As a child, I was fascinated by the term 'who's who' -- "the who's who of Bombay was there", "oh, he just married her to get into the who's who".
As a child, I was fascinated by the term 'who's who' -- "the who's who of Bombay was there", "oh, he just married her to get into the who's who". Clearly Who's Who was not a simple Facebook-type directory, but seemed to carry magical properties that made somebody, as opposed to nobody, and I often wondered what that magic was about.u00a0
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Illustration/ Jishu Dev Malakar
In the Who's Who of Mantralaya as a paper reported recently, that magic was something of a vanishing trick, going by the list of nothings proffered by our MLAs as their hobbies. Some of these were phone chats with friends, wearing clean, white and simple dress, minute observations of anything (like silverfish in government files?) and giving speeches.
So, now it's all blindingly clear -- the ugly government buildings, the desire to replace black and yellow taxis with beige and pink ones, the vandalism of books and things of beauty on the basis of prejudice, and oh, identity politics (you know, who's who as also, who's who they are). I declare that it also explains, finally, why everyone speaks so loudly in our TV soaps and moves, not to mention the technicolour garnish on Udipi veg biryanis.
First of all, in Indian social culture, speech giving is not a hobby boss. It's a tradition. Indians, especially men, are speechifiers. How often has your older male relative, teacher or colleague responded with a declamation on sanskruti, irrelevant philosophical parable, list of achievements (keeping subordinates in line and "showing people") or epic description of the golden past, instead of an answer to a question?
How many times has someone recited the contents of Competition and Success Times when you've asked for their opinion? And how many people whom you know say not "I think" but rather, "one thinks" as if their personal feelings and opinions are a general, unquestionable standard they can handily disclaim when needed (eg, one did not inhale)?
This lack of hobbies -- a lack of interests outside the eventually narrow orbit of one's mundane life no matter how significant one's occupation -- is an inability to wrest a sense of self away from public identity, to step outside the power equation and so, challenge it. It's as if we fear that trying something new or following our curiosity is a conspiracy to steal our power by distracting us (like that scarlet Menaka with the sage Vishwamitra).
We're unwilling to become absorbed in something just for fun and so accept that fun and pleasure are important needs -- and consequently unwilling to accept or encourage it in others. Everything we do must reconfirm our status, show the world who's who.u00a0
We'd rather vote for the mediocre dancing pair from our region than celebrate the skill of someone else. Individual excellence terrorises us and we have an unwritten Homeland Security Act to crush it -- use pomposity to smother all human playfulness, trivialise all serious things with hot air.
It's as if we do not value creativity or even plain skill but prefer the feudal pomp of assigned status and the status quo of being in the herd. There's no great humility involved in this self effacement.
If you are constantly involved in asserting your status, when will you take your mind off yourself and think of something or someone else? How will you produce work or promote ideas that are new? Stop preferring boredom over the risk of something unproven? Instead everything must be reduced to the size and texture of your anxious ego.
I'm not sure we should feel so chuffed when we say we are like this only. Paromita Vohra is an award-
winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction.
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.
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