O

Many ideas and thoughts have been running through my head for the past few days. I am going through a phase that can be considered to be the antonym of a 'writer's block'. One night, I woke up at 2:45 am. My brain started playingback the events of the previous day. As the time passed it started fixing its attention on the letter I. As the playback came to an end, I thought "In today's world, I seems to have become more important than anything else". I tried to get back to sleep but my brain had decided that it did not want to sleep anymore. Finally, at 3:45 am I got up and wrote a poem that I named 'I'. Couple of days later there was an incident related to flies in my workplace. I decided to write about it. Flies are referred to as Ee in Tamil and so I named the write-up 'E'. As I clicked the publish button, I realized that if I posted three more entries and named them 'A', 'U' and 'O', I would have covered all the vowels. I thought for sometime and got a vague idea for A. It is based on a small incident from many years ago. I am not sure if I am really interested in writing about it but if I don't get any other idea, I would have no choice but to develop it. I did not get any idea for 'U' and 'O' though. 

Two days later, another incident occured that gave me the idea for 'O'. As I was sitting down to write the 'o'rticle, I remembered that I had a couple of incomplete pieces written many months ago about the main character in this incident. I went through the drafts section of this blog and found them. I no longer remember the details of the incidents and so I could not complete them. I reproduce those incomplete articles here prior to describing the events related to 'O'.

Incident 1 (Jan2021)

The sweet and milky tea tasted sweet and milky. I have always wondered why this concoction was called tea. During the initial years, I let the liquid flow to various corners of my mouth and attempted to identify the flavour of the tea in it. It tasted like milk, it tasted like sugar, it tasted like payasam and at times, it tasted like kashayam but it never tasted like tea. Like Buddha, realization struck me under a tree. I was sitting under the mango tree and sipping the liquid that all of us referred to as 'tea' when I heard Mr. Tweedy's voice uttering "it's all in me head". I jumped up and shouted "Of course! There it is!" Finally, I found the flavour of tea in the liquid. Like many other discoveries, this one too had its own minor tragedy - my new white shirt had a brown patch that looked like the map of Asia without half of China and India.

On that day too, I was relishing the flavour of tea when the conversation on the table turned towards politics. Politics did not interest me, but I listened to the conversation anyway. The supporters of the party ruling our country were gushing about the achievements of our prime minister. From time to time, they looked at me for support. I did not say anything but smiled and nodded my head. In a few minutes, their conversation turned towards the chief ministers of a few states who voiced their opinions against the prime minister and his party. The happy expressions on their faces were replaced with anger and agony. As in the earlier case, they looked towards me for support. Once again, I preferred to remain quiet while smiling and nodding my head. Apparently, this time they did not appreciate my expression as an expression of solidarity. They stared at me for a few seconds and started ignoring me. The poor fellows did not realize that I was only enjoying my tea and neither agreed nor disagreed with them. 

I got up and went back to the counter to pick another cup of tea. When I came back to the table, I found that my seat was taken by a person whose opinions on the prime minister and the ruling party did not match with that of the other two occupants. The table did not have an additional chair and so I had to move on. I felt cheated like Arnab Goswami would have felt if he woke up on the morning of 'The Big Debate' day with a cough and sore throat.  

Incident 2 (May 2021)

The table was occupied by two people with whom I only conversed a little. I did not hesitate to place myself in one of the empty chairs besides them though. The two of them were engrossed in their conversation and did not bother to welcome me. I did not like to disturb them with a "hi" or "hello". I stirred the milky tea till I believed the heap of jaggery powder in the cup was completely and thoroughly mixed. I listened to the conversation on the table. It was on politics. I am not sure if anyone has bothered to study it, but if statistics are taken on the topic of discussion on a table consisting of more than two men aged above 40 years, there is a 80% chance of the topic of discussion being politics. A few years back I would have cursed myself for being a part of this table but no longer. Since 2013 discussions on politics tend to be more thrilling than a James Bond movie. 

Let me spend a few lines explaining the previous sentence. Many human beings believe that they are unique. This is true when one looks at an individual as a whole but when we start dissecting the individual based on his or her thoughts and beliefs one finds that the individual can be comfortably placed in one category or the other. For example, when one considers human being within the purview of religion, they can be placed in one of the following categories.

