My Friend Mohan

Mohan was always a maverick. He was my first friend when we came to Sundar Nagar, way back in 1976, from Warangal. He lived in Model Colony which was a twin colony and was my sister Nalini's good friend from Gandhi Medical, Usha Bala's younger cousin. His older brother Ramseshu was an architect and had a mysterious air of a rebel academic about him, and his older sister Asha was studying medicine at Osmania. She also hosted the western music segment one day at the AIR Yuvavani and played ABBA's 'Ring Ring' which made her a star in my eyes. 

Mohan was a bundle of energy and ideas and would frequently get into the edgier side of things. We both kept it straight between us though. He was fond of dogs and had a series of them - Jackie, a black cross bred daschund, Sultana, Caesar and some other white alsations. One of Sultana's pups was brought home by my brother Ram, and was christened Caesar, and poor fellow lived a long loveless life because we weren't really dog people.

 

Mohan and I were the founder members of our colony cricket scene. Initially there would be Sundar Nagar vs Model Colony matches - he was in Model Colony and I was in Sundar Nagar. Early on the Model Colony team figured out an impatient streak in me and got Mohan to bowl donkey drops which i would hit high in the air only to get caught at long on. We then combined forces and played against SR Nagar, Vengal Rao Nagar, ESI Hospital and so on. He fancied himself as a wicket keeper and opener. 

While me and Ram studied in All Saints High School, Mohan studied in Nrupatunga School in Kachiguda. Every evening he would land up at my house and we'd play - cricket, maram peeti, shuttle, or just roam around. He took me to the shop which would rent cycles for a buck. He also took me on an adventurous trek in the vast TB Hospital estate with Jackie which was great fun until some strays decided to attack Jackie and we beat a hasty retreat. We started a small library at his house. We'd shin up the water pipe to the terrace of our house and set up a tent there to read books. Once he tied a note to Jackie and sent it, and it was such a thrill to see that Jackie got the message over to me. Another time he tried to convince me that he saw a ghost in the well next to our house. There was never a dull moment with Mohan. He was always upto something or the other.

Once when we were still in school, my long lost cousin from the US Ratan Raj visited us and gave us some foreign clothes etc as gifts. One lovely white and red t shirt was not my style nor my colour and I knew it would suit the fair skinned Mohan better. I gifted it to him and he loved it and the next day came around wearing it. I saw him just in time and asked him to duck and make a getaway because my cousin has come visiting us again! Mohan quickly understood the situation and made himself scarce. 

Our other pals from the colony were Srinu, Shiva, KV Rao, Vijay, my brother Ram. Others who joined us for games were Ramana, Seshu, Baabji and some other kids. Mohan and I would plan all the activities be it cricket matches or cycling escapades or any such activities. We were the chief conspirators. There would be many twists in the story with Mohan around - always stuff that would get the adrenaline flowing. 

As we grew older we started going out to movies. I think we watched many movies in Gokul theatre which was the closest. He has this zany sense of humor and would imitate Kamalhasan and others which would make me laugh a lot. We would laugh a lot. Apart from watching 'Sagara Sangamam' with him, the other movie experience with him was 'Gold Finger' at Amaravathi. He took me along and when we got to the theatre we realised he didn't have money, walked some three kms to Liberty, borrowed money for the movie from his cousin Usha who was in her hostel, came back and watched the film! 

As we grew older we drifted off a bit thanks to new friends and pastimes. My cricket took off a bit, while he made a lot of friends who were on the margins of the local mafia. Maybe by Junior College he had started smoking too. He never asked me to smoke or anything ever though. I went to St Alphonsa's Junior College and he went to Babul Reddy Junior College where he would get into scraps every other day. We still met and caught up - just not as frequently. When we did, we laughed, caught up, had lots of fun. He shared my joy when i got selected for the state teams and introduced me proudly to his older friends. He figured out a way to signal to me without coming home and yelling out for me - he would pick a stone and hit the electric pole which was as discreet a signal as any - the whole colony would know he was there.

It was at the end of our Intermediate college days that Mohan and I had been to watch a first show at Gokul theatre and had returned when we saw a policeman outside our gate asking about my father. He said there had been an accident and we should go to Gandhi Hospital. I told my Mom that there has been some small accident and I'll go check. So Mohan and i went to Gandhi, searched all over, until we found Dad lying in a stretcher on the floor in a corridor, a barber preparing him for surgery by shaving his head which had severe head injuries. By this time Mom had called Dr Rama Rao who was the Superintendent of the hospital and well, Mohan stayed with me all night in that crazy rain while the surgery was being done unsuccessfully and till they told us Dad didn't make it. I had to tell Mom who was waiting in a car with Ram and my other sisters, and realised we needed to bring my youngest sister back from REC Warangal. Mohan it was, who I sent to bring her and he took the morning Krishna Express and came back by 3 with her and Chitra. We just did it without thinking. All of that day went, funeral and all, and I lost sight of Mohan in the melee and never got to thank him. But in the toughest moment of my life till then, he was there, my crazy friend.

