Wisdom is not
something you arrive by reason; it takes life experiences to get a fleeting
sense of it. Reading books, attending inspirational talks won’t make a person
wiser, probably you will come home and parrot the words for an impressionable
value. Borrowed words never make for one’s wisdom.
This is a rambling introduction to
this thought that bugs me at the moment: the
world we live is a terrible one. My life is interesting for it spanned
three different times for a study in contrast:
1970-1990 were my growing up years
from birth to graduation when the world was still sane: television entering our homes, the neighbors knew each other well (we had the first landline
in the locality and neighbors flocked to us for the phone facility, they now had access to an instrument to talk to their married daughters and sons). My father who had a flourishing career never stopped
worrying over the fate of his fourth brother who could never keep a job.
1990-2010 were the years when I
entered adulthood. I had a massive culture shock in the IMT hostels – the transition
from a Nawabi Hyderabad society to a lifestyle-addicted, aggressive Delhi crowd took a
long while for my mind to adapt. The society at this point was consumeristic: people buying Maruti cars, joint family became nuclear
which meant no elder brother fussed over the unemployment or penurious state of
his fourth brother! These years became what I call the: I, my wife, and my kids
centered vision for existence. These were times when people voted for money and
status – the more you had them, the more you were respected in contrast to the
1970-1990 phase when intelligence and culture got a legroom. There
is often quoted axiom: the world is nothing but a mirror of your thoughts. If you
were friendly the world reflected back that aspect to you which these years
more or less held.
Then came the post 2010 years where
the world was classified as winners and losers as the IT crowd took
over. They are truly global, their lifestyle no longer wrapped in Eastern
conservative mould. Women smoke and party, pre-marital sex tacitly
approved, and we simply stopped caring. Today we have reached a stage of not caring a damn to wives and kids. Today your own spouse will walk out if you lose your job regardless of a foreign vacation six months earlier. That by extension meant “We not only lost the art of
caring for a nuclear family, we lost out on caring for ourselves”. Today if you
are friendly, you will be mistaken for a madcap. Today if you fall in love, you
will sign a pre-nuptial agreement. And if you are me, you will
keep a gun under the pillows for self-protection!!! Today marketing men are more
interested in your money than in you, pharma companies will dance with joy if
chronic illnesses rise each percentage point. You will not know your
neighbours, sad thing is you will not know even your siblings. We have changed
our food habits, women use their breasts for a fashion accessory, and money is
the only currency that is respected everywhere. Long lost in the desert are
intelligence and culture and sobriety.
For me, these phases of the society
in transition hit me straight in the eye – I had the vantage point of being
alone. Today anybody would be fortunate if you can find
four friends in the city on whom you call: Buddy, let’s go for a movie this
weekend for my wife rubbed me to the ground. Or buddy, I am in some
financial trouble. Can you loan me 10 k for a week? Everyone understands that
they are an island today – there is no premium being nice and friendly, you don’t
have to fake a smile. People like me who have no societal shackles can look at
you straight in the eye and say, “You are a bother, keep out of my way,”
without a pang of guilt in the conscience. Today we look
at a colleague or a sibling or even a spouse or a kid feeling, “This fellow is
out to touch me, let me be careful.” Faith in gods was the first casualty, that vacuum was first filled by Sri Sri and now Sadhguru for a dose of pop
spirituality. Then went the family customs as we severed from our parent tree,
then came all the vices from women’s empowerment and effeminate males (would
you believe it, most wear ear studs in one ear). Once we lost the caring
aspect, we became strangers to ourselves as those aspen leaves tossed around by the slightest breeze.
2020 got me this wisdom: The world is
a friendly place but it does not care from Ajay. Then this
corollary naturally sprung in my fertile mind: When you realize how little
others think and feel for you then you’ll never open your mouth. Nor will you smile or mouth those useless good mornings. Now I have reached such a state that
when someone smiles at me, I pause to ask: What do you want from me? Or you an
insurance salesman or trying to sell me land in OMR 20 kms from the city??
Or a membership to a resort or selling a vacation??? And if I am going to commit suicide tomorrow, I will set fire to the planet with a gleeful smug: the journey from the innocence of the 70s to the callousness of 2020 is complete.
No comments:
Post a Comment