Heroes

You may not realise this from my activity on social media, but I LOVE Facebook, absolutely adore it. Most people do - they get to catch up with friends, share happenings in their own lives, get interesting info/jokes. But that's not why I love it. I don’t like catching up with friends, don’t have enough going on in my life to share and know too much to need any info.

What I love it for is that it lets me preach without having to practice. It’s so easy here. I think of some idealistic things I should be doing and post these thoughts online. And some nice people on my friends list make suitably appreciative comments. The pages here are too public for any of them to give me a piece of their mind. My conscience gets a nice massage, as does my ego. The alternative would be to go out and actually do any of those nice things, but that is so much tougher. I mean, first you take the effort to actually put those thoughts into action, think of clever ways to tell people about it without sounding like a show off, and then wait for the right people to take notice and express their appreciation. Being a laid back (literally) pompous ass is so much easier. Whoever said that thing about good guys coming last, got it right the first time.

We do try and ignore the real do-gooders, the real deal. Maybe it’s because they make us feel inadequate.  And these heroes go unsung, as real heroes deserve to. There is a guy getting beaten up regularly cos he ensures education for children of sex workers. There is a guy who got a hectare of garbage dump cleared within no time and no money. A scientist gives up millions for the patent to a revolutionary plastic mix for roads. All very admirable, but too much work. All these guys got adequately ignored. The garbage disposal technique was ignored in favour of a garbage camouflaging technique that cost 5 times as much, while leaving the environment as damaged as ever. The scientist has got few takers for the long lasting, environment saving roads. Just imagine if these guys got to be famous, where would it leave honest, hardworking mediocre people like us? What would WE have to do for an iota of admiration?

But every society needs its heroes, so we go out and celebrate mediocrity, people who make us feel as if we cud have made it too. It’s always easier to see 'My kind of a guy' standing at the podium, rather than someone I never was. The first example that comes to mind is, and may the Gods forgive me for this trespass, Sachin. Great player, great human being, but Bharat Ratna? I mean all the people I mentioned above are doing whatever they are with only one desire - the greater good. Sachin does what he does for his own passion, and the money doesn’t hurt either. Can you imagine Tiger Woods getting the Amreeka Ratna, even if there were no birdies in the bushes? In this materialistic world, with zar, joru and zameen (wealth, women and property) being the basis of all transactions, financial gain (or the lack thereof) remains the only yardstick by which the nobility of intent is measured. But such minor details can’t stand in the way of creating heroes for our society, while giving the real heroes the anonymity they deserve.

I know, these statements can backfire on me. So many of my colleagues have been commended/rewarded for bailing out from a burning aircraft. It can be argued that the pilot did so only to save his own life. Of course, ordinary, folk can’t be expected to appreciate the professional knowledge, analytical skills, split second timing and courage such a decision involves. So we add a line or two about how he 'ignored grave personal risk in steering the stricken plane away from a populated area'. And when anyone does display any of the aforementioned skills in landing back a stricken jet, he has pretty good chances of enjoying relative anonymity.  A guy stepping out of a jet on the tarmac is so much easier to ignore than a guy descending from the heavens, leaving a wrecked jet in his trail.

No, I don’t grudge the Bharat Ratna, or the other awards. We all need heroes, heroes we can relate to. And the awardees are not totally undeserving. It’s just that there are other more deserving candidates. And when we overlook a more deserving candidate, the awardees- even deserving ones- appear unworthy. We may not be on the jury, but aren't we condoning the selection by celebrating these very selections?

I, for one, am not. I am just acutely aware of the greatness of the unsung heroes, of the insignificance, nay the absence, of any contribution from my side to society as such. I can’t be like them. And as I like to say, if u can’t join them, beat them.

Midlife Crisis

Dec 1997.

I was riding my Yezdi through a heavy winter rain from Delhi to Patiala. I had been discharged from R&R hospital, Delhi for 4 weeks sick leave after treatment for Hepatitis and Renal Calculus (Jaundice and kidney stone respectively, in common parlance). The doctor had recommended some diet restrictions, but there was nothing said about long distance bike rides.  

I was on a shiny, powerful new bike that invited appreciative glances on normal days (and in Punjab, a question – Boolt kyon nee lai?). I was on the way to a long awaited rendezvous. The wide open (single lane) highway was mostly devoid of traffic. My jacket kept the wet and the cold away (mostly).

