Obsessive

"You know this odd-and-even rule that is getting applied in Delhi..."

"That 'odd' reminds me. You know the odd thing is that even though I have a book published..."

Giving up the esoteric ways of Delhi traffic as a topic, my friend plunged into the next.

"Really, the way the media dealt with the Chennai rains..."

"I know. My promo messages of my book just got flooded out on Social media"

As a last ditch attempt to get me off the subject of MY book and assuming, rather idiotically, that he could wean me off my book by talking of someone else's book, "This trolling of Barkha Dutt's book.."

"I know. People like my book but are too shy to write a review to say so. HER book they even take the trouble of going and saying they did not like it."

By now, like my friend, you would have got the point. I AM obsessive. Once my mind is on one subject, it refuses to pay attention to other insignificant things like flooded-out cities.

Ah! It is not THAT. When I look into the mirror, I do not see the ONLY important thing in the Universe staring back at me. The most handsome, the most alluring, the one with the inbuilt Axe-effect...all that, yes, but NOT the sole thing of relevance to me in the Universe. This obsession works equally as well, if not a shade better, with other things too.

Like the time my mother sent me out to get some sugar from a neighbor. On other days, when things are casual, I would spend a couple of hours chatting with her since she was about the only adult who did not think that conversation with a child should constitute exclusively of how he was doing at school. So, where with the others the conversation would be wound up with one disgruntled grunt, I could spend a couple of hours with this 'auntie'. Not when I was there for sugar, though.

"How are you, Suresh?" (Kaise ho, Suresh?"
"In a hurry. Can I have some sugar?" (Jaldi mein hoon")

There. The moment this borrowing sugar thingy entered the equation, she had ceased to be a person and become a mere sugar-vending machine. Such is the nature of obsession.

Which is why working life was so bad for my soul. I would meet my boss in a party and, by way of light conversation, say,"We still need to receive data from the marketing guys for our performance report". Starting from a glazed look in the eyes, he would, by stages, be converted into such a close replica of an Egyptian Mummy that he could have been mistaken for Tutankhamen. It never crossed my mind that the chap may prefer scotch to vodka, be proud of his daughter's kung-fu skills, prefer Baldacci to Bhagat...in short, that he could have a life outside of being employed in my office.

Or take this friend of mine, for example. He had a torrid time at his office and used to discuss it with me (Poor chap. Little did he know what he had let himself in for). You know what, as far as I was concerned the only topic of conversation that springs to my lips when I see him is those problems at office. AND, then,

"So, I hope your problems are sorted out now?"
"What problems?'

AND, know what, I had to go in great detail telling him what HIS problems were and he seemed to have no recollection of them. Merely because it had been a decade since we last met, they seemed to have vanished into the distant past, while he had seemed stuck like a fly in amber in that time, as far as I was concerned. Obsessive...

Ah! Well! Now that we are all agreed that I am obsessive there is this little matter of a book...

Oh! ALL RIGHT! No need to run way just because I mention it every now and then.

Learning social media lingo

"You know that smiley - the colon-bracket one.."
"Yes!" I said proudly. "I have mastered its use."
"Actually, you know, it is not meant to be used as a period. You do not need to put it in after every sentence."
"I don't put it in after every sentence", I said indignantly. "I also use that colon-P thing every now and then."
"Exactly what I mean. It is perfectly OK to write sentences in Social media interactions without putting in ANY emoticon at the end."

Am I rushing ahead of myself? The chap who was offering helpful advice about punctuation in Social media is a nephew who was teaching me the basics of social media lingo. Being tutored by the old in your youth and by the young in your dotage is a peculiar fate reserved for my generation, as I have had reason to lament before.

Having just learned about emoticons, I was happily proud of my mastery of these two when this 'tutor' of mine comes and punctures my balloon. Well...I am afraid that his advice fell on deaf ears, since I am still not convinced that they are NOT the social media equivalents of what we used to call the full-stop (even though no-one ever bothered to tell us what a half-stop was.) What he did manage, though, was to abruptly truncate my interest in learning more emoticons. If people will keep poking their noses in and making rude comments about the extent of your learning, is it a wonder that you lose interest in education?

