Three Kinds of Romantics in Rain

 When the dark monsoon clouds are carried over by southwest monsoon winds every year from the end of June to the beginning of September, the romantics gaze at them fondly, from the windows of their homes. They lie over their windowsills with a cup of coffee in their hands, musing over the beauty and origin of the crystal drops falling from the sky. The scent of the coffee mixes with the refreshing aroma of rain and gently lies on the tips of their noses. Their lips arch into a smile and their eyes light up with a radiant shine. They sing songs, they wonder about rain aesthetic appeal, they sigh, they recite poetry, and they sip coffee.

There is also another kind of romantic, who can be of any age, class, or gender. Rain, to this person, would be synonymous with nostalgia, a time lost, a memory repressed. As soon as this person catches the scent of monsoon, he begins to shuffle through his past, through his childhood and adolescence, and finds in the heart of rain a fond memory that is highly romanticized, and greatly missed. This memory can be anything, any repeated gesture or expression by a loved one, any old song, any warm snack, or even a television program. This person sighs as well, full of newfound emotions and longing, until rain becomes a common sight again. And then, he complains of mud and insects.

The third kind of romantics are those who reminisce about rain in rain, surrounded by mud and toads. They can be teenagers playing cricket or football on a muddy field, their passion to complete their incomplete game overriding their fear of getting wet and sneezing. They can be lawyers sitting under a vendor’s umbrella, eating some local snacks, and venting the frustrations accumulated at home and court. They can be wise old men from around the neighborhood, who become storytellers as soon they stop discussing politics. Their time was the best time, and their stories, the most real. They can be students and pedestrians finding shelter under the roof of the nearest shop, the shopkeepers being their kind hosts as they strike conversation around the most random of topics, yet very fondly. They can also be kids dancing on their roofs or old mothers working in their paddy fields. They can be as common yet as distinct as a drop of rain, each of their journeys as epic and as picturesque as those raindrops. Their sighs and their smiles, when they look past the horizon at the rainbow smiling back, carry a romance that elevates their spirits and gives them another memory that they can be fond of, proud of, and reminisce about later. 

Writing to Make a Difference

How arrogant of me would it be, to think that I’m writing to make a difference in the world?

When we think of writing, and especially, creative writing, to make a difference, we think of the smiles that we’ll spread, the safe and positive space that we’ll nurture, the sense of peace and contentment we’ll bring to the reader, and the positive changes that we bring to the lives of our readers. But how do we know of a way to write to be certain of the effects of our writing on each of our individual readers? No, we don’t know of anything like that, simply because we can’t know of anything like that.

I don’t know so much about the world or even human society to know what direction it should take. I don’t know enough about the others to make a decision concerning the choices that they should be making. I don’t know enough about myself to know what I should be making. If, despite all of that, I rush ahead of myself and begin to base my writing on the thought of wanting to make a difference, what would happen? 

Well, firstly, I definitely make some kind of difference or the other but who’ll tell me whether that difference has had enough impact or whether that impact was positive or not? At most, I can be certain that I’ll keep a clean conscience and my intentions will be ‘good’. But again, will the difference that I make be good or positive for someone else as well, and will it stay like that throughout different cultures and time periods?

The thought of making a difference is exhausting because the focus of writing, a purely joyous activity, a self-fulfilling process in itself, is then transferred to the perceived difference it is making instead of the act of writing and self-expression itself. Therefore, it becomes pertinent here to free yourself from the boundations of writing for others or writing to make difference. 

Now, of course, you can write for others as well but you shouldn't do it for yourself and your writing.

If your writing does make a positive difference in someone else’s life, it is something to be joyful about but that thought shouldn’t become the foundation of your creative self-expression.

There's no objective answer to 'Why do you write?'. Personally, I write for myself, to release myself. I write to free myself from all that defines me. I write for the sake of writing itself. That is all.

Cricket and Its Appeal to Me

 I remember playing and watching cricket when I was young. Oh, how fun it used to be! 

I was easily immersed in it. I wanted to be a cricketer. Be out there with a bat and make a name for myself, take the best catches and stun everyone, or make the ball spin or swing so much that the batsman finds it impossible to play.

Well, this was my dream as a cricketer. A short-lived one but a heartful one nonetheless. And dreams, when these little demons break… It hurts.

While I could never get the bowl to swing beyond a certain limit and only get the wickets on the seemingly worst bowls I bowled, I still made some progress there. I'm not the one for sports, but I had this passion for it. A passion to score better, to win the match for my team, to be a hero for a while, to stand up proud and get to 'bat' again in the next match as we decided. 