1. My god exists
2. Sometimes, my god exists
3. All gods exist
4. God? What god?

Human beings can be diced and sliced to many such categories. With time, some of these categories become irrelevant. For example, the categorization based on horse riding or sword fighting or use of pagers have become irrelevant. On the other hand, newer categories are constantly created. For example, twelve or thirteen years ago, categories appeared based on people's preference for mobile phones. At that time, based on this criteria, the following three categories of humans existed.

1. Nokia allade vera onnineyum Nokkarude or Nokia users.
2. Blackberry is berry berry good or Blackberry users.
3. The smartphone is smart enough for me or smartphone users.

Today, the categories have changed. The whole Nokia and Blackberry categories have reduced to such levels that dictionaries are considering adding the word 'micrority', which mean much lesser than minority. As of 2021, the following categories of mobile phone users exist on the planet.

1. 'i' am beautiful or iPhone users
2. An 'i' for an 'i' makes the world phone-y or Android user.

So the categorization of humans is dynamic. 

In 2014, a new set of categories emerged among Indians. At that time, the categories and their definitions were not clear but by 2019, the categories became clear.

1. Intellectuals - "Don't Modi-fy India"
2. Patriots - "Let us Modi-fy India"

Of course, there exists a 'micrority' of Indians who are neither patriots nor intellectuals but their existence is usually not taken into consideration. 

One of the fellow occupants of the table belonged to the second category, patriots. The other, being a Bengali, hated Mamta Banerjee, which automatically meant, he was a patriot. The patriot spoke vehemently on the strong possibility of the BJP winning the elections in Bengal and the Mamata hater spoke vehemently on the possibility of Mamta losing the same elections in Bengal. While the former talked about the positives of BJP, the latter spoke about Mamta's negatives. It was interesting to see how both were talking about the same consequence, but they were taking different routes to get there.

It was ironic that despite the display of confidence from both sides, Mamta won the elections comfortably.

The Vowel Series - 'O'

He seemed livid as he stormed out of the meeting room. He blocked my path and shouted menacingly "They made us work on the day of our important festival and now, they are declaring a holiday for this unimportant festival". I tried to calm him down by explaining "there was a government order for this festival and the management had no choice but to declare a holiday". He was not in a mood to listen and continued to shout "There was a government order for that day too. I was published in all the newspaper". I continued patiently "In this case, the order was sent directly to the head of the organization". He did not pay heed to my words "It was in the newspaper. All the papers had it and still it was not a holiday for us". I was losing my patience. I knew him well and was not really interested in continuing the conversation. I decided to give one final shot at making him understand. I said firmly "this one too was in the newspaper but in this case, the order was directly sent to the organization. That did not happen earlier." He did not pay heed to my words still but the annoyance in my voice reached him. He murmured something under his breath and walked away.

The next afternoon, a few of us were sitting in our workspaces and were involved in a post lunch conversation. A colleague was describing his plans for the Onam day "All at home have plans for Onam and since our holiday was only declared yesterday, I get to spend a peaceful day alone at home". Before I could respond, the one who was appalled by the declaration of holiday for Onam, the previous day barged into our midst shouting "They won't give a holiday to celebrate the birthday of our beloved god, but they are declaring holiday for the remembrance of an evil daitya." I was annoyed at this rude interference but thought it best to be silent. My colleague protested "He was not evil. He was considered a good king". He responded indignantly "No way. His sins were washed away only when he was sent to the other world. He was evil and selfish." The colleague persisted "But wasn't he considered to be benevolent and kind". "Nonsense" came the response. "He was only kind during the yagna. He wanted wrest control from Indira and that was the only reason for his kindness. The gods came together to stop that evil daitya to take control over swargam. He had to be stopped and that is why Mahavishnu descended to the earth. He was a daitya afterall." Though I had heard the word daitya I did not know its meaning. I asked him the meaning of the word and he said "Daityas are lazy fellows. They are evil. They are not like Asuras who are also considered to be Brahmins." By this time, his mobile phone rang, and he left from our midst. We felt relief flowing through us. We looked at each other and smiled.