Pappa and me

                                                                                                                            

Living away from home in some fancy metropolitan city can have its share of promises and disappointments but most evident in this experience is the universal phenomenon of citing allowance requirements at the beginning of the month. Well, if you are a student or a struggling writer- director- actor- scientist- humanitarian- freedom fighter- barber.

This phenomenon is best related to a sort of timeline whereby your relationship with your dad changes with the number of days closing in on payday.  Since I’ll be providing my own views w.r.t. the subject matter you could choose to ignore the incongruities and make a nice little chart for yourself. The idea behind this exercise is to ascertain what you consider your dad to be from the folllowing:

1)     1)   An A.T.M.

2)     2)   An A.T.M. and idiot.

3)     3)   An A.T.M. and friend.

4)     4)   An A.T.M.  and inarticulate detective- of- sorts (if you’re a daughter).

5)      5)  A reluctant A.T.M. and mentor.

6)     6)    A mentor. ( I don’t believe you)

1^st   2^nd 3^rd 4^th or 5^th day of month

You call you father and

1)      1) Tell him directly that it’s payday.

2)      2) Tell him you love him and that it’s payday.

3)      3) Tell him you’re sorry for last month’s expenses and some more and that it’s payday.

4)      4)  He asks you about what you did last night.

5)      5) Tell him that it’s payday and listen for a while about how consumerism is the enemy.

6)      6) Tell him you love him. ( I don’t believe you)

6^th 7^th 8^th 9^th 10^th day of month

He calls you and

1)      1)   You don’t pick up.

2)      2)   You don’t pick up.

3)      3)   You pick up and tell him about how you couldn’t wake up for class ad if he could wake you up tomorrow.

4)      4)   Asks you about your friends w ho you mention are all girls and he tries to ask if you still don’t have any boyfriend.

5)      5)   Tells you how advertising is the enemy.

6)      6)   You tell him about how you are so close to finding a formula for eradicating poverty. ( see that’s why I do NOT believe you)

11^th - 20^th days of the month

He calls you and

1)      1)  You tell him you’re going for a trip to Goa and so it’s time for that travel allowance.

2)      2)  You tell him you love him and that the educational trip this month is to Goa so you need money.

3)      3)  You chat about the dog and how your college professors are incompetent idiots.

4)      4)   He tries to ask you if it’s safe outside at night and you tell him you wouldn’t know.

5)      5)  Tells you how the middle class suffers under the burden of capitalism.

6)      6)   I don’t care.

20^th -25^th days of the month

He calls you and

1)      1)  You tell him there are sales in Zara and its perfect time to use the credit card cashback schemes.

2)      2)   You tell him someone stole a suitcase filled with your clothes while you were washing dishes and so you         need money to buy a camera to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

3)      3)  You chat about the dog and you ask him if he can send some money since there’s sale going on.

4)      4)  You dodge questions barely managing to ask him if he could send some money since there’s sale going on.

5)      5)  You decide not to mention the sale.

25^th – 30^th the month is ending!!

You call him and

1)      1)   Tell him you’re broke.

2)      2)   Tell him how much you miss him all the time and that you are broke.

3)      3)    Tell him you are short on attendance so he has to hide the letter from college so that mom doesn’t see it.

4)      4)   Tell him you are a lesbian just to fuck with his head.

5)      5)   Tell him to read Ayn Rand.