It was never about the rewards, not even something as superficial as honor or fame. Mostly, it was about oneself, or well, something within us. It was about our passion for the game and the worth of that passion for us. It was a measure of how our dreams performed in real life.

Unfortunately, my dreams couldn't even make a half-century before they were retired hurt and put back in their place by the selection board. But this is not just about my dreams.

This is about how I admired cricket in my childhood, how I became passionate about it, and what was there in each of those forms of cricket to be passionate about.

Television: So first, I started watching it on the TV. A little boy who got introduced and later hooked to the game because everyone around me used to watch it and talk about it. I seemed to have remembered certain names that would constantly pop up on the screen and watching those names again and again gave me a sense of familiarity.

Watching me watch the game as he kept passing offhanded remarks about the batting style of the players and their history, my father, with whom I didn't share many other topics, introduced me to its rules. 

I didn't understand back then but I gradually became accustomed to the game, rather quickly I would say. I would still ask questions from time to time about those rules though because for some reason, the game had a seemingly unlimited number of rules that kept changing depending upon the circumstances. I could never understand the 'complicated' mathematics required to calculate the score of a team in case it rained(the Duckworth-Lewis score) but I could understand the nuances of power plays(that kept changing frequently), the number of overs a bowler should bowl, and so on. When the DRS system was introduced, I knew about it even more than my colleagues and my father, for the simple reason that I turned on the commentary and listened to it.

Anyway, so it became a break for me. A break when I and my father would bond over, have something to talk about, present our own perspectives, and so on. Surprisingly enough, our opinions and perspectives, unlike everything else, seemed to be quite compatible in regards to our favorite players and the choices they made during the match, overall trends, and so on.

What gradually attracted me more and more towards cricket, however, was an infatuation with the scores and the records. Those numbers appeared to be full of magic, calling me out to remember them, as if they were the only numbers in the world, oh so special.

Now that I look back on them, they were so irrelevant and meaningless but still, they were a part of history, and history, we believe is a part of an immortal legacy that will go on and on and on. My desire to make a record, to contribute something to that eternal legacy made me dream of cricket even when the TV was turned off, even when the match and even the post-match analysis and highlights were over.

Dreams and Daydreams: So, over time, I started to dream of cricket. I wouldn't dream of their faces but their shots, their movements across the crease, their styles and so on. Some surreal dreams later, I started to daydream about cricket. I would be walking with a bowling action, would think of my leg as the bat, and would conjure dreams about hitting six sixes every over. I would think of the ball hitting the center of my bat with a satisfying resounding knock and would feel absolutely delighted after that. 

At times, I used to conjure entire matches in my head, some of 20 overs, some shorter, some longer, some in which I won the match for the team by bowling, some in which I batted to chase a seemingly impossible target, and so on. The game manifested itself in my imagination and shaped how I viewed life itself. These daydreams continued till much later on in my life, until I started playing football more than cricket, and an imaginary football seemed to be accompanying me everywhere as I walked, ate, and even talked.

Imagination: Again, as a child, the characters and toys that I possessed, all so full of imagination and life, played cricket as well. I bowled with small objects such as a bottle cap, a ping pong ball, or a carrom piece with my left hand and hit them with my 'bat', which would also be something as simple as a pencil or a spoon. I kept playing by myself, with myself, all day. At times, I wouldn't even need a 'bowl' to play the match, just an imaginary one would work.

I would even play an entire series of matches with myself, as I divided teams into pencils and toys, imaginary India and Australia, and so on. My bed here was both my pitch and my ground and I was simultaneously a batsman, a bowler, a fielder, an umpire, a hero, a loser, and the audience.  

My fascination with those numbers and records that I saw on television continued here. I counted the scores of both 'teams', individual 'players', and kept 'recording' them on top of my head for as long as I could. Not only did I take them seriously throughout the match, I would remember them after that. Soon, some of my pencils and some other toys became my favorites as well. Funnily enough, I played with some of them so much that the lead inside of them got fragmented. So later, when I used them to write, I realized that no matter how much I sharpened it, the tip was bound to break or fall off.

Then as I grew a bit older and started playing cricket with a bat and a ball, a plastic bat and a plastic ball, a rubber ball, a tennis ball, even a ping pong ball, and so on, I started frequenting my neighborhood and rooftop. In the neighborhood, I played cricket with others, my neighbors’ kids, and other older and younger folks. There was no seniority there, everyone was just a player, and I liked being a part of that. That was also my first interaction with ‘society’.

