Every post of mine is like a
Jugal Hansraj movie. So sporadic that everytime I come back, it’s a comeback. Understandably,
a lot of water has passed under the bridge since I last wrote. We still had a PM
who had more hair on his head than on his face, Karunanithi and Mayawati were
thinking which portfolios they would get in the new cabinet, the defence minister
and finance minister were two different people (so were the PM and the Gujarat
CM) , Bihar still had a chief minister whose name you didn’t have to Google, Sr.
Yadav was the most embarrassing CM UP had ever had, West Bengal divisions of
Asian Paints and Akzonobel still had White and Blue colours in stock, thirteen
IIMs and sixteen IITs were considered aplenty, train was still the cheapest
means to reach Kochi from Bangalore, Iraq had only one notable militia: its
government, the most gruesome death in Game of Thrones was Ned Stark’s, the two
kids in HIMYM didn’t know who their mother was, Sri Lanka didn’t know how to
win tournament finals, Mayanti Langer had the best figures in the Binny family,
Netherlands was supposed to be van Gaal’s toughest assignment, so many on
Twitter had Spanish Flags and Federer as their DPs and you finally thought you
had seen the end of Sreesanth on TV.
But things change, don’t they? We
live in a world in transition. So much so that every voter demands change,
every politician promises change and every government delivers change: a change
of personnel. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this constant craving for change is
what sets us apart from other species. From the average voter to the subziwallah, everybody wants change.
When we had very big computers and phones, we wanted small ones. When we
finally got small ones, we then wanted big ones. I am sure the sine wave was
discovered as a result of curious change-seeking scientists trying to plot a
graph of the average screen size of electronic devices on the y-axis and time
on the x-axis. Even within electronics, the change is not restricted to screen
sizes alone. Remember the good old CRT screen days? That was the era of the
Thomsons, BPLs, AIWAs, AKAIs, SANSUIs and ONIDAs; the era of curvilicios
televisions. But then could we settle for something that had lasted for so long
without suggesting alterations? Hell no! So we invented flat television.
Scarlett Johansson gave way to Kiera Knightley. And just when you thought flat
television was here to stay, Samsung is now trying to sell curved TVs.
I am sure, somewhere in her
Malibu penthouse, Scarlett just winked.
The need to change isn’t restricted
to the accessories we use. The rot runs much, much deeper. While travelling,
those with confirmed seats in AC bogies want to peek out of the compartment
doors while ticketless travellers want to rest their butts on air-conditioned
seats. Those on the upper birth want erect postures while sitting while those
with lower births want the no-nonsense comfort of the upper birth. In flights,
those who chose the window seats now want the leg space of the aisle and those
who opted for the leg space now find the scenery ever so attractive. The poor
fellow on the middle birth always wants change.
People who owned two wheelers now
want four wheelers while those who owned four wheelers now think four are two
wheels too many. Women are proud of well toned bodies while certain men flaunt
their 56-inch chests.
Prime Ministers are becoming
Presidents and Presidents becoming Prime Ministers. Batsmen are turning their
arms over and bowlers are flexing the willow. Off-spinners are bowling doosras and leggies bowling googlies. Fast-bowlers are bowling
slower ones and spinners bowling arm-balls. Strikers are finding the midfield
more challenging with the midfielders becoming more attacking. The lunatic is
adding method to his madness while the methodical is throwing caution to the
wind.
Clearly, such changes aren’t
limited to our lives alone. They have had an irreparable and indelible impact on
art and literature as well. While it has helped in coining of new terms such as
anti-incumbency, at the same time, it
has made redundant others such as status
quo. It has made immortal lines such as ‘the times they are a changing’
while made others such as ‘change is constant’ paradoxical, because truly
speaking, nothing is. Remember Calculus from High-School? Wonder if teachers
still deduct marks for skipping the constant you needed to add after Integration.
With the Left looking Right and the
Right looking further Right; the East looking West and West looking East, at
least we’re all headed in the same direction. South.
