Pagliacci

 

I read in a Letterboxd review that life always leaves room for two things: a laugh and a drink. There is always room for a laugh. Like that Simpsons screenshot about this only being the worst day of your life ‘so far.’ A similar wildly popular scene I don’t really care for is Peter Griffin talking about the Godfather. Of course it insists upon itself – anything made with sufficient sincerity does. Your gripe with it should at least address whether it is a piece of art that merits asking you to suffer it insisting upon itself. It reads as very fair criticism of something like Deadpool. I think we would all benefit from more radical sincerity. Me especially because it would allow me to take even more advantage of deadpan delivery – which is how I get to express myself while compromising myself as little as possible. The concept of losing aura – something that always been present in our consciousness even if using different vocabulary – comes at the expense of the realisation that little can be achieved without putting aura on the line. The risk of sounding stupid, vulnerable, or like some variant of irredeemable loser is perhaps one of the most humanising experiences in the world. I read The Idiot recently, thinking often about the how much of the author’s vulnerable stream of consciousness is expressed through The Prince. The person he has been in love with for most of the story finds herself unable to digest the sincerity with which the Idiot makes an idiot of himself, often responding caustically with deliberate intention of causing hurt. She is, nevertheless, moved despite herself to feel the innate humanity in the poor consumptive. I had a phase where I was obsessed with watching cat reels on Instagram, which at some point made way for baby reels, and then into nothing in particular as I stopped scrolling.

Waiting nervously outside courtrooms recently, I have rediscovered the habit of mindless scrolling. It is incredible how much content is out there. The room for a drink remains empty, but shot after shot of laughter is being supplied via my bottomless cup. But doctor…

resignation

 

resignation as sorrow

resignation as joy

resignation as meaning

resignation as suffering

resignation in making peace

resignation with my lot

resignation in tempering want

resignation as my wont

i can consign myself to history

 

Will you please let us know?

 

I watched two incredible movies in the past couple of days. Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master and the Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink. Freddie is a man who cannot serve a master, but seems to want nothing more than to be able to do this. His wildly violent reactions to any criticism levelled at the master stands in contrast to his own frustrations with his methods. Barton Fink’s insincerity to his craft presents a powerful critique of the emptiness of producing art under capitalism. His common-man tourism proceeds while actively refusing to listen to the only common-man he knows. That he came to know him only because the man took kindly to Fink’s noise complaint highlights the writer’s disconnect from the subject he wants to exalt above all others.

Someone who “hates small talk” asked me the other day where I thought meaning came from. It reminded me of Marx’s quote about men making their own history without being able to do so as they please. The tradition of dead generations weighs most certainly like a nightmare on the brains of the living. What traditions weigh on me? I am not even in touch with all of them. My passport, driving license, and voter ID all have me down as being from a nothing village in the north of Kerala. There are traditions here I am well across, and ones I have never heard of. My history is inflicted on me in a way I am almost unaware, let alone having bargained for. It is hardly a tragedy, but as Emile Cioran once said, each of us do consider ourselves an unrecognised Job. So where does meaning come from? Calvin’s dad believes suffering builds character. Of course, this characterisation implies that one can be both with and without character, instead of the idea that character inheres in a person and can be subject to critique. What does it mean to be of sound character? Does it mean coming across well? Giving a good account of yourself? I love catching a sunrise. On a bright sunny day, I love the incredible explosion of colour that you see in this nothing town. When I am alone, I let most bugs scurry or flutter across the room. The bug spray is for when someone else is bothered. Is there meaning in letting a spider as big as my fist live in the bathroom?

I have been using this time of relative ease to immerse myself in other people’s creativity – primarily through cinema and literature. There is something extraordinarily meaningful in reading about lives lived incomprehensibly far away from you –in time and in space – and seeing yourself in their sorrows, worries, joys, and irrational frustrations. Wanting to curse at people who do not understand that there is a time and a place is apparently a sensation as old as time.

Is it the search for meaning that pushes people to join cults? Freddie moves from master to master in search of meaning, exiting in fantastic incidents of self-destruction. I do not think I can say he finds meaning in the end, but he does as he does, and he appears not unhappy. There is but one thing that makes sense to him, and one occasion where he knows what he is doing. I know not what to make of it except to say he seems to have figured at least one more thing than me.

I, too, cannot deny the charge of looking for meaning just about anywhere. Even an elusive search for the right combination of hairstyle and beard is in some way an attempt to find me, my essence. Easy for me to say I am more than the different specificities that I present. I am, however, also not less than their sum. It reminds me of the occasional query about why I go by Mishal over Mohammad. It was not really my choice, as most people know, but I would never switch. Mohammad carries with it all the historical baggage of a name that I have spent twenty-five years not being. I prefer a two-syllable name too. Mohammad is, perhaps, a rather loaded name for this exercise; one that lends itself to deliberate overlooking. Nevertheless, I do not think I would be the same person if I had lived my twenty-five years as Mohammad and not Mishal. Mohammad is a part of what makes me, but it is even more a part of what makes ‘not me.’ Mohammad, I think, would be serving a different master. Not that I know the master I serve now; I have nothing to report, nothing to let you know.  

Jealousy Manifest

 

A man is walking down a tree-lined street close to his flat – his third walk of the day. Wearing an elegant-looking trench coat completely unsuited for the cold, his hands shiver in his pockets. His mind, however, is elsewhere. The look of consternation of his face suggests that just like the two previous walks, little by way of relaxation has been achieved so far. He looks as if he is hurrying towards something. He is not. If anything, he might be trying to get away. From what exactly, we are not sure he could say. What is certain is that tension is palpable in the pacing.

He stops. He stares at a duck. It is an unremarkable looking duck, ugly even. The man keeps looking at it. The duck, in turn, also stops to stare. Just as quickly as he stopped, the man continues walking, now making a left turn to begin circling back home. It is easy to guess that something is troubling the young man; he is almost wearing his feelings on his face. Nevertheless, the smile he gives to the little kid who bumps into him is wide and full of feeling. The kid responds with a happy yell in a language he does not understand. He continues walking with fewer contortions on his face.

Once again, he stops as if suddenly impeded. Pulling his phone up from his pockets, he looks at his steps count. A little shake of the head suggests he is unhappy with the number. He is too close to home for it to go up enough today; turning around right now would feel like a loss. He exhales heavily, imagining himself shaking his fist at the sky, resumes walking at his comic pace. It is apparent to any onlooker as he unlocks the front door – this man is now more at ill-ease than before his walk. He has gotten used to it too quickly – the privilege of a leisurely walk. The leisure, perhaps, is supplied in retrospect.