Opinion

Post Number 40 : The Dying Art of Being Present

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

I recently attended a show which was 20 minutes of non-stop death-defying stunts. Instead of your usual jumps and tricks on bikes and cars, the artists created an interesting storyline and built the stunts around it. There were wheelies done through cars, a ‘Hot-Wheels’ track in real life, bikes rotating in mid-air and a Mortal Kombat styled fight sequence. It was so engrossing! Yet I was so amused at seeing how so many people were more interested in filming it than actually watching it. Was documenting that moment really more important than living it?

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Post Number 39 : Learning to Deal with this Adulthood Thing

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

I remember being younger and smaller and looking up to people in their 20s with this rose-tinted lens; of hope, of admiration, of wonderment. These people looked so aspirational, so sorted, so aware of who they were and what they did. While I observed them with a glass of Pepsi in my hand, they looked so damn cool discussing ‘office’ with a beer in theirs. Office. It seemed like the be-all-and-end-all at that age. All roads led there. It was to be the outcome of the rigors and pain of filling notebooks and giving exams during school time. Life would be sorted, I was told. Just work hard during school.

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Post Number 37 : Reconnecting with Reading

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

I used to go to school in a yellow-green DTC bus that roared and wheezed as if it was seconds away from a breakdown. And many a time it did. But what I remember most from that time was the unadulterated joy I would get from reading on the 45-minute journey. The light breeze, muted chatters, and (mostly) sleeping kids made for an interesting reading environment. I would either read my textbooks or if I felt fancy, a novel that I’d take with me. It didn’t matter what others thought or said. If my eyes were in my book, chances were, my other senses were oblivious to the world outside.

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Post Number 36 : Coping with Change

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

I recall reading somewhere as a kid that “The only thing constant is change”. I’m sure I was impressed with how fancy it sounded, its play of words and the juxtaposition therein. I am certain I noted it somewhere so that I can sneak it into any essay or debate I could, to get brownie points. And I’m confident I did write or quote it whenever I could. But like most, I never really paused to think of what it meant, until now.

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Post Number 35 : Surviving the FIFA World Cup –The 411

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

Q: Did you hear that Chelsea doesn’t have a website?

A: They can’t string three “Ws” together. 

 
Q: What does a fine wine and Liverpool have in common?

A: They both spend a lot of time in the cellar, cost too much and are only enjoyed on select occasions. 

If these jokes went past your head like Engineering went past mine, then we’re in the same boat. Fret not if you can’t recall 10 footballers’ names if a gun was pointed to your head. If you too, like me, find football a S-pain in the ass, then Ronaldo-n’t worry, I am here to get you out of this Messi situation. I helped you survive Cricket World Cup season a couple of years ago and now I am back with my totally unneeded, entirely pointless brand of social assistance by using the opportunity of the World Cup to Russi(a)n and Putin as many puns and tasteless jokes as I possibly can.

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Post Number 31 : On Sadness and its kinds

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

Reflecting upon the last few weeks of my epeolatry adventures, I’ve sensed a profoundly universal theme running through the books. Sadness. If asked to define sadness, most of us would spring to the definition of happiness so that we may create contrasts. Would that suffice though? Emphatically not. For in the books that I read, sadness itself was a continuum. In A Little Life, it was unflinching, dark, and encompassing. In The Casual Vacancy, it was an unpleasant presence. In The Bell Jar, it was a looming shadow, following Esther everywhere. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, it was deeply entwined with hope. And in The Color Purple, it was slowly receding, giving way to a long-pending and deserving joy for Celie.

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Post Number 29: Mental Health (And how it binds us all)

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

(1750 words ; 7 mins )

 

Aaron_Hernandez

Aaron Hernandez. Picture Credits wikipedia.com

Aaron Hernandez was an American Football player in the NFL. He played for the Patriots. Signed on for millions of dollars, he was a rising star. Sadly, his career was brought to an abrupt halt when he was convicted of the murder of an acquaintance in 2013. He was sent to jail where, earlier this year, he committed suicide. He was 27. Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist at Boston University, requested to study his brain, which was consented by his family. Her team discovered, in their estimation, “the most damage they had ever seen in an athlete so young”. His brain slices showed signs of stage 3 of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy), a degenerative disease brought upon by repeated injuries to the brain. Aaron’s brain damage brings to mind, the gruesome double homicide and suicide case of WWE wrestler, Chris Benoit. Benoit’s brain, too, showed a severe case of CTE and resembled that of an old patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

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Post Number 28 : The Eternal Exhaustion of the Overstimulated Mind

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

As the constant buzzing of the phone jolts you up from your slumber, you flail randomly to press the snooze button. You’ve overslept. Last night, you were up till 3, working. Sort of working. You started with the intended task but clicks and scrolls later, temptation led you to YouTube and that was that.

Before you prepare yourself for the world, your phone is already prepared to bring the world to you. As you leave your bed, your phone is your loyal sidekick, informing you via its eccentric art of storytelling – who went to what party, who got inexplicably drunk, who’s ‘feeling awesome’ with 15 others, who has a factually incorrect political rant today, amidst other notifications of you being tagged in jokes and posts that are ‘OMG! So you! You can’t even!’. And that’s just Facebook. You’ve still got to go through Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. It used to be a chore. Now it’s so organic. You’ve mastered the art of skimming through this daily information. You even pride yourself at being able to absorb the most relevant of this daily diligence that you pay to the overlords of social media.

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Post Number 27 : Can an opinion be….just an opinion?

Posted on by Candid Wallflowers

A fortnight ago, there was an uproar on Facebook. A website called The Quint had uploaded a video with its team member criticising the viral video ‘Bol Na Aunty Aau Kya’ by (rapper?)OmPrakash. The video by The Quint, was particularly critical of the lyrical content, citing phrases from the song and linking it to sexual harassment, rape threats and sexism and demanded its removal from YouTube. To say that it polarized viewers, would be an understatement. The woman who made the video received a harrowing amount of death and rape threats along with harassment online. The comment section of the video was rife with people divided into three noticeable factions – the ‘pseudo-intellectual libtards and feminists’, ‘misogynistic, patriarchal trolls’ and a bunch of people tagging others to spectate the argumentation. What was clearly a battle of opinions, soon devolved into a battle of ideologies.

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The original article that was uploaded by The Quint. It has since been taken down on account of excessive abuse that the website and the journalist has received.

 

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