They had strange rules, adjusted to the stage on which we played. If the batsman hit the ball too far, he had to fetch it himself, or he would be considered 'out'. If the ball was hit in the sewer, he had to take it out and wash it. If he had his own bat, well, he could bat for a while longer if he acted shamelessly enough. If there was an odd number of players, one player would play as a ‘common’ player and play from both sides. 

On the roof, I usually played alone unless a guest's kid or a random cousin dropped by. There, I had a bigger field, a bigger pitch, a bigger range of objects to play, and a broader imagination at work. While playing, I would act as if I was a professional cricketer and then try to emulate their styles as I played. If it was a left-handed batsman, I would even play left-handed there. I had also marked a particular spot on the wall there to act as my 'stumps' when I bowled. Whenever I had an excess of energy, I would also act as a fielder and throw that ball at that spot from different angles and positions. This had a separate 'record' section in my mental book.

Funnily enough, as I was acting as different batsmen, I would play better when it was a batsman that I liked and vice-versa.

If I was a talented cricketer who could learn without guidance, like someone with an inborn talent, I would have shone here. Fortunately and unfortunately, I only had fun and passed my time like that. I would even write down the score at times and fill entire copies with those random numbers. Most of the time however, I would be running down two floors to fetch the random object I was playing with since it was a second floor rooftop. I would go there as soon as the sun shifted a bit to the side and would stay there until it set completely. Then it would be time for snacks or television. If it was time for watching TV though, I would watch cartoons(wouldn't watch cricket now, I wasn't that much of a fanatic).

Mobile: When I found out that I could play cricket on a mobile handset, I started asking everyone I met if they had that installed on their phone(only when I was alone with them or when my parents weren't around). I would then proceed to play a game on their phone until they left. This continued until my father got himself a new keypad mobile with a cricket game pre-installed on it. I played it as much as I could, almost all the time I was allowed to, and even a bit more than that. 

And of course I would keep count of the score there as well. It didn't take time for me to grow attached to the fictional names and numbers there. I even developed a sense of connection to them as I sorted my favorites among them. 

PC: My fascination with playing the game on PC started with playing it on others' computers as well. It was just so much better than playing it on mobile that I couldn't get enough of it. It gave me a rush that was unthinkable to me at that time. I merely wanted to have more time to play it, to complete a single game, and then one more. Years later, when I got my own PC, I was 14-15 years old. And the first thing I did after setting it up was to search for a game like Cricket 07, which wasn't that good in retrospect but still seemed to me the best thing in the world. 

There, I finally got to play it to my heart's content, letting loose my obsession with numbers. Gradually, with an unlimited access to the game on the PC, I was over it. 

With Family and Friends: The dynamics of the game were different when I played it with family members and friends. Each family member that I played the game with taught me something different as well. I remember one of my cousins teaching me how to place the ball at the centre of the bat, another teaching me how to hold the bat(it felt awkward initially), a friend teaching me the right bowling action, and another teaching me how to make the bowl swing. 

Then when I was old enough to go out on a cycle with a bat stuck in the rear rack, I made lots of memories.

We played the game for the sake of playing the game, not for the numbers, scores, or records. We didn't keep records, we didn't care about the numbers. We just loved sweating for our passion. We wanted to win but we didn't want to win for ourselves, we wanted to win one for the team. This team spirit made it so that we forgot our individual scores, only team's runs were kept track of, for that was the only score that mattered. The cricket on the streets was different from the cricket on the rooftop, different from the one on TV, and different from the one on PC. Each had its own appeal, and certain fascinating qualities.

But the difference in appeal between cricket as a show business meant for mass consumption and cricket as a sport connected to some of our sweetest memories is apparent. One is a consumption pattern that is reliant on our emotions, another is emotion itself.

I haven't played or watched cricket in a long time but the emotion that I cultivated with this sport is something that'll have a warm spot in my memories forever.

How to Appreciate Comedy?

Here's my two bits about comedy,

Comedy is a genre of fiction. Comedy is a humorous discourse. Comedy may or may not be acted out, may or may not be theatrical but comedy has to be entertaining. That's all comedy is, to its core.

Why Should You Read This Article?