There were some other things that I learned all by myself. For one, it is best to see what opinion everyone is holding about anything and agree with it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, you will get stomped on, vilified and may even face the fate worse than death - being unfriended or, horror of horrors, blocked.

It is all right for you to think that clicking 'Like' is the equivalent of 'I have seen this status message from you' on Facebook but use it with caution. You could end up clicking a 'Like' on someone's lament for a pet dog and be thought of as a heartless brute, who was probably throwing a party to rejoice in the death of the poor beast. (God know what new lessons would need to be learned if and when that 'Dislike' button goes live. You could end up clicking the 'Dislike' on the same lament, intending to express how deeply you dislike the death of the canine and the other person may feel that you are a heartless brute who dislikes someone lamenting the death of a pet.)

Never fail to 'Like' any pic put up by any of your friends - it is a given that the person thinks she looks great in it, else she would not be wanting the world to look at it. If you fail to 'Like', it is clear evidence that you do not LIKE the person, or so it shall be construed. What I am yet to understand is exactly what am I supposed to do for all these videos that everyone and his uncle is sharing these days. Is my not 'Liking' them losing me all my friends? Alack and Alas! My ignorance will end up losing me good friends and lose me all MY 'Likes' on my status messages!

Useful though these lessons are, they only constitute social media behavior and NOT lingo. Lingo does need a tutor and, having dispensed with my previous one on account of the aforementioned disagreement on the use of emoticons, I am hamstrung. I realized the depths of my problems when I discovered, by the use of deep ratiocination, that 'hv' stands for 'have' and 'gr8' stands for 'great'. As usual, filled with enthusiasm, I used these liberally in a chat - with someone who was carefully using English till then with me - and ended up with this conversation.

"Hv you got the book I wanted? It would be gr8 if you can send it to me like last time."

'ws nt d bst way. cud u send sum1 2 me fr dis?"

Huh! Was that some cross-talk on Facebook? Had I perchance tapped into some coded message for the CIA or whatever? Chills ran up and down my spine. In these days of paranoia, such inadvertent eavesdropping could cost me dear.

Now...who can I trust to check this out and tell me if this was merely the new lingo or some code that will require a supercomputer to break?

God save me! I wish I had never ventured into Social media!

Flooded out

After a hectic meeting on deciding what the Nation ought to know and who were to be on the panel so that they could be shushed by the host, it was time for some relaxation. The Editor let his hair down, just to let people know he did have hair to let down (Unlike me? Yes. So?)

Eager-beaver 1: Sir, there is something amusing on social media. Everyone is talking of some Chennai which is supposedly getting rained on. They claim it is in India.

Editor: Social media! Don't get me started on it. Those people will believe anything. Just because it is raining somewhere in the world, we cannot be using up prime time on it.

Eager-beaver 2: Sir, everyone in media must be seeing that. What if someone telecasts it tomorrow and, by some strange coincidence, Chennai happens to be in India? We might just check it out.

Editor: Hmm! You guys might as well waste your time doing that as on something else.

EB1, EB2 and the hitherto silent EB3 rush out to waste their time. After some time is duly wasted...

EB1: Just as I told you, Sir! No other major channel seems to be carrying the news. Proof positive that Chennai cannot be in India.

EB3: Sir, no state ruled by either the BJP or the Congress has any place called Chennai in it. I am sure it cannot be in India.

Editor: Just as I thought...

EB2 comes in with a young chap.

EB2: Sir. This boy says Chennai is in India.

Boy (stutters, overwhelmed to be in the august presence) : Yes, Sir! You may have heard of Sir C.V. Raman, C. Rajagopalachari...

EB2 (in an aside): Idiot! You will never make a news-person. What is the use of mentioning ancient history in a news channel?

Boy (stuttering even more): Sundar Pichai...

EB2 (whispering fiercely): Idiot! Haven't you learned anything about what is news and what is not? Don't you know anything good is just not newsworthy enough? Surely there must be some lynching, some scam....