Life went on. I joined Engineering and Mohan joined JNTU Fine Arts to study Sculpture. He made some rough friends. He started drinking, smoking, swearing. But he was always gentle, courteous and kind to me. When i came back after making my Ranji Trophy debut he invited me and my friends to his college festival, was smashed when we went there, slapped a few guys and generally created a ruckus. I figured he was just happy to be with me. But that was a minor one by his standards as I know. One time he took my friend Sanjay from Engineering College to a bar near Khairtabad and they came back pissed. 

He would go off on trips to Agra and Delhi. I still have a letter he wrote to me from Delhi or Agra, making fun of things as usual in his large, clear handwriting. When I started to do my MBA he went to MS University, Baroda for his PG. Post my MBA, in my job, I was travelling to Ahmedabad from Mumbai by train and perhaps wrote to him that I'll be passing Baroda at 1130 pm. He was there at that late hour, searching me out and also taking a short term loan of a hundred bucks! When I visited Baroda last year for the first time in my life, I visited the University and thought of Mohan.

Funnily I don't remember either of us being present at each other's marriages. But we kept in touch, bumping into each other, catching up on our lives. He got a job as an Assistant Professor at NIFT, and his house which was previously filled with friends who enjoyed a drink or a smoke was now filled with painters, sculptors, writers. His drinking grew and he had an early bout of pancreatis. 

Mohans wife Pratima was his student. A dancer, writer, an artist, an animal lover. They were made for each other. They decided not to have any children and filled their house with dogs and cats and later on expanded to other animals, reptiles, birds. I remember one lovely party we had at their house in Sena Vihar in Kukatpally. 

When Mom died, he was there. He would keep coming every now and then with an update. He was now a highly respected Professor at the NIFT and would speak with authority on art, dance, history, fashion etc. When I quit my job and said I would write he fully supported me - never once did he tell me anything that was not supportive. Ofcourse, he came for the launch of my first book and really enjoyed himself. He read it and told me he liked it. He would religiously come and buy a few books to gift to friends and family. Very proud of me was he. 

He had these phases. Once he used to have this auto guy to transport him everywhere. Then a beedi phase. Then a phase where some babas and such people would drop by at his house. He would travel all over easily - once drove off to the Himalayas, cooking food along the way. He got transferred to Delhi, Bhopal and always invited me. I would plan but never did go. It was Sreenu who told me recently that thanks to Mohan he got some exposure to art and other finer things in life. He would take him to Agra, Jaipur and so on. 

Mohan invited me to do a lecture at NIFT once. Pratima would give me some writing work to do. When Anjali was born he came home and insisted I take a wooden cradle that he had for the function. I was not very keen because it involved a lot of work, transporting it etc but he was adamant. In the end it was perfect, putting her in the cradle etc and a couple of days later I transported it back. Just one of those things.  He was very thrilled by it. 

He moved to Jubilee Hills and once we visited their house which had a whole variety of animals. Anjali was fascinated to see a tortoise and other such animals at their place. 

Mohan would read a lot. He would give me some great books. The Moon and Six Pence was one. Several others. And he would write academic stuff. He loved the films Ram made. 

Aunty passed away. We went to some place together for ashes thing and came back the same evening. He was a careful driver and for perhaps the only time in our lives he would tell me not to drive too fast or something like that. He was glad that I could make the trip with him. I was glad too. Aunty was a beautiful soul.

He came over and stayed with his father because he was alone. I would meet uncle in the park and we would talk a bit. Then Uncle was unwell and there was some issue with his will do Mohan called me over to sign as a witness. I was glad to. 

His health was always susceptible but to his credit, it bore an amazing amount of abuse. Then it started giving up. His kidneys first. Pratima was willing to donate but he was not sure if he should put her at a risk. We talked about it at one of those chai joints at KBR wondering how much life had changed. I told him to be open, God will show the way. There was some complication and the decision was made. No transplant. 

We went and met Dr Krishnan to get his advise on the kidney. And then one by one, in the past few months, his body started to give up. So much so that when i went to Delhi the last time I was scared I would not be able to meet him again. I rushed to the hospital straight from the airport, met him. He was weak. The first thing he asked was - who told you. 