You've seen and heard stand-up artists, comics, feature-length films and short films, a wide variety of videos, theatre performances, your friend's gossip, your father's stories, your own thoughts, and everything else that ever brought a smile to your face. So, you're bound to be acquainted with what comedy is. 

You most likely have some particular forms of comedy that you like, that resonate with you, that you can't help laughing at. The purpose of this article is not to tell you what comedy is, since you already have your own definition of it, most likely.

Instead, this article serves to defamiliarize and reintroduce you to the heart of comedy.

Why Should You Try to Understand Comedy?

You should try to understand, to feel the 'comedy' around you, so that you can use it to feel lighter, feel more alive, and feel a sense of joy in being a human.

-It is to make you understand how to be more self-aware and empathetic at the same time. 

-It is to free you, from the confines of regurgitated thoughts and information that has come to define your perception and hence, color your sense of reality.

-It is to refamiliarize yourself, to the possibilities you hold within to express yourself, to the truly endless possibilities of seeing, understanding, interacting with, and enjoying life that lay before you.

-It is to make you understand that appreciating comedy is appreciating art, and appreciating art is appreciating and admiring life itself.

Freedom

First off, before beginning to learn to appreciate comedy and revel in the pure lightness of it, we should keep in mind that it is someone's discourse, a form of their expression. If we censor, control, and unreasonably criticize someone else's words, merely fueled by our differences and our inability to accept, appreciate, and understand, we are limiting their expression, limiting their freedom, and are in turn, creating boundaries for everyone else and ourselves. 

These boundaries divide us further, limit our freedom, limit our expression, and replace the lightness and joy of experiencing life with a sense of caution and a feeling of fear. Therefore, we must learn to unlearn all our thoughts and ideas that haven't been questioned in long. We must remember to give freedom, to allow people to be what they want to be in their expression of themselves, to be able to get that freedom for ourselves and to be able to nurture a safe space, a community that is driven by joy instead of conflict.

Empathy

Secondly, we must learn to cultivate our sense of empathy, put ourselves in others' shoes and immerse ourselves in their stories, to experience it all with a greater hilarity, and to feel a more profound touch of humanity.

Only when we are empathetic can we derive amusement out of anything, only when we let go of our staunch perceptions can we make space for more. Only when we open our minds can we open our choices and open ourselves to the freedom and joy that the world and society have to offer.

Three Centres of Comedy: Fiction, Discourse & Entertainment 

Whether you want to express yourself with a touch of humor, spread around smiles and laughs as you pass by in people's lives, or want to appreciate comedy to a greater extent and revel in the euphoria it brings, you should acquaint yourselves with these three fundamental blocks of comedy, that make it what it is.

Fiction

Comedy is partly fiction and partly real. It is truth based on fiction and fiction based on truth. It is a narrative that uses the foundation of reality to base itself. It is a story we collectively believe in and are required to believe in to find amusement. It uses form, structure, content, and rhythm in varying intensities to create absurdity. It is unexpected, abrupt, and absurd. It is sense based on nonsense and nonsense based on sense.

Did that make any sense? Well, this article isn't meant to be comedic anyway. Without delving deeper into the essence of comedy, let's get back to the point. Comedy has this inextricable element of fiction to it that we must recognise before looking at it. Therefore, we cannot let it replace discourse that has an intent and a purpose to it. In simpler words, we mustn't take it literally and we mustn't take it for reality, for otherwise, there's no fun in it.

Discourse

This is the other aspect of the fiction element of comedy. Yes, comedy can be quick and absurd. It can merely be based on appearances and imitations. But unless it's slapstick and lasts longer than a few seconds, it should contain some value to it.

Comedy, at the heart of it, is humorous discourse. If we remove the discourse from it, we are merely left with empty words and a sense of hollowness. If the discourse that the comedy is based upon is trivial, the discourse that'll be carried through comedy would also be trivial. Therefore, the comedy would also turn easily forgettable, regardless of the laughs it aroused at the moment.

It doesn't mean that comedy should only use serious or heavy topics. Instead, it means that the comic should try to make the discourse as relevant to his audience as possible. Of course, that depends on the purpose of the comic as well but it's rarely the case that the comic is expressing himself for his own amusement instead of the audience.

At the same time, it shouldn't be afraid of approaching serious topics, worthy topics, topics that need attention, topics that serve a purpose, topics that aren't talked about, and topics that hold and add value to the readers and listeners. Comedy is based upon discourse and the comic can use his power to carry discourse to an unimaginable extent.