Yet, the rain made me miserable. I just couldn’t wait to get out of it. I wished I had a car. I thought of stopping at the Liberty factory en-route, but the biker’s pride wouldn’t permit me to ask for shelter. So, I soldiered on, pushing the bike as hard as I could without risking a skid on the slippery tar.

On reaching home, I jumped out of the wet clothes (into dry ones) and under a quilt, while being served hot tea and a hotter tongue lashing by my parents. But I was so grateful to be off the bike, and out of the rain.

Jul 2014.

I was riding my Yezdi through a torrential downpour from Gurgaon to Dwarka. The water seeped through the tee and the jeans. I was sure the cell phone in my hip pocket wasn’t totally shielded from the rain. I was surrounded by 8 lanes of snarling, honking, impatient-to-get home Delhi traffic. The trusty old Yezdi hadn’t aged much, but the years of disuse had made the clutch a bit sticky, and it required some deft handling on my part. What a Yezdi always needs more than maintenance, petrol or oil, is deft handling.

And yet, I wasn’t missing my car. I didn’t regret the decision to ride the bike to college. And I realised that the people smiling at me were responding to the stupid grin stuck on my face. I think I was singing, or trying to sing something like “Raindrops keep falling on my head/helmet”. On reaching home, I didn’t jump out of, or under, anything. I stood dripping water in the garage, wiping my Yezdi dry. Couldn’t leave the chromed beauty to gather rust, could I. Then I flipped out my cell phone for a wet selfie, but the phone was too wet for the selfie. Sauntered upstairs, threw the phone in a bag of rice, and got thinking.

“So, this is what they call mid-life crisis?!!!”

Midlife - A natural stage that happens to many of us at some point, usually at about age 40, give or take 20 years. (Psychology Today)

Crisis - a difficult or dangerous situation that needs serious attention. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

Midlife Crisis - Midlife crisis is a term coined in 1965 by Elliott Jaques stating a time where adults come to realize their own mortality and how much time is left in their life. (Wikipedia)

In my case, yes, I just turned 41. So, I will accept the term midlife being applied to me. But I see nothing dangerous or demanding attention in my case. I do not think of my mortality, or of the time left in my life. The only time I think of is that left for me to complete this college course and get on with my life. I therefore refuse to accept any such crisis in my life.

The crisis theory, in my esteemed opinion, is just another theory floated to keep mankind (read male kind) in check, like the theories about heaven and hell. The benevolent patriarchs who were trying to frame rules at the beginning of civilisation just didn’t have enough logic to support their rules, and so they threw in the fire and brimstone to scare the living daylights, and all the fun, out of our lives. A progressive society needs workers, loads of obedient workers. And these workers need to be kept in check by too few of these wise men.

What most of us achieve at this so called midlife, is experience. We have had our share of our little rebellions. We have discovered our limits, and toed the line for almost half of our lives. In short, we have been there, done that. We know how much to care about the opinions of others. And we know where our own lives figure in our list of priorities.

This is where the machines send in the Agents. Neo has taken the blue pill, and it is now time for Mr Smith to enter the scene.  No scary sentinels here, just the bogey of the Midlife Crisis.

At 40, this is called the midlife crisis. 20 years earlier, it would be even worse, arrested development. 20 years later, it would be much more acceptable, such a lively old man.

It is such a devious ploy. First, they groom us to believe emotions are not for men. They teach us to take pride in keeping a clear head. And when we finally clear up our heads, they make us doubt our own sanity, and gain control of our thoughts and actions. Maybe this is why Khalil Gibran said “I have found both freedom and safety in my madness”¹.

So, do I not believe in this concept of midlife crisis? Sure I do. But for me crisis is ‘an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person's life’. And this change is the experience and understanding we gain in these 4 odd decades.

So go on, enjoy this so called crisis, revel in this significant and radical change. And do not let labels define you.

P.S. For those of you who are still sceptical about my disclosure, I have another theory. Maybe it’s just the proximity of my beloved Yezdi that makes me feel young again. Maybe, I have found my fountain of youth. The bike is to me what his picture is to Dorian Gray.

Or maybe, just maybe, I AM having a midlife crisis.

¹ – Geeta Josie Khanna, thanks for sharing the quote by Khalil Gibran. I never read all this stuff on my own.