I tried to meet him as often, not knowing how long he had to live. Dialysis twice a week, in and out of ICU, surgeries, but he bore it with not a trace of self pity. His voice would be surprisingly strong. Once I decided I could not wait for the right time and just went and sat with him in the ICU for a few hours. He was sleeping. I was reading and then I started writing this blog. He woke up and saw me and asked when I came. We spoke about things. I realised laughing would make things uncomfortable so we tried not to laugh. He ordered coffee for me. Then in his characteristic style told me - the future is not looking bright. He counted his issues and said that all that needed to happen to him health wise has happened. He took full responsibility and said he had abused his body. But no self pity, no weakness, just a grimace. He said he was so weak he could not walk. I sat with him, held his hand. We smiled awkwardly, not used to being in situations like this. Give us something stupid to laugh about and we were good, but seeing him like this was not. I hoped he would find an easier exit. 

So many times i would text him or call and he would be in the ICU or having a procedure. So many times Sreenu and I planned to go, went a few times too. We wondered where he got the strength to carry on like this. 

Sreenu called this evening and told me Mohan has finally moved on. I can hear his gruff voice, his laughter, his crazy sense of humor, vthe way his lips would stretch as he smiled, the way he chuckled at something he found funny. There's so much more to write about him and I guess I will continue to write about him. He made my life so much more richer just being in it. Its been almost fifty years since I have known him so there must be something to it, some karma. Not once did we fight about anything, we drifted apart a bit but that's about it. Some of my fondest childhood memories are with him. Funnily I don't have many pictures with him. I do remember writing a blog when he and Sreenu came over to meet me a couple of decades ago but we lost that picture. One picture when we went to Sreenu's daughter's wedding. Recently he sent me a picture taken by students - a rare one of me smiling, he captioned it.

Lovely walking the path with you Mohan. Won't be able to take the turn to Model Colony without thinking of you and our many capers my friend. 

Michael - Movie

Watched 'Michael' and was most impressed by young Jaafar Jackson who is Michael Jackson's nephew, son of Jermaine Jackson. But this is less about the movie and more about my association with MJ as we knew him and not Michael.

Sometime in the mid 1980's when we were just out of school and were listening to western music, came this Grammy Award night which was telecast on Indian TV. Not live but a recorded thing and we saw it. Happened that it was one of the greatest years for Western music ever with hits like 'Beat it', 'All Night Long', 'Every Breath You Take' etc. The videos, MJ, everything was different in so many ways. MJ comes on with a new sound, completely different, and we heard 'Beat It' like it was from another world. I first heard 'Beat It' in MLJ's car when Vidyuth played it on their snazzy cassette player and I was blown. I immediately shared the news with my other music pal Mr Naresh Raghavan who had by then secured an LP of 'Thriller'. So it was on a weekday afternoon, after classes, that me and Naresh went to his house and listened to 'Thriller' over and over again. Later Naresh would perform to it in his college festival which is a brave thing to do looking back.

Then MJ kept coming with other albums but after 'Thriller' I actually went back and bought 'Off the Wall' at Sangeet Sagar and somehow liked it more than I liked 'Thriller'. And then all the other albums after that - 'Bad', 'History' and stuff which marked years of our growth past college, into work, and so on and so forth. I remember my brother Ram telling me how MJ would not stop crying when he sang 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You..' and then Sagar introducing me to a Two Cellos version of 'Smooth Criminal'.

I never imagined anyone could actually get close to even one move of his because he was electric but watching Jaafar Jackson nail them one by one, not miss a beat, a move, an expression, was surreal. It was like he says in the film 'channeling' Michael. The way he spoke, the kindness in his voice, the softness in his eyes, the clarity of thought, suddenly reconnected to the MJ we knew as a superstar, and now as a human. He says 'they are my friends' when they speak of animals and when they speak of fans 'they are my family'. His love for humans, for the sick, the children, for music and for giving the best, his search for something beyond excellence 'the best ever' and the way he designed his music videos, his songs, hims persona, is a crazy. That said, while Jaafar did a magnificent job young Juliano Krue Valdi who played young MJ was equally magnificent. The tight close ups offer no chance to escape and Jaafar and Juliano stayed true to the part, bringing all the love, vulnerability and honesty that MJ had -your eyes have to be exactly that. Something about his desire for excellence beyond his times 'of all time' and the humility with which he wore that crown reminds one of the Level 5 Leadership. Something that leaders of the world today can do well to emulate.

Perhaps it is the timing that's right - in a world full of fakeness, lies and dishonesty - here comes a silver lining. He was true to whatever he believed in and stayed that way. Looking back at his interviews, a couple which popped up, its in sync. Much to learn and be from good ol MJ. We never truly understood him except that we knew he was great and crazy enough to bring the coolest music videos, the most heart stopping steps and presentations. We never knew of his work, his life. Thanks to the movie and Jaafar, we now know he was way ahead of his times...and they were good times....so he was way, way, way ahead of the present times.

Can watch it again and again. Perhaps with my old pals Naresh and Vidyuth!       

