Gossip anyone?

Gossip and mischief go hand in hand. Mischief may not be preceded by gossip, but it always certainly follows gossip. And even though we may pretend to be beyond and above shenanigans of this kind, in secret, we all love them. It’s practically a collective schadenfreude.

Everyone loves gossip in big doses or small; and the more salacious it is, the more we salivate. We are all guilty of indulging in a little bit of gossip every now and then. Admit it! How many times have we delightfully pored over news that details the downward spiral of a public figure? How many times have we been the carriers of innocuous pieces of stories that snowballed into a crisis for others?

Is there anything like harmless gossip? I guess not? Gossip, by its very nature, feeds on innuendos, whisperings and unsaid words. The more the gaps in information, the more the chances of people filling it with half-suspicions, ideas, and more often than not, rumours hit pay dirt. Sometimes, it can help bring out the true nature of a person or event but often it reveals more about us than the person it’s about. We fail to see how vicious we can really be when it comes to putting someone down. The doggedness with which we pursue their fall and sniff for more evidence and information is scary at times. Do we spare a thought for people whose lives are affected? The direct and indirect fallout of someone’s misdeed has far reaching repercussions.

Some people revel in the misery of others. They are the ones who are always on the lookout for a new target. One whiff of a potential scandal brewing and the lengths they go to confirm and spread the news is unbelievable! The unraveling is an art though. At times, a theatrical approach, where there are clues left, a little innuendo here, a slight drama there, a well orchestrated coming together of the players towards a climax that is earth shattering to say the least. They direct the movements of hapless players caught in the web of deceit, to brilliance; and they love the power and control this gives them. At other times, there is a quick sharp yanking of the truth, skin and all with no anesthesia offered. At times I wonder which is worse, the cat-and-mouse game of subterfuge or the sudden knock on the chin? There is something to be said though for the quick unraveling. At least you know that you haven’t been dragged around like a dying horse for the world to flog, which eventually you will, but for now you are spared the theatrics.

The times we are living in, there is no such thing as a quiet and dignified exit. Whether you are the perpetrator or the victim, there is no escaping. Your story is the price you pay for the sordidness that surrounds you. In the past the gladiators were cheered as they gouged and gutted each other, today people caught in the snare of gossip and scandal are cheered as they live and die in the media glare as a source of entertainment.  Every shred of your dignity, the play-by-play account of your misery is the tax you have to pay for being the entertainers of the modern world.



Read and read

The reader in me is not a strict disciplinarian, hardly discerning between a whole newspaper, a fragment of paper floating by, clippings, magazines, new and discarded sometimes ancient wrapping paper text. I peer over shoulders in elevators and trains to catch a glimpse of the book others are reading and sometimes I co-read if I can catch a few paragraphs or pages depending on the length of the journey. Such desperation!

When it comes to reading just a glimpse will do to draw me in; everything else gets sidelined. This probably explains why my mother always undertook the task of sorting through old magazines and newspapers and never gave it to me! And in those few instances when she did, it was always under her strict supervision. With any reading material I lose track of time; I could start reading in the morning and before I realise my stomach reminds me that it’s afternoon and time to eat.

But before you judge me, I don’t read everything. Some things are beyond my endurance or understanding. For example self-help books; I just don’t get them. I do know a lot of people who’ve changed their lives (like the authors and the publishers) but honestly it doesn’t work for me. Philosophical books are out and those espousing the same through fiction are therefore by extension never looked at. All Paulo Coelho fans, no disrespect meant, but I just couldn’t get through ‘The Alchemist’. (And if it’s any consolation ‘The Da Vinci Code’ also didn’t do anything to hold my interest).

My reading habit is not an obsession or addiction; it has moved way beyond that long ago. It’s more like a necessity, much like the air I breathe. Each day I troll the information highway for things to read. I’ve grown, adapted and changed; my allegiance will always lie with books that I can touch and feel even though I’ve shaken hands with their digital counterparts. Reading is reading to me; whether I do it online or on paper hardly matters these days.

Clueless

Pursuance of triviality is as common a notion as pursuing excellence one was. In fact, hard work and toil is laughed at when there are easier, faster means of achieving fame, earning money, success and recognition. The decades earlier were famous for its lost generation, hippies, baby boomers, generations X and Y, and now, we are living in a decade that is increasingly unapologetic, crass and hedonistic.

Get rich quick has been overshadowed by its more alluring cousin—get famous real easy and quick. Once you get famous everything else falls into place—the money, the TV shows, the book deals and if successful in dishing out your brand of inanity, a movie where you get a starring role since who can play you better than yourself, right? Talent in its truest sense is secondary and almost unnecessary. Who needs to be gifted, educated or even to possess a hint of respectability when buffoonery and uncouthness can get you far enough? Though I must admit that it requires a certain amount of err… talent to stay afloat, if not on top, in the sea of senselessness.

You don’t even have the last the whole 15 minutes for fame. A minute or even less would do. The ingredients are the same: a pretty face or fantastic body (not gender specific), a vapid expression and flirtatious reaction to the camera, a run-in with the law (take your pick from drugs, drink, hit and run) and/or a stint in the slammer, a sex tape, a rehab stay, a scandalous affair (though what would qualify as scandalous after everything that has happened so far?) and you have yourself a winner! And to retain that interest? Plastic surgery and better yet a documented plastic surgery tale, a reality show following you and your pet house fly or marriage. And when you have milked out and sold every aspect that you could peddle, exposed and explored every cell of your being through the public lens, you could play mentor to the next ditzy thing that replaces you so that you can stay on and mooch off that reflected glory.

