Monday, February 25, 2019

For an ex lover. Coz Valentine's Day (when a 19 yo blew himself up in the valley)

In my more lucid moments I could speak eloquently, or write on how "politics" and "anger" are really the products of empathy, love**. Distorted by the world we live in. I could tell you (if you asked) that there's such strength, the wellspring of life force, amidst the tears and blood and shrapnel in Kashmir, in the bulldozed olive groves of Palestine, the black flags waving in the winds of Nandigram.


I remember the waving flags, most of all. And the fear etched in the lines of women's faces. My god, I thought at 21 (or 22), this is what a civil war looks like. Of course, this was before boomerang and instagram and easy ownership of smartphones, otherwise that flutter would have been captured in one more meaningless social media inventory.


Nowadays, (I am) too distracted in between hashtagging Olivia Colman and Modi's latest publicity stunt and then always, werkwerkwerk, tugging at the corners of my sleep.


I no longer find enough time for outrage and instead move between peaks and troughs of exhaustion.


You wouldn't understand for (you) life is one big fiesta of alcohol and gushing fountains of laughter.* The kind set off by (your) "woke" witty self-aware jokes. That black salute, for instance. N-word please. Listening to Kendrick Lamarr and Donald Glover doesn't take away your Nair baniya roots. You were born into respectability and privilege (caste, class, gender, location, sexuality...), scion groomed to take over, rich enough (despite all your protestations), scores of safety nets dangling visibly (to all but you) under your hairy arse. Of course, you keep underscoring that money doesn't matter.


Solvency makes it easier to be generous. Youth too. Ask me. Once I spent two months sleeping on the floor of my tiny overheated Delhi barsati because I thought a mattress was a sinful indulgence. I had rescued a cat, you see. I had to borrow to buy a fridge to keep her fish fresh (unrotten, I mean). I have always found it much easier to be generous to non-humans.


While you're playing the nicest guy and earning kudos for not sexually harassing anyone, do you remember that time you asked me to kill myself for earning so little?


Nowadays you swim swiftly through shimmering spools of water, flanked by less angry, more svelte female forms. Is it crazier (than I used to be) that I'm jealous? I haven't quite caught up with your long strides into moving on.


But I suppose it's fair to say, my initial assessment of you was spot on: you always were a massive idiot. And this time I won't be second guessing myself.





**In my lucid moments I'm clearly KlichéGrrrl


*Tempered occasionally by a post or two condemning the arrest of an activist or the situation in Kashmir, sandwiched between oodles of corgi memes. Incidentally, that's the queen's favourite breed. What does she feel about such enthusiastic plebian takeover I wonder

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