  

Ladies Night - Sucheta Dasgupta

Sucheta is a writer, journalist (currently editor at Deccan Chronicle) and an electrical engineer by training. She has translated from Bengali to English the work of Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay. More interestingly to me, her debut work of fiction, a collection of stories, 'Ladies Night' is published by Running Head Publications - which connects real writers to real readers. Sucheta is a real writer and I am a real reader by my definition so we are all good.

On happy hour time, four ladies get together at a bar, and over drinks and some basic rules on who buys drinks and why, weave storytelling into the afternoon and make it as interesting as it can get. So, between the four women, they come up with 18 stories of all kinds.

So there's a story about a lonely fish that gets other fish for company, an act of kindness you'd think, but the company eats the lonely fish and relieves it of its loneliness - would the fish have been better off lonely or is it better dead? In the same story a girl falls in love with a cricketer and many other things about him, but he does not seem to really worry about her existence which is Ok because we like the idea of being in love with him. Then there is a girl who receives a letter from a dead cousin and it turns out there is a secret society of mind loggers who are planning to take over the world by inducting their own chosen ones (the chosen ones have to fulfill conditions such as having a death wish, a clear conscience etc) and much more. In another, a sightless courtesan regains her vision, wooed by the Moon (the Sun also tries for her hand but fails as he wants a son but it so happens that the courtesan and the Moon produce daughters who marry Sun and thereby sons are produced as well!) The engineer in her peeps out in stories like the computer marrying the ball - its a sentient computer!  

There is an interesting conversation between two friends in the form of letters or mails - each telling the other of the many thoughts that occupy their minds - of daily life and the world at large. 

There's one  story about a poet in which I liked these lines - 'when you love someone you feel like there is a part in you that wants them to reject you just so that you can feel the pain of rejection. That pain is the measure of your love.' Reminded me of DH Lawrence!

There is a story about Greek Gods and groupies and butter and lipstick and  washermen and washerwomen and somehow it all connects in the end. One in which a young girl gives her dying and demented grandfather some weed to relieve his pain and he gets aggressive or shows some signs of life before he dies - lives a little before he dies again. It's funny, and then you realise that is what life is, one day you are the grand child and another day the grandfather!

In one, the narrator logs in to her husband's social media account and flirts with a housewife (or whoever the other person was digitally) and can see the interesting differences and perceptions between genders. One crazy story about this gardener who keeps bumping off his wives but still manages to keep his job - perhaps a real story - there are so many of them out there. One on patriarchy being a female conspiracy, lesbian friends in a journalistic set up, cancel culture in journalism and so on and on.

But the one that I really really liked and fully understood (in most others I didn't make all the connections because she writes on two or three levels and unless you read carefully or are intelligent enough, you will end up feeling like you missed something and have to ask the next person what you missed like how I did while watching 'Sixth Sense') is Chet and Babakukur. Chet is a part of Sucheta so I guess all Chets in the book are her, but this is about her and her father, and she is working in Delhi and sees a dog which reminds her of her father about a year after his death and long enough for the soul to get recycled - Baba being father and kukur meaning dog in Bengali. She writes about her relationship with her father, her growing up years, trying to be the perfect girl, doing her electrical engineering to please dad but winding up in journalism which she wanted, realising and standing up for her goals which were different from those of her parents (who she realises later) were limited by their experience and vision perhaps. She recollects how in so many ways her father tries to do the best thing by her, giving her freedom, taking her everywhere, exposing her to the best books, all that he could afford to do, the Papa's princess. She recalls how he was as a person - straight, honest, threatened by people who could not deal with his honesty, how he published her manuscript, and over the years perhaps made peace with the fact that she had different goals and aspirations and that was that. His kidneys give up and she says he lost his will at some point to live, though there were people willing to donate their kidney for a transplant.  There's a plant, they care for together - which dies - she experimenting, he trying to revive it. Then Babakukur makes friends with one guy at office, someone Chet does not like, and gets possessive and the Municipality is trying to take away strays which puts Babakukur in danger. This story really made me feel so much in so many ways - I have a daughter studying in Delhi and though she did not have to do her Electrical Engineering, I can see the burden we put on our children by just being. There is this line 'a good parent is one who fights for you, and who also waits for you to return' And I was asking myself, that's a good line and I hope to be that. Babakukur made me feel sad, fearful, nice, hopeful, glad and so many things I cannot name. One one side I can relate to my daughter and on the other I can relate to my father for who I studied Civil Engineering and quickly got off and finally got into writing. Maybe the damaged part in me is trying to be understood or undo by writing.

The last story is a para or two and in that the bartender asks a riddle which was way beyond me - I anyway do not exercise my mind with riddles. But Sucheta constantly challenges you with riddles, questions, diagrams, poems so it is a bit like going to school and trying to figure it out.

