My annual birthday piece on `Mitti Pao!’ has almost
become like the Pope’s Christmas message, or Bal Thackrey’s Dusshera diatribe.
So how can I disappoint the millions (ok 47, give or take) who hang on to my
every word? So here goes.
Yesterday, Wasim Akram, or rather the Mercedes he was
travelling in, in Karachi, was shot at by an idiot in an apparent act of road
rage. Thankfully, the Sultan of Swing was unhurt.
But what sort of an idiot would want to shoot at Wasim
Akram? Wouldn’t you rather shake
his hand, ask for an autograph, maybe even plead that he take over as India’s
bowling coach. Please, Wasim bhai??
But the world is full of idiots.
In the 2004 US Presidential debates, Senator John
Kerry faced the incumbent US President George W `Dubya’ Bush. Kerry was
erudite, lucid and succinct, whereas Bush was his bumbling, incoherent self.
Yet, the polls continued to show Bush ahead. In spite
of Kerry’s brilliance and his eloquence, he continued to trail Bush in the
ratings. “I can’t understand it,” Kerry wondered, “I’m losing to an idiot!”
Anybody who has had occasion to argue with an obdurate
traffic cop, or a dim witted booking clerk, or even a swarthy jat driving an
SUV along Karol Bagh’s congested streets, will readily empathise with Kerry’s
plight.
The world, of course, is full of idiots! And they’re
everywhere, including, sadly, the cyber world, where I mostly reside.
So, I recently decided to give myself (and the world)
a birthday treat by going off social media completely! I de-activated my Facebook
account, went off Twitter, even gave `Mitti Pao!’ a much needed break. I
thought I’d connect with the real
world for a change!
I felt free! In the first few weeks of being
`liberated’, I managed to read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, scale Mount Kilimanjaro,
straddle the Great Barrier Reef and trek through the great Inca trails at Machu
Pichu!
Well, not exactly. All I actually managed was to get into flaming rows with my course mates (over
OROP, what else?) convince my kids that I was finally `losing it’, and
generally piss off anyone who came within pissing off range.
My last post `The Hen in My Backyard’ upset a lot of
people, including the hen in my
backyard, and everyone I had mentioned in the post, including the descendants
of Graham Bell, Edison, Einstien and Bhimsen Joshi! So here’s an unqualified
apology to all those illustrious folk, along with a single word of advice – Chill!
My `Parenting 2.0’ post rendered me persona non grata to that venerable
establishment and its global ambassador. Once more, an unqualified apology, once
more the advice to simply Chill!
We are simply too old to carry grudges..
All that I’ve learnt of life, said Robert Frost, can
be summed up in just three words – it
goes on.
Any sage words of advice on turning 64? I’m hardly
qualified to deliver any homilies, except to say, just count your blessings.
Don’t rock the boat. Unless, like the legendary Ship
of Theseus, it needs to be restored, plank by rotten plank. And after every
plank has thus been replaced, it no longer remains the same vessel to mourn, does
it? So learn to let go.
Don’t get too bogged down with outward impressions, or what
people might think. Stop trying to prop up facades that cannot or will not
stand up on their own.
When one is young, the opinion of ones peers, of the `world' at
large, of what that amorphous entity called `they' will say, matters a
great deal, and even dictates ones behaviour and ones reactions to situations.
But as one grows older, the wheat begins to separate from the
chaff, we begin to recognise and isolate people whose opinions really
matter to us. The old adage reveals its innate wisdom - those that matter
don't mind, those that mind don't matter!
And know this - even an ageing heart will not be
denied its dreams, so dare to dream, look ahead, for even for us sexagenarians,
there is a future out there, and the future is, who else, US!
As only the great Faiz Ahmed Faiz could have put it,
Nahin nigaah mein manzil, toh justaju hi sahi
Nahin visaal mayaasar, toh aarzoo hi sahi..
Cheers folks, and a here’s wishing me a Happy 64th!!
