The Spirit Carries On

I was in class 6 when my Civics textbook informed me that our country is home to about 1608 languages. And while the exact figure is almost surely as reliable as the NCERT, the ballpark is enough to indicate a scarcely acknowledged fact-- that we, as Indians by birth and free people by right, talk in no mean measure. Yes sir, we talk. We prattle and we preach. We implore and we instruct. We honor and we hack. We wheedle and we whack. I can keep unrolling the scroll, but no, I don’t intend a discourse. Just fact, and fact is, we talk. We’ve talked since Adam (oh yes we claim him!), talked our way through history and time, and we’ll talk till the stars fall from the sky and the rivers run uphill and all the words to “Louie Louie” are known. Corny stuff, granted, but what the hell. I have a point and I’ll prove it, I promise.

I dreamt of Ekta Kapoor yesterday. We were cozying up on the beach (snigger on, I don’t care… it was just a dream) and she was whispering sweet nothings in my ear. The heat was on and I obviously didn’t care much about what she was saying then, but in hindsight I figure it was just a million different inflections of the same thing. One letter, in fact, and no prizes for guessing which. (Imagine a torrent of Ks, all uttered in a sweet, moist, husky voice that I’ve since figured out as Britney’s, breaking incessantly like waves upon your eardrums, while other, more obvious things are happening. Scary? You bet.) More later.

Point is, the dream had a meaning, and not just the obvious one. Picture this. A snazzily decorated interior, a cabal of good looking people, and loads of stone-faced and sometimes bleary-eyed talking. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Indian soap opera for you. The dream told me I have crazy (and morbid) thoughts, but it also told me that talking sells. KKyunki talking is the one fail-safe way to convince us. KKyunki we, the Indians, are moved by words.

The other day I was flipping through the formidable list of channels on Indian television (fast approaching, or maybe already past, the population of languages) and I came across a show featuring the ever-guffawing, ever-gregarious Navjot Singh Sidhu. He has made a life out of laughing, but on this occasion he was in the middle of a serious dissertation on cricket. This was what he said: “Dashers are bashers. Try them in a Test and they’ll be slaughtered like sausages in a doghouse. Twenty20 is not cricket, my friend, it is like a mini-skirt, it shows you enough to keep you interested, but hides everything that matters.” Man, this guy can talk, I was thinking, hooked by the scruff of my neck. And just then the electricity took its daily leave, leaving me feeling deprived. Now I think back on it and I don’t think those statements quite qualify as expert opinion, as the show claimed. But hey, who’s complaining, it was quaint talking alright.

Cricket is the one true opium of the masses, and I feel justified to stay with it. A prominent analyst recently commented that in the modern era of cricketainment, one must atleast be a graduate to fit in. Sounds strange, but I listened to him and I’ll tell you the context. What the guy meant was that you need to be a fluid talker to earn respect (presumably at presentations and the like). Personally, I refute this argument with all my heart but it somehow smacks of an inconvenient truth.

I’ll talk of another TV experience I had. It was time for the trust vote in the Parliament, and I tuned in to Lok Sabha TV to catch the action. The Lower House (as it is wastefully termed) is always a picture to behold. Only the picture has evolved over time. The erstwhile theater of political wisdom is now an arena of pugilistic speeches and catcalling, where words flow thick and fast, and the more you talk the more you make it a day for yourself, or so it seems. Just about anybody can disrupt anyone’s speech, and slogan shouting is no more the exception. So amidst this hoopla when Rahul Gandhi stood up to speak “as an Indian, and not a politician”, I and a million others were all ears. He spun us a yarn, telling us of Sasikala and Kalawati, of poverty alleviation through energy security. He talked about the important thing being how we impact the world, and not how the world impacts us. And all the while he forced me to smile, not because I am a fan of the Congress party, no, but because my country was listening to an Indian heart, after long. Maybe it was talk of the most beguiling kind, I don’t rule that possibility out, but for once I couldn’t help but sway.

Outside the hallowed grounds of the Parliament, politics is all about convincing prowess. The vanguard of almost every party is formed by a panel of people who can talk smooth when the going gets rough. It takes no rocket scientist to fathom the presiding protocol of Indian politics -- Power equals Talk.

For more of my humble pie, take the case of the increasing clout of the corporate. Money is the calling for almost every college-goer today, and I don’t really think I’ll burn in hell if I say that this cash-dangling fisher would go for the slick-talking fish nine times out of ten. Talking is no more only a trait. Hell, it’s a need. The radio’s knob has turned and the oldies are off, so you better learn how to sing for the moment, fish.

Closer home, lets talk of society. “Now, now,” you say, “loosen up, crackpot. That’s one BIG word.” And you know what I do? I give that to you, lock stock and barrel. Big, yes, and impossible to describe. But me, homer, I am a braveheart, I’ll take it on, I’ll talk. Wait… just a moment, my man… say, I talked already, didn’t I? Yeah, but I’ll talk some more, and then some more, and keep the sax rigged and blowing till I have peace and bliss and a girlfriend to go, and man, that’s society. Pardon the oddball behavior, friends, all I wish to say is that society is talk. Part sagacious counsel, part headstrong prudishness, a measure of virtuous vice and a wisp of care-to-the-wind revelry. Now, anybody have Snape’s number?

I am going nuts, I know. I can feel it in the way I just can’t seem to get a hold over myself. I just can’t stop talking. Oh, and is that not another one of my beloved little points? We talk mostly because we just can’t stop talking. The air seems so barren and the day so bleak without words. How our hearts yearn to give our vocal chords some (ill-needed?) exercise ever so often. Good or bad, pointless or not, we don’t care. Instead, we talk.

So much for the truth. All this talk is finally working, I am turning somewhat sleepy. So I’ll put my pen down and blabber no more, but not without fructifying a promise I made. I told you I’ll tell you more about my dream, my very exotic and thrilling romance with (STOP SNIGGERING, FOR PETE’S SAKE) the world of meaningless fantasies… in the end, Madamoiselle Kapoor turned into a hundred ton hammerhead and gulped me whole. Didn’t chew, no, Madamoiselle likes it whole, and I landed up straight in her ample guts. And then, in the final moments of my sleep, believe it or not, right there in the Queen’s cosmic guts, I turned into Slimshady and the spotlight was on and I was singing, “When I’m gone, just carry on, don’t mourn, rejoice…”

And I think (or like to believe, have it your way) that just as I opened my eyes, just as the last remaining threads of my nightmare dissolved into obscurity, from all around me I heard the applauding crowd murmur a song of their own… it was Dream Theater (of course) and they were crooning to… oh you know it… “The Spirit Carries On.”

Hallucination, make-believe, balderdash. Call it what you please, but one thing’s certain. The crowd was right, as is the norm in our country. I’ll go as I came, a blip, or a twinkle, if you may. But just as before, just as now and just as it will ever be, the spirit shall carry on.

I rest my case. Dreamland ahoy!