Jokes apart, its eclectic reading and it felt a lot like how I felt when I read Alice Munro's short stories and I was like, hey did I miss something, and went back and read it again. Sucheta's writing is intelligent, layered, honest and deep, and in a story like Babakukur, can touch spaces like how a well made movie does. Because so much of it is the truth, it is also funny without perhaps wanting to be. I feel that just as I identified with Babakukur, the book must surely touch so any facets in people. I do not know how many publishers would have picked up the book and seen it for what it was and the potential it has, and brought it out with such care, other than Running Head which is run by my two good pals from the writing world Krishna Shastri Devulapalli and Chitra Viraraghavan. My only regret is that I am not at the level of the book yet, but then with good books you never are - they help you get there one book at a time (mostly).

Great debut by Sucheta and here's wishing her many more books. I am definitely going to share this book with my daughter who speaks and writes a bit like this these days and who may get it way more than me. And for Running Head and Krishna and Chitra, this is what you wanted to do and you did it - promote writers who you believe, have the real stuff. Many more books to come from you too!            

Thought for the Day - Why We Need to Pick the Hard Tasks to Grow

Was watching this kid in the park, climbing the slide like all kids do. I realised most kids do that, walk up the slide which most kids seem to enjoy more than sliding down. 

That's how we grow, by taking up the hard tasks. Kids know it intuitively, they are always on the job, reaching beyond their capabilities, risking injury, going past their fears - all to grow. 

As we grow older we lose the will to learn, to grow. Time to walk up the next slide.

Never Logged Out - Ria Chopra

The byline says 'How the Internet Created Gen Z'. Ria is Gen Z (those born after 1996-7, she was born in 1999) and she writes about how her life and the lives of her generation has been impacted by the internet. It was quite revealing to me because I am not so much online as the Gen Zs and can identify it to the extent that my daughter A is Gen Z too. For the first time I got a proper peek into the life of Gen Z kids which include A who otherwise seem to be leading double lives, online lives which they definitely cannot share with us. So thanks Ria upfront for getting us oldies a peek into that mysterious life. Apparently those born after 2012 are called Gen Alpha.

Ria is a product of Lady Sriram College, a big online influencer A says (she's A's hero currently), is a youth advisor to Google and does a lot of work related to the internet. The book comes at a time when we are struggling for answers related to GenZ. It does answer quite a few and it should be made compulsory reading for all parents with Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids..

India got internet on August 15, 1995 (I was there... Though we had no clue about what it was). In the early days vsnl used to offer these services. It was quite hilarious because we could hardly connect and it kept going round and round in what was called buffering. The internet made us move from physical letters (I still have not moved fully) to email (hotmail), which I moved to very reluctantly. Then some websites came up like rediff.com which also offered email and a lot of useless news but we got our mail ids on rediff since it was free. Those days we also had this site called Sulekha.com where we could write and get published and it was such a leveller.  Then came cybercafes which were much better but they had their own stories - (mostly love stories). Finally high speed internet. All that was what they call Web 1.0 I gather (1999-00). Web2.0 is a different beast with an active social media developed to hook you and pull you in and fully manipulates you if you aren't aware and can mess with you. I am not very equipped to deal with this beast so I have kept myself largely out of that space except blogging which is today's equivalent to letter writing. 

Back to Ria. Web 2.0 had some defining parameters set at a conference that was held in 2005 or so if I remember right - that platforms improve user participation, apps could be used for service and a shift from individual to the collective. It's a rather grim statement she makes when she says Gen Z logged in but never logged out (reminds me of Hotel California)! 

There's a line in the book that says - 'in the beginning the internet appeared good.. It was a tool we used, not a force that used us'. She cites the 'Robbers Cave' experiment to relate to behaviours on social media - each social media version having its own behaviour, it own unwritten rules, and how many get very gang like behaviors on the net. She makes a case for Gen Z when people ask what's wrong with them - they grew up with it - and it has given them ways to connect - but then also made them performative. The challenge Ria says is to reclaim agency. Reclaim choice, like in the early days. 

The second essay is about love in the times of Web 2.0 and is aptly titled 'It's Complicated' - something people put on their statuses a while ago on facebook. I could never understand why a personal matter like falling in love would be advertised to the world but that seemed to be the norm then. What I did not know are some of the Gen Z secrets that Ria revealed. Apparently the net trended with 'orange peel test' (give an orange to you partner or boyfriend and check out if he will peel it or he will escape it - if he does not peel, red flag), 'Bird theory' (show an insignificant thing on the road like a bird and check whether he is interested in it and thereby in you and if he does not, red flag) and 'road test' (whether he is walking on the danger side of the road or is ready to push you off under the next bus which you so deserve, in which case red flag). Most girls seems to have tried out these tests on various unsuspecting boyfriends with results that might have caused all sorts of relation trouble (hey, you failed the peel test, you failed this and so on). With so many red flags going up its like a soccer match with a trigger happy referee! No wonder she quotes someone who says love is consensual hallucination (but then all of life is I feel). Ria says that in cyberspace it definitely is.

