2020 and Beyond: Bad Years and Worse Ones

 

Pic courtesy of PTI and TNIE

The demise of 2020 was boisterously celebrated across the world, with reckless disregard for social distancing. After all, it is now almost universally acknowledged that annus horribilis does not begin to describe the sheer awfulness of the year gone by. The coronavirus has laid waste to global health and economy. Worse, there seems to be no respite from social evils as hardened criminals continue to do their thing, the undeserving continue to enrich themselves and the powerful ride roughshod over the poor and weak, the way they always have and no doubt, always will.

Yet, an overwhelming majority had such high hopes for 2021. Almost as if they were certain that an army of fairy Godmothers were hard at work, zooming across the length and breadth of the planet, wielding their wands with superheroic élan, sprinkling pixie dust on the problem areas that seemed to be erupting and suppurating every which way, while their elven helpers sat over a billion, bubbling cauldrons filled to the brim with magical potions designed to rejuvenate and renew all things rotten and ruined. Needless to say there can be but one outcome when such unreasonable expectations are allowed to skyrocket – disappointment. With a side of depression and desolation.

The year has barely begun and already it seems to be doing little more than regurgitating the contents of the toilet bowl that was 2020 with explosions of noxious nastiness. Vaccines are being rolled out but people don’t seem keen on being jabbed. Large scale protests against the establishment are escalating and the system strikes back by imprisoning protestors young and old, while clamping down on freedom of speech. Elsewhere, hunky dory isn’t the term being used to describe the prevailing state of affairs as the exit of an orange – headed menace led to massive upheavals violently staged by his rabid followers. Meanwhile, those nations worst affected by the pandemic continue to battle it with indifferent success often trampling on fundamental rights in the name of the greater good. Seldom before has the great majority of the human populace worn such a collectively grumpy mien or been this uncooperative and intransigent.

To make matters worse, the Nobel UN agency has warned that we can expect things to get steadily worse this year, since famines of terrifying proportions are expected and the funds needed to tackle the impending catastrophe are fast dwindling. None of this is heartening. But the good news is that it can’t be all be bad news. Now that we have removed the jinx on 2021 by refusing to set ourselves up for disappointment we can steady ourselves with the knowledge that there will be precious moments of hope and happiness to tide us over this year as well. And the crappy ones ahead.

Leave them Kids Alone!

 

It was never easy being a kid but this is a particularly frightful time to be one. Schools remain shut as the pandemic has forced the enforcement of safety measures with varying levels of strictness. Which means children are losing out on those precious hours when they can have their parents out of their hair, catch up with friends and get up to all kinds of mischief while the teacher is droning on about all the things they need to memorize if they hope to become a Doctor or Engineer. They are also missing out on all those tedious extra classes their parents had signed them up for in the hope that their precious offspring will become an Olympic gold medalist, Noble laureate, or at the very least one of those geeky types who make a gazillion bucks by inventing apps, gadgets and all those techie thingamajigs.

Now they have online classes where they keep their eyes glued to a screen, pretending to pay attention to flustered teachers who have yet to master the demands of the new medium, fudging notes, casually cheating on tests while diligently catching up with buddies and cousins on Hangouts arguing about whose parents are more annoying or engaging in heated debates regarding the awesomeness of One Direction Vs BTS. When they have a little down time, they are expected to help with household chores and they can’t afford to slack off since their mommies have sworn to cook their handheld devices in the microwave the next time there is a dirty dish in the sink, chocolate milk stains under the table, or laundry items that have not been folded and put away.

And then there are those coding classes which are all the rage thanks to Madhuri Dixit’s white smile and convincing spiel about how coding is invaluable towards helping youngsters enhance their logical faculties, math skills, creativity and of course, the possibility of becoming the next generation’s Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. The only consolation is that the older kids have it worse. The ones who have to clear the dreaded entrance exams which are tough to crack in the best of times but have become even more formidable thanks to the Covid – 19 threat and the ensuing mayhem. Or those whose parents paid exorbitant rates to get admission to fancy colleges in India or abroad only to be told that the campuses and classrooms are indefinitely closed.

With increased levels of anxiety, stress and depression being reported among children, perhaps it is of paramount importance to ease up on the pressures of our expectations regarding what we want for our youngsters and let them chart their own course in an uncertain future. After all, they are marginally less befuddled than we are.

This column was originally published in The New Indian Express.

When Paranoia met Corona

 

Even in pre – Corona days, I was a compulsive hand washer and my handbag was never without a small bottle of sanitizer. One can never be too careful. People in these parts poop, pee, and noisily spit just about anywhere. As a WFH author, I have long encouraged myself to practice social distancing and it was never difficult because I have an abhorrence of crowds and will risk wading into one only if Vijay Sethupathy/Devarokonda have released a movie. Social gatherings aren’t a big draw either unless there is coffee and cake. But since I can brew a wicked cup of coffee myself and now that my relationship with my tempestuous oven is cordial there is no reason to try and cure my tendency to be a hopeless introvert who is perfectly comfortable eschewing socializing, virtual or otherwise.

The husband who was cautious to start with seems headed towards full-blown hyper - vigilantism. He is making his own sanitizer with isopropyl alcohol and glycerine, vacuuming every inch of the house and scrubbing all available surfaces with lizol and I believe he spends his free time drawing up plans to build a sterile bubble we can step into every time we have to step out in order to rebuff germs as well as its carriers for good.

We have welcomed the newly enforced rules and regulations insisting that people wash their hands with soap and reaffirm their commitment to personal hygiene. Yet, even I can’t help but think we are going too far and it is high time we got a grip. For it is one thing to be sensibly cautious but quite another when we allow ourselves to become dangerously paranoid. There are too many news articles attesting to how we have swung towards the latter. 

