Musings on a blogless week

The last week of this year could best be described for me as a blogless week as I had not written anything of note during this period.  By now those who glance (not necessarily read) through my blogs know me to be an inveterate blogger, blogging @ a blog a week. I am often criticized roundly at home for using up net tonnage by writing four blogs a month and this is followed by a homily that I waste my time blogging that no one has either the time or the inclination to read.( I dare not ask what other thing I can waste my time on!) Why then blog, you may ask. I will tell you later.

 First let me confide that I write because I like to escape the inevitable boredom of the evening years of my life.  Except for the daily routine of moving aimlessly from one room to another-what Oliver Goldsmith describes in The Vicar of Wakefield as “moving from the blue bed to the brown” and showing off a pretentious reading of newspapers and books that have esoteric titles (to prove that in keeping with my age I follow the geriatric standards of simple living and high thinking), there is no challenging task for me these days, demanding my focused attention.  It is only  the creeping fear of cognitive decline that drives me to thumb the keyboard on the laptop to give me the illusory comfort and security that my brain is not inactive and I do not have to fear that time when I would be mindlessly rocking on a chair for people to whisper

Thou hast nor youth nor age

But as it were an after dinner sleep

Dreaming of both (with)

Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.

The fingering on the keyboard is very much like pinching oneself to know if one is awake or dreaming. My father used to give us diaries on the first of January to record for posterity our life’s little moments ( in expectation of his children becoming  celebrities at some point of time)  for a later day Boswell to access them and  write our biography- or make a Bollywood biopic which happens to be the contemporary trend. With great enthusiasm year after year  we would take our diary  to our desks,  open  and inhale the smell of the freshly printed copy,  write down our names, address, telephone numbers etc on the opening page (as copy-paste technology was not available to transfer the same details ritually and annually to new diaries). Turning over to the next page, indexing the date January 1, we would sit and stare at the page fidgeting with the pen, opening and closing it , not knowing what and how to record a drab, dull and eventless day that was like any other day. The keyboard exercise of today takes me back to my childhood days of diary scribbling what can best be described as voice of inanity and silence. My blog like my diary writing has also been much ado about nothing.  But I have to write for the reason given above as a bulwark against the onset of Alzheimer. I have also clung on to the irrational, though comforting belief that the fingering on the keyboard would be a safeguard against Parkinson’s disease. Hence the constant thumping as a prophylactic measure against the inevitable mental, physical and neurological decline that progresses with age.

Now to the question as to why should I blog and not simply write? The answer is simple. All the words I write remains forever entrenched on my desktop as there are no takers from newspaper publishers– not even from the small time editors of the local, residential colony newsletters. My effort, it seems has been merely one of transferring the words in my mind on to the desktop. The humiliation of not seeing my words outside my laptop often made me feel like a worm, slighted, unnoticed and ignored.  All the articles I sent got incarcerated within the editor’s computer, while I waited for days and sometimes weeks for my name to appear in print. As the saying goes “even a worm will turn” the little worm that I am, my patience gave way and I was that I was unfairly denied some small degree of ego boosting. Never one to aspire for Nobel or Literary awards, I longed for some little, miniscule recognition. Gradually wisdom dawned on me that I am not destined for byline fame. I decided to send mail attachments of my vintage magnum opus to my friends and relatives. Every day I would open my mail with excitement to receive a comment or a response-it didn’t matter to me if they were laudatory or critical so long as they confirmed that my piece had been read. Again I drew blank except for an occasional polite (and grudging) appreciation (only my elder brother with his genetic sibling compassion for his hapless younger sister has been an exception). Like Prufrock I started questioning “Do I dare? Do I dare? Disturb the universe?” and hence I withdrew from my attempts to attach myself to my family and friends circle. I took to blogging only because the pageviews recorded by the blog stats were indicative of at least a few readers.

But of late I have stopped blogging. I have been overcome with ennui resulting not so much from lack of excitement as from a realization that “there is nothing to express, nothing from which to express, nothing with which to express “. Looking around at the turn of political, social and intellectual happenings here and elsewhere, they all hammer into me the reality of a generational change and divide between my perception and that of the new age men and women. I am once again reminded of the Prufrockian confession “I grow old, I grow old” and I dare not disturb the universe with my bewilderment and limited understanding of what is happening around me.

For example, I am an ignoramus about emerging technologies, specially the information systems. The 2G, 3G, 4G systems that young people nonchalantly talk about reveal the vacuity in my head regarding mobile communication. I feel like Alice in wonderland in a consumer electronics store as I do not know what  an Android phone is, what is GB, GSM, MP, What’s APP etc as the girl in the shop reels off the data asking me to choose. It is the same story with computers, laptops, I pads and I phones. Embarrassed and red-faced, I tell the shop assistant that I will return after mulling over the different brands and slink home quietly to be content with my basic Nokia 2G.

So am I unfamiliar with the modern lingo- both in English and Hindi and wonder when stand-up comedians make people hysterical. I now find that to seek modesty in women is to be prudish and ancient and it is wiser to enjoy the beautiful and semi nude exposure of women standing, sitting or reclining alongside suited- booted fully clothed men if one wants to be counted among the  liberated women. Like the Star TV ad it has to be Naye Soch for Purane Women. (new thoughts for ancient women).