Growing up with fandoms of Potter, Hungry Games etc Gen Z began advertising their relationship status by posting a mysterious hand on Insta, adding someone's initial to your Insta bio, changing dp's on Whatsapp, checking couple goals, reels made by couples etc - which certainly makes things more complicated for a young person who is constantly on social media, which is where everyone of her peer group is. So we have labels like situationships, lists (the 3 red flags to watch out for), words like breadcrumbing, benching, catfishing, fleabagging, zumping, pop quizzes which sort partners into labels like golden retriever bf, soft boy bf, performative male, black cat gf, rodent man, Insta husband, stay at home gf, offline bf, sunshine partners - if you don't fit you are doomed. If you are labelled you are doomed. There are red flags, green flags and beige flags and you are constantly led by someone about how to love your partner or not. Romance, she says, is now content. 

Then we have dating apps aplenty - she speaks of Bumble and Hinge - and how the apps and users are at variance with each others goals - users want long term partners and love and the app wants them to stay on the app forever (though I am not sure what anyone wants in love). Ria talks about the obsession with ratings and how they can be some kind of a self feeding mechanism - I agree with her. Chuck ratings and go for what appeals to you. The internet she says will ask you want you think love is and if you do not know, it will tell you. One line again from where I am not sure but I liked it - to love someone long term is to attend a 1000 funerals of the people they used to be.

  

The next essay is titled 'What's in my bag'. Ria makes a case for the LL Bean bag and how it was originally used to carry ice in the World War time and how they have now transformed into fashion statements or tote bags which are pretty much the pishwis that our grandmas used. People flaunt their totes from different stores - Strand, Blossoms and so on. Anyway the Gen Z problem is not the bag but what's in it and every personality has put out stuff from the bag on Insta, YouTube or Tiktok - the content in her bag describes her personality as ENFP or INFP or Clean Girl or that girl or surfer girl and so on. Obviously everyone wants to have those bags and curate their bags accordingly to get famous! 

Ria says that these videos compress individuals into consumables. So you better carry one type of glasses, Birkenstock (shoes?) Taylor Swift merchandise, books etc. They call it the shoppable life. One study that is called Simulacra and something where all reality is replaced with symbols (hyper reality) until the connection with the utility is fully dissolved and only the symbol is left (Emperors New Clothes). Ria feels that another reason why GenZ buys so much is also because the stuff goes out of fashion soon or more so because they are not of the same good quality as before. Whichever way, people are using credit cards to buy these of things. She ends the chapter saying that when she thinks of the good times she had with her friends it was never about material stuff but a lot of personal stuff like a hug, a shared overnighter, a trip together etc. I agree.

'Eternal Sunshine' is the next topic and its basically about how the internet never lets you forget. Its her Manchester United moment she says - the internet brings up an old relationship where she followed the football club because her partner was crazy about it then but its been years since then but the internet does not forget, nor does it let her forget. The internet has changed memory she says. The ability to forget is crucial for survival for humans but the internet does not allow that (which Gen Z faces). It leads to the dangers of living in the past at the expense of the present. Ria talks of breakups now meaning deleting all the shared memories online form photos to Spotify lists, unsaving Zomato addresses, kicking people out of group chats. 

She says that memory is reconstructed every time it is recalled and when you see the exact words you have saved on a screenshot or an archive or a comment, the same old feelings come up even if it has been years since the incident. 'To archive something is to exercise power,' she quotes. 'The power to decide what will be remembered and how it will be remembered'. So it may be her friend who has broken up, Taylor Swift who uses her past relationships to writer her songs, her ManU moment etc.

Why would we document someone's failings she says - but isn't that what makes us feel better?)The internet loves that, pulling people down, making them feel superior to the other by being mean. On the net memory is actively archived, curated and even weaponised. Platforms remember - photos, comments, likes, story views, drafts saved, locations visited she says. Digital forgetting is easy for the rich and not so easy for the common man. GenZ which fed into this culture without knowing now has a price to pay for it. There is this thing about the right to be Forgotten -  a case fought by one Mario Gonzales against Google and won to remove content about him on the net. 

Ria talks of souls in Greek mythology, which before they enter afterlife, drink from Lethe, the river of forgetting. Forgetting is necessary for rest. But now people are sharing more and more personal stories to create personal brands due to lack of awareness. Her advise to young Gen Z or Gen Alpha kids - do not write about things that are traumatic for you or that you have not fully processed.