 

Would I like to sit on a chair like this? I sure would!

two friends: a backstory

This summer is all about catching up with old friends—two separate people from what seems like two separate phases of my life. There was surprise, genuine joy and relief; in one moment I became younger, chattier and freer!

The first one I met after 14 years. Junior college was the last we saw of each other (if you discount the one brief meeting at the train platform). He moved to the UK to study, though mutual friends would update on information once in a while. This was before the orkut, Facebook period. Our friendship after college was peppered with a surprise birthday call out of the blue, a few emails every 6 months that eventually faded out, till orkut revived the interaction for a brief period and then Facebook contributed to the meeting. When he suggested meeting up as he happened to be in my city, I was reluctant because it had been many years, I was genuinely busy and I didn’t want to get in touch all over again only to fall in the familiar pattern of losing touch. My sister insisted and I agreed to go.

He looked the same, only taller, a lot taller actually and still remained that incorrigible, untameable, naughty boy. Meeting him was easy as if the years of non-communication had never happened, as if we met regularly. The stories just tumbled out, the laughter overflowed and over two cups of green tea in a coffee shop we bonded like we were back in junior college bantering and badgering each other.

That one-hour meeting made me realize that I had changed so much over the years. So many aspects of my personality had undergone a change—I became more conservative and cautious, more critical and less cynical. Many of the stories I couldn’t remember, some were hard to believe, a few mortified me and most had me laughing. Even if we were in college, supposedly grown up, we were still so innocent, still untainted by the need to earn money and fame. I wouldn’t say we were naïve, we were aware of what the world was, what issues people dealt with, the corruption of body and soul, the inevitable prevarication that awaited; we knew everything but we kept it from percolating our lives just then.  Even in our attempts to be accepted as friends and lovers, as students excelling in athletics, studies, extracurricular activities, there was nothing we did that made us lesser people or compromised our conscience. That was the innocence of our times, of the place, where we worried about acne and looked forward to dressing up on Saturdays, of winning the house of the year and any subterfuge we ever indulged in was only to escape the teachers’ wrath.

We parted with warmth and laughter and hugged out our happiness at seeing each other. The elation of that meeting lasted for the rest of the evening. It made me yearn for the time when all I still kept some part of me open, when I rebelled against things openly, when despite everything I let myself enjoy and let others get a glimpse of the real me if only for a while.

And then yesterday was like another chapter opening in the recap of college years. After searching for this friend, through every known source and resource, through searches and requests with people I barely even spoke to in senior college, I find her. An innocuous little posting on a common friend’s page got my attention. There she was, the one I was searching for over 11 years, spotlighted because she just changed her profile picture on Facebook. As much as I hated those irrelevant scraps of information, yesterday I couldn’t deny it credit. Why did I want to find this girl so badly? No reason, other than the fact that there are some people whom you, every now and then,  always wonder  about, what happened to them, what they were up to and where did they end up. She was one of those people who drove my curiosity.   

It wasn’t like we were great friends, we just bonded over the last year of senior college, where we shared our common fear of the department head and bandied our resources to get the better of all the study material, reading material and research material needed to get decent grades and more so decent papers written in English. That last year was marked by many things but particularly with her was the fact that I worked as a kind of deterrent to an overzealous suitor. I didn’t know whether I should have been horrified or insulted at the insinuation that guys didn’t come near me. I mostly had a “don’t-mess-with-me-or-I’ll-bolt” attitude and more of a “deer-caught- in-the-headlight-looking-for-escape-routes” expression but somehow that seemed to work on cooling things down for a bit. Later, I became a participant in her game of chess played across the classroom with only 42 players and 12 benches and desks. There could only be so much rearrangement done with seating and after a while both parties called it quits and we could all breathe and concentrate on graduating with better grades.

Over this warped bit of love on the run, we became part of the same study group and bonded enough for memories to last a lifetime. Two years after graduation I bumped into her in the train, between our stops I barely got time to acknowledge that she was married, not to one we thought she was marrying but someone knew, that she moved localities and had a new number and before either of us could even whip out our phones to exchange numbers it was time for me to alight. Her unfinished story left me wondering what actually happened to her.  It was like reading a thriller where the last few chapters would never be written because the author had flown the coop. I am never easy with suspense; I can’t not know things; it makes me restless and nervous. Now that I’ve found her and we’ve almost reestablished connections I’m sure I’ll find my answers.

This summer is proving to be different from the others I've experienced here. The temperature hasn't spiked to killer degrees yet, the work hasn't slowed down yet, I haven't taken out my parasol yet and my glasses haven't fogged up everytime I move from indoors to outdoors yet. Still there is a difference. I can feel that I am doing something different. I've started this blog, haven't I? Unlike people looking to escape the heat, I am going nowhere. This summer is my escape into nostalgia, into remembering who I once was. Are they any other friends who want to get in touch?Go ahead and make this my summer of 2011.

a reply to a contest

As always i decided to not let this wait for tomorrow, for my tomorrow does come but it gets pushed back by later and then later meets much later and then never takes over.

So J (my inspiration since college. yes you are!) decided to egg me on and get me blogging finally. Today I will not look at punctuation or spellings. Today, I will just sit back and relax and pat myself for doing this ON MY OWN! I did it J!

And about our contest. Yes, we are on. 31 posts in August 2011, any topic with no word limits (at least i think so)

So that's that.