On What Matters?

I’m hardly the poet, artist, actor or writer that I want to be … but I’ve been thinking, especially these days. When we started this lockdown the first one in India on March 24, 2020, in the initial days we laughed a lot ... and talked a lot … and gradually we found ourselves locked down into …  bouts of binge watching, forays into cooking-eating-gardening-exercising, waking up scared at nights, often unable to sleep, mom’s stern stares and dad’s recourse to his designs … I admit, It’s all so hazy, Sundays and Thursdays, days and nights, breakfast-dinner-lunch, sleeping and waking … appear to be no different. 

Everybody’s at home, but are they? What passes off as NEWS  and VIEWS on the TV and the newspapers are no longer as interesting - the fear, anxiety, suspicion and fake news have become toxic. Acts of kindness, incredible feats of courage and determination individual and collective, appear to bloom and wither away in the face of the relentless scorching sun, unsympathetic and myopic political stagecraft. The entire world has perhaps never ever been so collectively concerned over something hardly visible, yet so devastating - COVID 19.

While some of our parents, near and dear ones, and the countless nameless faceless 'other' - risk life and limb to ensure sanity during these crazy disruptive times, frontline workers, essential services, lockdown, infection spread, flattening the curve, second wave, herd immunity and a whole range of new words are seeking traction as active vocabulary. ‘New normal’ is easily the strongest contender. 

Interesting when one refers to norms and normal, these days. Ever noticed?

We were so used to mindlessly embracing and discarding with gay abandon, and hurtling from one fashion to the next, have we paused to ponder - a luxury now afforded by COVID 19, what is it that we now seek to privilege, legitimise and mainstream.

The hitherto unexamined ‘normal’ is now competing against a ‘new normal’ desperately vying for traction, mainstreaming.

Interesting, how the now ubiquitous appendage ‘new’, warrior like is set off on a mission to seize and secure legitimacy.

Closer home, pedagogical adventurism with online teaching and learning, lends credibility to the term ‘Incredible India’. The spectre of an inane examination ostensibly to set off students on a tenuous future reeks of death and despair - the mindlessly crafted putrid aggregated paternalistic adult world view, hell bent on wreaking havoc on young hearts and minds.

Hamlet’s, “there's the rub” reflecting  on the possibility of suicide as a means to an easy end. That perhaps death – which he likens to a “sleep, perchance to dream” may be preferable to life, appears to be a weed germinating in many an aggrieved young heart and mind - in India and generally the world over - unwittingly trapped in an arrogantly aggregated adult world.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet finds ominous resonance with Prof. Satish Deshpande's recent  ... 'In addition to three natural seasons − summer, monsoon and winter – India also has two other seasons that are human inventions. The latter seasons are arguably more important because they host two institutions central to our almost-vishvaguru civilisation – elections and examinations. Each of these five seasons can cause death and devastation ...'

The forced confinement, ironically, of humans has lead to the effulgence of the birds and bees, the air smells sweeter, the ruckus on the streets and roads is missing, even the skies appear unblemished by the metallic monstrosities hogging the airspace. 

Within our dwellings we’ve had glimpses, albeit fleeting, of people,  places and things that hardly matter. And yet we are left wondering ‘on what matters …?’ 

What if someone were to ask you? Hey … what is that matters to you? ‘to me?’ you ask and we reply ‘yes … you heard me … ‘what is it that really matters to you …’? 

Thinking aloud is what some folks call it … you … are about to embark on a journey, an exciting one, I dare say, scary too … walking together we are going to ask ourselves …on what matters? 

So get going, now that you’ve been introduced to the myriad platforms online and offline … share with family, friends and folks …. On What Matters?