In the next essay titled 'Ask Me Anything' she starts with the story of Indrani Mukherjea and how she knew all about her because she followed her daughter Vidhie on a site called Ask.fm where people upload profiles and based on the profiles others asked you questions and you could answer them and get likes form random people interested in these conversations. I have never heard of this site but apparently it was big. Pooja Bedia's daughter Aalia F, Sakshi Chopra from Ramanand Sagar's home, Ahaan Panday, Alaania jaaferi are celebrity names you might recognise by the surname. But then young kids who feel they are connected to these celebrities, who feel they have an imaginary audience are in for a shock. They get deluded with these para social relationships. At one point Ria says she herself became a hater, a mean person because she found that the best way to deal with her own disappointment at not going the way it should. Clearly, Ria says, humanness is conveyed through face to face interactions. Its difficult to say something bad to people's faces. But on the net, with anonymous identities you can be as mean or as rude as you want to be and that encourages that sort of behavior to grow. Again, the power to be mean to someone makes you feel better. 

'15 seconds' of fame is about how the number of influencers is rising in India - from less than a million in 2020 to about 4 million in 2025 and each of them is putting a lot of effort and money and sometimes risk into it for the 15 minutes of fame. YouTube which started as a dating service saw that instead of dating people were posting random stuff about their lives on the site and they decided to just be that - a place where people could post videos. YouTube also decided to reward their content creators and shared revenue. Now with so much content, there is an attention deficit and we now live in what is called an attention economy. The dangers are that the brain will get fried as it does with our memories and phone numbers and stuff.

Now again, who gets to be famous has a definite trend , upper class and savarna classes who look down on poor content. Ria says she predicted that a day will come when influencers will kill themselves due to their relationship with the social media and sadly enough, it happened and caused another media circus.

'Post Knowledge' - Ria digs into Greek mythology and introduces us to Prometheus (Foresight), and his brother Epimetheus (Hindsight) who are given the task of populating the earth with people. However Prometheus likes humans a lot and starts helping them out causing much anger to Zeus who curses that humans shall have no fire and will live in dark and cold. Prometheus decides otherwise and steals a spark from the Mount of Olympia and gives it to humans which again pisses off Zeus who punishes Prometheus by tying him to a cliff where vultures come and eat his liver every day, and then he heals at night and then the vultures come the next day etc thereby calling such a position 'Prometheus Bound'. 

From that we move to 1868 when a young Melvil Dewey tries to save his burning library and later come sup with a decimal based system to organise human knowledge in a 44 page classification. Today 2 lakh libraries use that 1876 classification in 135 countries Then we move to the next person John Dewey who differentiated between 'thinking' and 'thinking well'. Thinking well allows us to peedict the future using knowledge in the present. Ria herself tried her hand at KBC and won 3.5 lakh before hitting a question she did not know the answer to - but she guessed right using her logical powers of reasoning. She is good at funda based questions and not so at knowing the right answers which relies more on memory..

I liked the part where she mentions Plato (and another chap) distrusting writing - saying that it would lead to the decay of memory as it will create forgetfulness. People will stop using their memories and will appear omniscient without knowing anything. They will be tiresome company he says. She cites an article in 2008 which is titled "Is Google making us Stupid" (yes). But then has the internet made us smarter, yes. The smartest person in he room they say now is the room. Collective intelligence. Knowledge today she says is about asking better questions. Ria also stuck her neck out and predicted a a few things among which one stayed with me - that people will get tired of dating apps and face to face will come back into fashion.

'In Coming of Age' or a frequently used word in her book 'bildungsroman' (a German word that means coming of age) she laments that Bollywood is not using or recognising the extent to which technology or internet has pervaded our lives and they hardly show it well. One reason is that the internet does not make for good drama and provides simplistic solutions if one doe snot understand the technology and the user and their relationship. She however cites a few movies which she says use the internet well - Kho Gayen Hum Kahan (seen), Logout on Zee5, LSD 2. She cites a web serial called Anupamaa as a poor way of showing Internet.

Anyway she ends the book saying that whatever it is, the experience of Genz has been that 'I was there. I saw what happened. This is how it made me feel' It mattered.'  And I am sure they will see many many versions and variants of the net and its applications and use it well. For someone so young Ria writes very well on a topic which is so vast, so nebulous, and brings a disarming honesty and vulnerability to it that you end up changing your mind about GenZ. Well researched with many references to Greek mythology or books or articles. I loved it and read it twice and made some notes before I attempted to write about it. And yes, A has been telling me about this book for a while, having gone to attend Ria's lecture at Miranda House and then getting a signed copy (and a coffee as well after if i remember right) and I listened in my half-attentive manner and woke up fully to what she was saying after I read the entire book.  Thank you Ria, for making a solid case for Gen Z...I think I understand A's life and its challenges a little better after reading the book. And here's wishing you many more books to come.