I had in my younger days  prided on being modern in my outlook, advocating freedom of thought and expression, freedom to live as one wishes to without being fettered, freedom to wear as one likes, freedom to do without being disciplined but in everything one drew a lakshman rekha- this far and no farther. But now freedom has assumed greater overtones of simply being a non-conformist and a rebel against all forms of discipline. “I know I know it all” is the modern mantra. The more the modern Generation (X,Y or Z)strut about with an omniscient look, I recede into my  hole of ignorance.  This ia selfie-centric age as opposed to what we had been taught namely to view narcissism as a personality disorder. The new age defines knowledge as a  mix of skills and personality development with academics receding into the background, while the post independence generation that I belong to laid great emphasis only on studies. I have always been shy of socializing as that was never a part of my education and upbringing. Thus I feel a loner wholly out of place when it comes to a party, where one has to indulge in small talk. Our ancient training in socially acceptable behavior- no loud talking, no roaring laughter, no overt expressions of one’s feelings etc is at odds with the modern life of gay abandon, unrestricted by prescriptive codes of conduct. I withdraw into my shelter of silence as my vocal chords, possibly due to unused, refuse to raise the pitch and share the loud laughter with others.   Thus the dilemma as to what I can write/blog on the social front without being misunderstood as the ramblings of an antediluvian mind.

As for politics it is pure dramebazz- theatricality all through. This started a few months before the last elections and it continues unabated. The ruling party with a massive majority had played drama to the hilt promising the moon to the voters which have turned out to be empty promises as they are yet to be redeemed.  The slogan “Maximum governance, minimum government” is  on the reverse.  Prices have not come down at the consumers level (no decline in the CPI) while the ruling party flaunts WPI as being on the wane. A continuous theatre is enacted in the Parliament between the Opposition(Congress) and the ruling party(BPJ). The opposition of yesterday stalled the Parliament and today’s opposition does the same in retaliation. Winning an election depends on the power to destabilize the ruling government even if this means putting spokes in the wheel of development. The Congress has no alternative plan to offer while the ruling BJP without acknowledging continues the earlier plan of Congress except for a change in the nomenclature of the schemes. One is startled to listen to the bitter and acrimonious exchanges between the two national parties on issues that do not move forward the nation’s development agenda. Love Jihadi, Beef ban, Ram Mandir, Ghar wapsi,  dethronement and replacement of icons  and bitter attack of all erstwhile leaders of the Congress are met by suit-boot sarkar, awards wapsi,  rejection  of reform proposals by the ruling government even if they are nothing but an unacknowledged endorsement of the earlier government) and stalling the Parliament for issues that have no bearing on vital problems besetting the nation. The Parliament has come to resemble the Theatre of the Absurd where nothing is expressed, nothing is transacted nothing is passed except empty words of charge and counter charge, thereby revealing the bankruptcy of ideas   Lok Sabha seats has nothing to offer while the BJP has no strategy to implement their poll promises. The BJP sneers at the Congress for making it inherit all the ills and misfortunes (forgetting that it had come to power to wipe the slate clean) while the Congress heckles the BJP for not fulfilling its promises. The Congress,  the main opposition should have functioned as a shadow cabinet and come out with a blueprint to move the nation forward beyond shallowness, superficiality and vacuity.  The present trend is to punch with arrogance and indulge in verbal duel to score who shouts the loudest. The Media thriving on sensational stories devote most of their prime time about  celebrity crimes besides acting as a judge and prosecutor of all those whose corruption cases have still to reach the court doors. Politics has become murky and the media murkier and we have shown the way to the likes of  Donald Trump to follow  “no holds barred” debates with  no restraint of hitting below the belt” when the ambitious goal is  to get to the  top spot. At least in this one respect, India has been a trend setter showing how democracy can work through derailment of democracy.  The toss is between autocracy masking as democracy and democracy degenerating into puerility and immaturity. So what do I write on political issues?

 Even globally there is an attempt at destabilization of democracy by a large number of terrorist groups whose recruits are driven by mercenary gains rather than any belief or ideology. The foreign recruits to IS show how home grown terrorists wield guns over their own fellow citizens for the lucre that it fetches them. Everywhere in the name of people’s movement there is uprising and chaos and an assault on any rule of law. Though this is not a new phenomenon of the 21^st Century, the political mayhem we see today where logic, rationality, good sense humaneness are subverted for selfish gains and dominance is more terrifying. This is because non state actors have quicker access than even the State to nuclear and chemical weapons, not to speak of A 47 rifles and other deadly fire weapons. I was born during the onset of World War II and when I went to England thirty years later I learnt about the Nazi cruelty to the Jews and the devastation caused by the War which heralded the use of atomic weapons. Humanity had found itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism;  a universal war of devastation had ruined not only world economy, commerce and industry but also human bonding and relationship. But today’s lethal weapons are not just in the hands of the State; it is plenty available with everyone who desires to set score by his /her fellow being. Violence at personal, professional, national global levels besides gender violence and family violence make news in a big way. Again the same question: Where do I come in with my blogs that will make a plea for restoration of balance and peace, tolerance and humaneness, bonding and cultivation of humanity? I know for certain that there will be no takers as these values are reckoned as ancient dharmic ideals good for preaching and not for practice. With the focus shifting to consumerism, materialism and easy access to gain more money, scholarship and the emergence of new ideas have taken a backseat. In this Post-Idea age what can I write about without sounding priggish and pedantic.

Thus I find myself in a situation where my writings will at best reflect my apprehensions, fears and my helplessness. It will also highlight the generational divide, in respect of ideas thoughts, perceptions, attitudes and above all modern use of jargons.  The new age dilemma is not so much   “to read or not to read” but ‘to write or not to write”. The silence of my readers has been suggestive of their response "Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer” and hence I decided to hang my blogger boot.

 But then the question of how to occupy my time before time stops,  how to keep my brain oiled and not allow it to peter and rust, how to stem the onset of any kind of mentally debilitating illness – all these annoying worries kept cropping up. I had no answer and the fear of timelessness of time made me return to thumping and posting my blog.   So for now, it is back to blogging till such time I discover an alternative to it.