The age of inanity

Sometimes you look around and wonder at the absurdity or, should I say, theinanity of it all. Of what you would ask? And of what not, I mu...

Sometimes you look around and wonder at the absurdity or, should I say, theinanity of it all. Of what you would ask? And of what not, I muse. Some daysand we question the very basics of what we have built and crushed. Of therules we laid down and the ones we broke. The serenity breaks somewhere andit jars. Inanity. And we swear by it. It rules our senses.

Pick up any newspaper and it is filled with the most lunatic of news. News.Now that is another question. What really constitutes news? The fact thatJennifer Lopez wore a dress that defied gravity? Anything and everythingmakes news these days. It doesn’t necessarily have to make sense. Print.

Words. The written word was sacred, once. Not anymore. Writing and writers,well they seem to have come quite a way. I wonder what a Kafka would think?But then this is the age of feel good, look good. Forget about what goodmeant in the first place. Market. Market share. That is all it has beenreduced to. A success, yes, if you rule the masses. That is crediting themasses with quite a bit. But then don’t we love the way we have managed tochange things? Making legends of people who yet have to make a teeny-weenydifference. Crediting people with more than they are worth.

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Making stars at the drop of a cap. It sells, just remember that. And what doyou want to call it? That is assuming such a word does exist. A word forcultivating inanity, a word for being proud of our shortcomings. A word forthe way we as a race are sliding downward. A word for what we are today. Butthen that is asking too much of ourselves. We are the world’s largestdemocracy, forget what the word democracy means, remember largest. Thenumbers, nobody can beat us at that. Forget Bihar, forget poverty, nobody isbothered. Except those who must talk of these for winning an electoral seator a beauty contest. Or maybe if you are a hypocrite or like to talk to feelgood. It’s almost like we reduced life to a walk on the ramp.

A beautiful walk highlighting layers and camouflage the rest. Or betterstill ignore the rest. What rest? Why pretend we are forgetting something,better still, argue that it never existed. Smart answers and you win theworld. Practised hypocrisy? No, it is the true self. Shades have merged,quick. There is only one absolute: Inanity. It is the latest of the humanfinds, you need tons of creativity to utter something which qualifies forthat and then pretend that it actually makes sense. And carry the pretencewith self-confidence. Kudos. We have taken out the sublime and introduced atouch of absurdity to the process of living. The more bersek, the moreweird, the better. I don’t know where it will all stop, whether all thiswill ever stop. If life would ever come back to its real meaning.

We seem to be on a roller-coaster and it is such great fun dashing aboutthat the haziness around is now reality. We have been on the ride for toolong and reality is now not an absolute. The written word is our greatesttruth. Pasts and futures and presents all are recorded. But the impressionswill depend on how truthfully we spell the truths. Or words. You missconversations and distance yourself from talks. After a point thesimilarities serve as a put-off. And when there are no spaces between ourwords, meanings die. The warmth goes out before you notice it and by thetime you do, well, it is just a little too late. And I wonder if it alreadyis too late. If this age of absurdity and inanity has come to stay.Forever.

But that’s a big word to use. Let’s stick to smaller words and worlds, likepresent eras. Things we can handle and perhaps still change. With hope. It’slike walking into a bookstore and flipping a Marquez. And the world looksbetter. For some have stood tall.