Entertainment

When the whole world is agonizing about Me-Too, I wax eloquent on my kitchen debacles. Comes the time when Covid wracks the world, and everyone is an instant doctor or virus-researcher, I prate of how I first learned to swim (or drown, which is the more appropriate term for what I do in water.) This singular tendency to be 'frivolous' has earned me a lot of 'fans', who see me as a cross between a court jester and a self-centered privileged ass.

The problem is that whatever I have to say has generally been said already on those subjects. Couple that with the fact that I have an unnatural objection to speaking of things that I do not know enough about. I mean, yeah, I'm still human enough to hold opinions based even on total ignorance but very reluctant to share them unless it is based in some knowledge. (Complete knowledge, ideally, but you know what happens to ideals in the hands of humanity). Failing that, I prefer to be silent. And, since silence is not an option if you want to keep a blog running, I turn to other topics.

But, for the life of me, I cannot see why being a 'court jester' is such a bad thing to be, so contemptible. I mean, yes, if you were the 'fiddling while Rome burns' sort, you could be seen as frivolous. But, even there, I can hardly see that the person, who runs around screaming, 'Doomsday is here', has done anything more than the 'fiddler'. Though, yes, to be seen as taking things seriously seems to be enough to humanity, generally.

Like, when I see people who scream against cricketers for playing IPL when the world is suffering from a Pandemic, I really cannot get the point. Not getting crowds into stadiums, yes. The risk to players and staff, yes. But what was that about screaming at them for 'ignoring the pandemic and indulging in frivolity/chasing money'?

It is one thing for people to not want distractions when they are fighting an emergency over a short period of time. Like, say, putting out a fire. But it is not in human nature to keep moping, worrying or even working to solve a serious problem 24x7 for long stretches of time. For months on end as has been the case with Covid.

So, when the pressure gets to people, they need something to take their minds off the situation. To relax, rejuvenate and get back to handling the situation. Which is why the corporate world has realized the importance of vacations. AND, in the current circumstances, quite obviously, it is not like you are likely to go off to the nearest Hill station and jostle around in the crowds on the Mall Road before you get back to the daily grind of your office.

What does that leave you? Sitting at home, your options to take your mind of the stress are limited. Not everyone can gaze at his navel for days on end; music may not suffice to shut out the constant chatter in your mind for all; not everyone can lose himself in books, like me; movies ditto...Sports IS one of the options to people.

The problem is that people conflate entertainment with frivolity and think that anyone entertaining people in the middle of a pandemic is being frivolous. In this world of packaging being more important than product, it would probably help if the mental health profession re-labeled entertainment as therapy.

Oh, and by the way, I have not heard the same sort of screaming about movie/serial shootings, though all and sundry DO mention their latest favorites on OTT. Nor, indeed, do they call actors/producers as money-grubbers for taking part in them. Maybe, cos the shooting IS not visible and only the end product is, they assume that all of those OTT programs were created digitally in home garages by lone and properly socially-distanced geniuses. Or, perhaps, Sports are more 'frivolous' than movies.

No, I am not ranting about the IPL being halted. Of course you cannot have it running when Covid has started infecting the players and support staff despite the bio-bubble. Nor would I rant if there had been objections to the manner in which it was held - IF due precautions had not been taken, for example. I am only ranting about the hate that some people have spewed against players and the BCCI for holding it at all.

You see, as far as I am concerned, only morons would think that all entertainment is frivolous. Even in a pandemic. For, if your mind was forced to dwell on the pandemic all the time for months on end, there is only one end to that process.

Insanity.