Entertainment

The third centre of comedy that I identified is well, entertainment. This should be obvious to all readers that the primary purpose of comedy is to entertain but what I'm talking about here is the ability to entertain and the ability to be entertained to a greater extent.

Any comic does his best to entertain his audience but not all audiences try their best to be entertained. A comic who has fixed perceptions, who isn't open to entertaining discourse that doesn't align with him, who isn't free to understand his audience, and who isn't free in his expression can only reach a limited audience and likely earn dissatisfaction of the rest. A comic who devotedly holds on to a particular narrative can only reach the ears and eyes of those that ascribe to that narrative. A comic who doesn't make judgments earns fewer judgments and more appreciation. A comic who is set to entertain his audience might not reach everyone but will not attract the ire of those who were not entertained to their expectations. On the other hand, a comic who uses comedy to channel his narrative is more likely to be shooed off-stage instead of being given a chance.

Similarly, an audience that came to be entertained will be entertained regardless. An audience that enjoys more than it criticises will always be more satisfied with its time and its comic. An audience that is open to experiencing, accepting, and appreciating the performances that it didn't expect, that is, an empathetic audience, will always leave more fulfilled.

Comedy and Life

If you're willing to be entertained, you should think less of the cause and effects of comedy and feel more of it at the moment. Just be there and accept the absurdity of it and you'll soon find yourself laughing like a madman. 

It's kind of similar to life itself, isn't it?

Comedy makes you feel light and when you're lighter, you're freer, more open, and more perceptive to it and so you feel even lighter, and before you know it, you feel a little content and all the happiness in the world is for yours to feel. At that moment, life is worth living, simply because you're smiling.

Matilda

 Matilda is a brave young lady, against all odds she stands up tall. This isn’t how she was raised, this is just how she is.

She’s confident, she’s charming, she conducts herself well, and she knows how to balance situations out. She knows when to give it her all and when to let go. Truly, a well-rounded woman. 

But she’s not perfect. Matilda has a flaw. Matilda is a dreamer, but not the kind of dreamer that you know of. She’s not one of those who dream in the night, unconsciously reliving the conscious that’s suppressed. She’s also not a part of a long line of artists and poets who live each day a different way and discover novel ways to admire the most mundane. Although she likes to make profound seem simple and simple seem profound, she neither calls herself a poet nor an artist. But she does call herself a dreamer.

She, quite literally, dreams with her eyes wide open.

She would be crossing the road and the footpath would begin to resemble strong arms wanting to hold her. She would be looking at the traffic light and the red and green would turn into two eyes that would take turns blinking at her. She would be having her morning coffee and the smell of it would show her a vivid image of a quaint and picturesque village in South Africa where the beans were extracted from. 

Now if you’re wondering if she ever consulted a psychiatrist, the answer is NO. She never felt the need to visit one. She wasn’t hallucinating after all, she was dreaming and that never quite seemed to be a problem to her. Simply because she always knew, as if by instinct, that she was in a dream. Those dreams never dulled her clarity, never muddled her awareness, and never became a burden to her. Her dreams never interfered with her functioning, nor did they ever cause her any harm. Why would, then she treat them as a problem? Instead, she smiles, beautifully and gracefully, when she dreams. And when she dreams, she draws people in. She gives them a sense of contentment, a sense of peace and harmony, and a sense of belonging. In those moments, she represents ‘home’ to strangers, wanderers and adventurers who were never comfortable in their own skin, those who didn’t belong.

Dreams made her life more colorful. It was as if a masterful musician randomly plays a beautiful melody for her frequently or a master painter occasionally drops by to add some artistic touches to her life. Her dark black eyes can see more colors and can look far beyond. Her eyelashes, when they flutter, bring music to life. 

Now as all humans do after a certain point, Matilda takes it for granted. This isn’t what she wants to be, this is just what she is.

Personally and professionally, Matilda’s life is considerably sorted. Since she keeps her desires in control, hubris and avarice never played a major role in her life. What she wants, therefore, is also something rather immaterial, something very simple.

Matilda, wants to dream at night. Yes, Matilda, the dreamer, was never able to have a normal dream like everyone else. And she wants to experience what it’s like to dream with her eyes closed. 

Matilda, they say, is a fairy, an angel who can cure diseases with her smile. As she smiles, she gives hope to the despairing, brings virtue out of the corrupt, and purges the lost of their gloomy silence. 

However, when she closes her eyes, she furrows her brows. And only Matilda knows what she feels inside.