These are hardly the best of times and it is okay to be scared. But when we allow unfounded fear and irrational concerns to rule over good sense, an already crappy situation becomes far crappier. It is heart-breaking to hear about doctors being pelted with stones, nurses evicted from their apartments by heartless landlords, relatives of the deceased being hounded and harassed while attempting to perform the last rites, and immigrant workers being barred entry from their villages and towns. It is sensible to want to avoid risking infection but not if it is going to cost us our humanity.

We are in this together and it is only a matter of time before we learn to live with Corona the way we do with the umpteen viruses, bacteria and thoughtless humans out there. So wash your hands, drink your coffee, eat your cake and do whatever it takes to prevent going stir crazy.

This article was published in The New Indian Express.

A Helping of Horror to Help with Corona Induced Terrors!

Sometimes, you just need to give in to the urge to scream! :) 

Before Corona, it was common enough to grouse about how there simply wasn’t enough time to do the things we really want to do. Like slow down and spend a few hours practising yoga and meditation in our eternal quest for personal wellness. Take a cooking class so we can whip up healthy, tasty and masterchef worthy dishes for family and friends. Enrol for a useful professional course to add some heft to the old resume. Read those damn classics which everyone insists we do before dying. Buy a plot of land in some rustic, rural setting where we can spend the weekends in a charming cottage growing wholesome veggies and raising livestock with the view of spending our retirement as a farmer living off the fat of a bounteous land. Connect with old friends and have long, conversations the way we used to before life got in the way. Spend quality time with the kids. Perhaps do that charitable thing we have always been meaning to for the less fortunate…

But who the hell has time for all that even during a lockdown when the days ahead unwind with way too many empty hours that we fill up with chores and Netflix. Or Amazon Prime. These OTT platforms have become humanity’s dearest companions and the time not spent plonked on a couch armed with popcorn and watching movies or shows is spent browsing through the gazillion choices provided on said platforms or whatsapping friends for recommendations.  

A lot of folks told me to watch Contagion which was supposed to have been most prescient about the current situation and others insist that ‘feel good’ films or comedy shows are the way to go. I strongly disagree and not only because I am an avowed contrarian. In addition to being seriously depressing, the former has Gwyneth Paltrow in the lead and I have been feeling extremely ill disposed towards the actor ever since she used her celeb status to hawk increasingly bizarre, so – called wellness products that make the trash peddled by our home-grown Godmen seem credible by comparison. Check out some of her brand Goop’s bestselling products – candles that smell like her vagina, Jade eggs to be inserted into the holiest of holies, pubic hair oils, psychic vampire repellent sprays to name a few! (The next time I rant about how it is imperative to judge art not the artist, be sure not to rub my aversion to Paltrow, this epitome of capitalist greed and chicanery in my face).

As for ‘feel good’ films which leave you feeling warm and gooey, the crash – landing on returning to reality can be jarring and extremely hard to take. After all no one on Modern Family, Brooklyn Nine - Nine and rom – coms starring Dulquer Salman or Katherine Heigl are cowering in their homes, frightened out of their skins by a viral outbreak. Loving these ridiculously awesome characters and laughing with them can fill us with the most intense distaste for our own lives which will seem even more bleak and dismal than it actually is, in comparison.

Which is why I recommend the horror genre. These films are designed with the honest and noble motivation of making you scream, squirm or throw up. If successful they will definitely leave you sick to the stomach, utterly grossed out and embarrassingly petrified. Horror is surprisingly potent and it feeds a vulgar human need to watch good looking youngsters be tortured and killed in unspeakable ways. My theory is that we as a race, miss the slaughter fests served up in the Coliseum not to mention the live decapitations and witch burnings famous in the middle ages.

Be that as it may, once you have seen enough characters impaled, decapitated, disemboweled, have their eyeballs skewered, or be fed on and turned into flesh – eating zombies, you will gain a proper perspective about your lot in life, far from satisfactory though it may be. You just need to tough it out right past the primal urge to run and hide under the bed, hands clamped over your mouth to stop the shrieks of terror. Then you wait for your pulse to return to normal and immediately, you are guaranteed to feel better about whatever crap is going on in your life, even if it is a lousy lockdown.

Some of my recommendations:

Cabin in the Woods: It is a surprisingly fun film given that there is blood and gore aplenty with a cynical message about the unworthiness of human beings and the pointlessness of trying to save the race. Besides it has a young and dishy Chris Hemsworth in it.

It Follows: A lot of horror films require you to check your brain at the door, and submit to the not so subtle manipulation of light and sound to make your innards curl, prompting you to jump up in your seat or cry out loud. But this David Robert Mitchell flick is seriously smart and insanely terrifying. It is either a stunningly subversive yet non - judgemental take on the terrors of sexually transmitted diseases among the young or a forceful endorsement of practising the strictest celibacy outside the confines of marriage.

Get Out: Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a gem of a film that is wickedly weird and a scathing indictment of ever present racism. It also boasts of some fantastic performances by the likes of Daniel Kaluuya, Catherine Keener, and Lil Rey Howery. Thanks to this clever masterpiece, every time, I spot a cup of tea with a silver teaspoon, I want to run for the hills! 

The Shining: Without doubt, one of the worst films ever made and a disgrace to good cinema! Jack Nicholson hammy, OTT performance remains supremely cringe – inducing. Damn you Stanley Kubrick! Do the sensible thing and read the brilliant book by Stephen King instead people!

Movies like The Quiet Place and The Conjuring have quite the fan following but I find them over – rated. The trick is to keep an open mind though. Whatever works for you! I recently watched Howl, a British indie creature feature that was passably entertaining. Anyways, trust me, turn to horror in these troubled times and thank me later.