Goa Diaries - Long Walk to Ashwem

A heavy English breakfast calls for a long walk in the evening so I set out towards Ashwem beach. This time I chose not to listen to anything and just walk, take in the air and focus on myself and my thoughts and all the sights I could see. 

The beaches here are shallow they say, so the holiday crowd was out. 

Families with older parents, siblings, kids were one type, young couples with really small kids another, friends who have come with their partners, all boy gangs, all girl gangs - the social profile changes as we go closer to the more elite places. There are those who jump into the sea, those who simply sit on the beach, those who guard footwear, selfie wala, reel walas where the girls are dressed out for the shoot and have a whole sequence planned like jumping in the air or dancing or running or walking.

Then there are those like me just walking (just a few), quite a few walking dogs (there are so many of them here), kids playing football (they are so good), cricket (not good at all - I watched one guy swing at an off spin bowler and while walking past the short mid wicket told him that the batsman will get out caught in the deep and the very next ball he got out, I turned and could see the look of wonder in the fielders eyes like it was magic... These things we know by practice and I afforded a smile at having shared some magic).

Walk, walk, walk, a girl gang, urban, up market, in their bikinis drinking and smoking on the beach and getting ready for the evening, a bunch of young boys drinking beer with two old women of trade, massage girls who got one lonely lady and got into business, a bunch of kids who hit their cricket ball into the sea and the sea deciding to keep it, and even four elderly ladies swigging one large beer each and engaged in serious conversations. I counted five or six foreigners in all, all of them weather beaten and who looked like they have been here forever, one very fit Russian couple, some elderly ones. A playful couple throwing sand art one another. A lady was working with a team of photographers to create some shoot. I had to cross some boulders to get a look at what was perhaps Mandrem beach. 

Along the way I tried to remember the names of the shacks - Xaviers, Tomatos, The Last Shack, Blue Turtle, Farzi, Morjim Culture, Tikit, Leela, Amanos, Tan Sand...of course there were many more but these stuck. People gazing into the sea and making the most of an experience, perhaps some for the first time, people gearing up for the unknown adventures as they look to party, drink, hook up, an energy that's palpable, older couples rewarding their years of togetherness, families keeping their happiness in check lest something goes wrong, the shy girl walking into the water with her partner wearing her swimsuit, the young bride wearing something daring for her husband and fighting her value system inside.

 One wonders how many lives changed in Goa, how many memories lie around (I have a few). Hopes, dreams, aspirations, regrets, love, beginnings, endings, memories, expansion. You feel like gathering them all in one huge hug and saying, you'll be ok, don't worry. Just let go and have a good time.

On the way back i could see the lifeguards pulling people back from the water, warning them that high tide was coming in. I saw the owner of Artist Beach House and her husband walking the dog and thought they had not seen me but she did and waved and I waved back.

And that's what Goa will be to us - an unknown excitement of the forbidden, of freedom to be whatever one wants, of the chasm between wanting that freedom and never having the courage to let go of the life that secures us. And so, after a few days, we go back to our lives, having sampled the magic, even though vicariously. And that's when i feel like buying that T shirt that says 'I love Goa'.

Goa Diaries - Kayaking with Konkan Explorers

One of A's plans was to go kayaking. Now I would never go anywhere near water left to myself, not into it, but history beats witness that I once did white water rafting and now I found myself signing up against my normal mien, for kayaking. 

Anyway the Konkan Explorers are the official partners of Goa Tourism for these activities and our host highly recommended their cruise and kayaking so V signed up. We showed up at 8 at the designated place and waited for the earlier bunch to finish their bit. 

Primarily it's a cruise in the river which goes up to the mouth of the ocean, and those who want to go kayaking can do that. Obviously they pick good times when tides are low so they took us on the boat, a nice swanky one which had beer, soft drinks, snacks, fruit, tea, coffee and the works. Raghu, who took on the role of the speaker, was very affable, coming as he was from Bellary, Viraj, the captain, Yeshwant who was assisting them. 

We went to the mouth of the river, stopped at an island which they said would get submerged at high tide, a 10 feet difference i should think. They got us off the boat on to the island, showed a few birds, jelly fish (touch the top not the tentacles which sting). The kayaks were attached to the boat so we got on to them and off we went kayaking down the river, helped by Raghu and Yeshwanth. Raghu also took upon the job of taking pictures and videos and sharing them on a link later which i think was very thoughtful of him.

Overall quite an adventurous thing for me to do and one of those things i didn't plan to do ticked off thanks to A.

We polished off a nice English breakfast at Baba and Rhun which is fast becoming my favourite restaurant and headed back. Thanks A. And Raghu, Viraj and Yeshwanth for being very nice and helpful and really making it a nice experience for everyone.