I’ m pretty sure -if you aren’t a complete idiot that is- you’ve figured out exactly what you consider  your dad to be. Don’t get me wrong- I completely believe in the relationship a child shares with their father to be full of love and fond memories but it is one of a long duration. Complacency and convenient arrangements are always more realistic in the long way.  And don’t forget the argument for altruism- personally  I don’t fancy old age homes much.

schadenfreude

No I am not exactly fond of largely misunderstood words or worse, obscure words… I just realized why I never read newspapers and therefore I decided to write this entry. Do you realize why yellow journalism arrived? It’s simple really– there was a demand for it. People relied on the cable t.v. to wash over their hapless existence in a largely consumerist world, people then saw some people reaching those heights– Their homes and their world became our Elysian fields. What did participation in capitalism guarantee? A beautiful home, well educated meritocratic friends, a host of likeable hobbies, a short marriage but more importantly a dull rage aimed at those Elysian heroes. Do you think you are exempted from this behavior– most likely not! When you read your morning newspaper do people interest pieces draw your attention along with the usual slew of murders, government budget shortcomings and industrial scams– do you like to flip through the Delhi times? Soon this habit becomes more than curiosity and you become an avid reader of gossip articles (well if you don’t I congratulate you sincerely but I suppose you don’t go to the movies either) and well a sort of semi celebrity stalker. I do it in a modest capacity simply because I chose to completely forgo of the newspaper in its entirety. It isn’t exactly an achievement since my unlimited internet connection necessitates virtual stalking opportunities every time I log in and well I am guilty of the charge. People follow celebrities and their lives, become their biggest fans and for what? Well among other reasons there is the phenomenon of schadenfreude. It is that feeling that we indulge in when we take pleasure in someone else’s pain; it is almost subconsciously driven. It is only appropriate that the Germans invented the word and they did! Schadenfreude isn’t a terrible phenomenon in the sense that you do not glom onto others’ misfortunes but that it perversely fuels the oxytocin hormone which provides pleasant reception. The perfect example is a person’s reaction to pathos– listening to Beethoven or reading Romeo and Juliet or watching Titanic… after the initial tears there is an overwhelming intensity that fills any person which is pleasant. That is schadenfreude at work. Now what do newspapers have in common with this word? Celebrities and their misfortunes either through a break up or court cases found on the infamous page 3! I figured out that we engage in schadenfreude most frequently with regard to celebrities mainly because they are those Elysian heroes we fear, envy, despise and need. They are that dream every middle class family, every slumlord, every barber ascribe to– they fill that neat hole in a life made comfortable with machinations but missing meaning. Do I really care that this is absolutely belittling?

                                                                                                                           

dejavu

Did this word sound magical to you?
Mysterious much?
It did to me before I looked it up in Google. Now I know it’s just an undesirable electrical discharge from our brain. There are several explanations as to why this phenomenon occurs- leave it to us Homo sapiens to find reason- and all of them concur on it being SOME sort of mental anomaly purely related to our bodily functions. I have had several experiences of déjà vu and each time, the uncanny nature of it has propelled me towards a sort of hope. This hope springs from the disappointment of my ephemeral lack of faith in the mystic. This condition is disturbing since it manifests itself in oscillating periods of supernatural strength and alternately despair and a deep dark festering sore( add as many more synonyms as you can) of cynicism. Every time I experienced déjà vu, my companions and I felt a mutual tug of hope, a surrender of rationality, a transient hope- at least I like to think that-that maybe there is something more to our existence than science that perpetuates a comfort; something mysterious and something more beautiful than the sky; a collection of consciousness, the possibility of afterlife. The possibility of heaven. I just found the roots of the word déjà vu and am once again thwarted in my quest of finding meaning. I would like to believe that déjà vu means divine intervention or the hidden path BUT just as I know today that Jesus was an extraordinarily great man and not THE only son of god, déjà-vu means already seen. This is especially annoying to my sensibility since I liken already seen as the typical condescending attitude we Homo sapiens would hold up to any word of mystical dimensions by withholding the right of any mysticism to its credit. Giving it the garb of the most scientific and simple word doesn’t however take anything away from its mysticism. My only consolations to the Frenchwoman who can never confuse déjà vu with mysticism; to the rest of us déjà vu still holds a special place. Today I hope to find an unexplainable coincidence which I would call a miracle. What do you hold dear? Your life and its comfort or its meaning?

Today I choose sentimentality