to the point when everything will be taken away. Its already more difficult to buy a house and ensure a decent education for your children than it ever was (these are things that a 30 something guy is supposed to worry about, right?). Sometimes I think that the only option is to give it all up, this false striving for the promised land of vegetarian gravy and soy lattes. But then I need my caffeine fix and I smile at my foolishness. So what if everyone's a patriot and all you think of is the collective delusion of jingoistic masses who care of whatever stimulates their primitive medulla. It is the only way. And therefore it is the right way (it is, just don't argue).

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So onto things more recent and the movies, music and books I feel I should tell you about (and keep a memory of). 

Movies first. Two tonally similar movies in that there was a focus more on the action than on the actors in them. There's hardly any 'acting', no mannerisms that are exaggerated, no drama, no pathos (except for the deep bleakness in both of them and how people react to that). Both movies about people doing their jobs. Journalists working in an non-glamorous setting and doing almost menial work, focused on details as they seek to uncover a scandal. Based on true stories, as these things often are, Spotlight is truly worth watching. The other movie had more memorable acting with Emily Blunt being the strong kick-ass yet fragile FBI agent who rides shotgun with Benicio Del Toro, who's playing a Mexican/Columbian hitman, the titular Sicario.

I haven't read a lot of books. I am trying to remedy that. I have gone through the first 2 volumes of Fables (Legends in exile & Animal farm), the first volume of Sandman (Preludes and Nocturnes, in dead tree format no less). And I have read Alex Ross' Justice (mostly for the art, I am shallow). All these comics I have liked. I have a few books I am in the midst of reading. I will write about them when I am done reading them I guess.

Onto music then. Its been a sad few months. You are 10, then you come home and play a cassette and then there's a song called Purple Rain and you are never quite the same. You don't really understand the words at first and then you pay attention and try to understand the lyrics and it still doesn't make sense. It never will make sense but you know that Purple Rain makes you almost shake with longing for something (you are 10, remember?). Weird stuff, all in all. So, listen to the Purple One's songs whenever you can. He could be operatic and melodramatic and sweet and his craftsmanship was truly without compare.

1. Prince - Sign O' the Times (his people take the music down most times but this is a song well worth seeking out). Utterly relevant even today. Stripped with a electronic background beat, his voice melds beautifully with occasional riffs of guitar. Also suggest listening to Purple Rain (duh), When Doves Cry, Little Red Corvette... etc etc (buy a Best of compilation maybe?)

2. Eagles - Take it easy. The one song I would karaoke to if I needed to escape being shot or something. These songs form the soundtrack of our lives (if your life involved going to a college anytime between 1980 and 2005 or if you had decent friends).

 

3. The Glitch Mob - Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul. I end up coming back to instrumental tracks. All new music isn't bad.

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#findyoursentence

P.S. In case you want to know...

Kalboishakhi (credit)

I watched platform no. 2 being built

Them's the breaks

You feel invincible sometimes. Not all that often, not often enough to mess up your ego. But there are some mornings, you bounce off the bed and just feel good. You tend to remember these days now, notice them more. They come by much less frequently now. You tend to not notice your body when it works the way you want it to. You punish it with late nights, awful eating and 'other' habits. And then it slowly starts to quit on you. Joints pop, you let out involuntary hisses of pain when you make sudden movements, muscles seize and cramp. You turn to those trusty white pills, the new prescription that the nice doctor gave (along with the warnings, of course) and trust the relief modern medicine grants you. Its bliss, its comfort, its better than any oblivion granted by any other drug. You feel invincible again. Its a rush. And you keep pushing.

Anyway, you don't mind it. Its a body, and you think its just a vessel for the mind. Terribly conceited of you. And you know that you are wrong. You have had nights when you felt like clawing your brains out if it just meant not hurting anymore. You have had days like that. You know that but you forget. And its understandable. The mind wants what it wants. And it usually gets its way too. But there's a comfort that a body that is yours to command gives you. The blind trust that you can have in it. Of getting somewhere. Of reaching someone. You could run, scale those mountains like you always wanted. It would stop distracting the mind then, the nerve receptors signaling pain. But what would the mind do then with all this free time, all this focus? Well it would figure something. Not just worry about what's broken, maybe for ever. It needs to not fret about the troubles and just go about creating its own bubble of synthetic reality and then decorate and renovate that space to its specifications.

Anyway, that's its for today. Stretching the fingers a bit. Inconsequential non-sense. Which all non-sense is. I think.