Boy (excitedly): Sir! The 2G scam...

Editor (brightly): NOW you are talking. You mean Chennai is there...that Raja came from there?

Boy: Yes, Sir!

Editor: Where is this boy from? Does he really know what he is talking about?

EB2: He is a Madrasi, Sir!

Boy (just a shade underwhelmed now): Yes Sir! THAT word, Madrasi, which you use so tolerantly...that is based on Madras, which was the original name of Chennai.

Editor: These South Indian people and their penchant for changing names. How is one supposed to remember that this...Chennai...is in India, if they keep changing names?

Boy (totally underwhelmed and, probably, having decided to take up something more useful like plumbing instead): Everyone out there seems to manage to keep track, as witness the Social Media. They find it no more difficult than remembering Mumbai for Bombay and Varanasi for Benaras, I suppose.

Editor: Enough of that, young man! I do not even allow guests on my talk-show to speak and you dare speak back to me?

EB2: Sir, forget the idiot. I suppose we shall need to cover this, then?

Editor: Yes...we cannot let the other guys steal a march on us.

EB1: By the fifth day we can claim that it is our coverage that made the government take action to help the population.

Editor: Good idea! Make a note to put that on my teleprompter. No need to wait till the fifth day. Weather is so unpredictable and we cannot take a chance on the rains stopping before we say that.

* * *

WHAT?? It did not happen this way? The news media knew all along that Chennai IS in India? Are you sure? Oh! You mean that the news of the devastation in Chennai, unlike the Uttaranchal disaster and all, just got flooded out by more important things like Aamir Khan's supposed imminent departure from India. How was I to know that? I always did lack a sense of priorities.

Much ado about intolerance

Call me stupid, if you will (WHAT? You do not need an invitation? You would do it anyway?), but I really did not understand what this brouhaha about intolerance was all about. I mean, humanity has always been intolerant. Comes of climbing down from trees but not leaving all the animal instincts behind, I suppose (that one, specifically, of fearing strangers). Anyone, who is not one of 'us', has always been an 'outsider' with his every action, that does not conform, an affront. Anywhere in the world, the polite people refrain from voicing it, the less polite express it and the fringe elements express it with physical violence. Truly tolerant people are an insignificant minority, or that is what I believed. It was a rude shock to me to wake up one day and find that the world was, actually, an ocean of tolerance with India the lone outpost of intolerance.

Even more shocking was the discovery that we had not always been intolerant. True, the adherents of every religion have, at some time or the other, been massacred by the adherent of some other religion (in modern times) and, to vary the monotony, castes have clashed with castes and communities with communities but, apparently, we were a lot more tolerant in those days than we are now. Everyone says so - intolerance in increasing, I believe. (Ah! Puhleeze! I am NOT, I repeat, NOT political and I speak not of who spreads intolerance and who does not. Those you can discuss elsewhere on social media, thank you).

BUT...there is a bit of confusion there. Everyone makes a lot of noise about increasing intolerance in India. And, then, says that if one complains about the PM and his governance, it should not be given the color of insulting India. I am easily confused and this confuses me all the more. I mean, is it increasing intolerance in India that is the problem here (which means you are effectively calling Indians intolerant and increasingly so) OR is it the behavior of government that is the point at issue here (which means that you are saying that the government is, by its silence or actions, encouraging the fanatic fringe)? On the one hand, you may claim that Indians are no more or less tolerant than the rest of the world BUT the government is ending up giving a free hand to the fanatic fringe to impose its will on Society. On the other hand, you claim that Indians are more intolerant than the rest of the world. Which is it? If the former, what is all this 'increasing intolerance in India' crap, which paints Indians as more intolerant than the rest of the world? If it is the latter, then why give the false impression that changing governments will suddenly convert this country into a haven of tolerance?

Yeah! I know - you will jump in saying 'Both', though how THAT fact gets established by a few criminals acting violently in some incidents, I cannot fathom. It is not as though such has not happened elsewhere in the world. Whatever statistics are out there do not seem sufficient to prove that the incidents of intolerance must be a consequence of both the government encouraging the fanatic fringe as well as an increasing number of intolerant Indians. If your argument that the government is, in some way, responsible for such incidents happening frequently (and I have yet to see convincing statistical evidence to prove such is the case. Yeah, I agree that Dadri and other such heinous crimes are unforgivable but if you will insist on 'increasing' intolerance, you automatically invite mathematics to the party), then isn't it obvious that the same percentage of fanatics can lead to more incidents and it is not necessary for Indians to be more intolerant as a people than anyone else? Sweeping generalizations based on insufficient data is rhetoric, not analysis, and when intellectuals take recourse to rhetoric, they cease to use intelligence.

Then I am informed that when the Khans of Bollywood made comments about intolerance, the reactions were intolerant; that people just did not seem to respect their freedom of speech. This freedom of speech is yet another thing that escapes my feeble comprehension. The chaps who retaliated against the Khans with the risible 'Go to Pakistan' sort of comments get called 'morons' and 'assholes' by those who opposed their opinion. Which would probably result in the former (the tourist agents for Pakistan) accusing the latter of not respecting THEIR freedom of expression and so on and so forth. After a point, all that I can glean is that everyone who agrees with my opinion, regardless of how he expresses it, should have his freedom of expression respected, and anyone who disagrees better be VERY polite about it, indeed, lest he be accused of being against freedom of expression.

Ah! No! I am NOT in favor of rude people in general. The point I am trying to make is that, as long as all these expressions are verbal and the original speaker is not legally constrained, freedom of expression is safe. In a social media where "What an imbecilic idea" seems to be the most polite version of what used to be "I disagree", I have learned to parse most of these things to "I am opposed to that statement". Strangely, though, the ones who are accustomed to disagreeing in more unrestrained phrases are the ones who read intolerance into every such utterance by others. True, there IS always a fanatic fringe which really does mean to be intolerant (AND, where such utterances have been made and the person known, does anyone really believe that THAT person is representative of Indian society?). If, say in the USA, someone makes a statement that can even remotely be construed to be anti-American, does anyone seriously think that the social media responses will not have a similar dose of high-decibel nonsense? So, whence comes this nonsense of 'intolerant India' based on the reactions to the Khans?

There has, most certainly, been increasing TALK about intolerance. AND the worst of it is that it is all said in an intolerable manner. I am reminded of that cruel childhood game where one gets after the other saying, "Do not be angry." The chap, who was not angry, says, "No, I am not angry." The instigator says, "Then why are you glaring? You are angry." Again the victim demurs. The other than says, "See. You are shouting." The victim then screams, "No! I AM NOT." THAT, in effect, is what we seem to be doing to ourselves now. Keep talking about intolerance, and in this sort of high decibel manner, and you will ensure that even the people, who felt secure here, will start feeling victimized AND the others get angry with the 'victims' for being unjustly accused (Such, indeed, are the vagaries of human nature. The ones who mouth off for their sixty seconds of fame are seldom blamed). What, in psychology, is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Are there intolerant people, intolerant organizations in India? Certainly, yes. Do I wish India were a more tolerant nation, as tolerant as it has been reputed to be throughout ancient and medieval history? Certainly, yes. Is India today intolerant, any more than the average nation in the world? Maybe but, as yet, I have not seen any rational evidence establishing it one way or the other, unless I should count screaming loudly about it in media and sweeping generalizations as rational evidence.

Yes - there IS increasing intolerance. Intolerance to differing opinions, intolerance to being rational - to the extent that we prefer seeing the facts in only the manner that buttresses our opinion - and, above all, an intolerant and outright rude manner of expressing our opinions, which shrieks, "You dare not oppose me." When intellectuals take recourse to this sort of behavior it shall not be long before even the most tolerant of societies turns intolerant. And THAT seems to apply to ALL the world, not just India.

When you want a tolerant society, you preach tolerance and act tolerant. You do not bring about a tolerant society merely by agitating against perceived intolerance and acting intolerant yourself.