Rest assured, readers, I haven't forgotten this blog. Just been coping with summer, and new batches, and enthusiastically recording and uploading stories in the form of podcasts on YouTube (the current playlist is titled Goppoguchchho, with a tip of the hat to the bearded maestro). Also, growing more and more disheartened with writing because of the sad lack of comments and engaging discussions. Saddest of all, people insist on commenting via phone or Whatsapp, but simply won't write on the blog itself.
Besides, I have started cultivating a new hobby - cooking - after living 61 years without ever feeling the need for it. Too many reasons to list: among them, the desire to acquire one more dimension of independence, to stay more engaged with life as I grow old, the fact that I have always greatly admired good cooks, the theory that learning a new skill rejuvenates the brain cells, the need to fill the increasing amount of free time I have started allowing myself lately, etc etc. I have started with the basics - bhaat, daal, posto, dimer dalna - and I do not intend to go much further than saak and a chicken dish or two, because I do not have any lofty notion about my innate ability. But that should be enough to salve my ego. I blame all the women who have lovingly fed me all my life for the culinary illiteracy I have been saddled with, till now.
I have been growing more and more annoyed with an insufferable generation of parents (not all of them, of course, but a most disquieting proportion) who are now sending their children to me - those in the late thirties to late forties age group. Most middle class, middle aged people have always been stupid and coarse, vain and uninformed and fond of talking rot when they should stay quiet, but this generation really takes the cake. I wrote a piece called Juvenilia 16 years ago - do look it up, it will save me the trouble of dreary repetition - and simply nothing has changed, except for the worse. Really, civilization has been replaced by cars and phones and branded clothing. Given enough money in the bank, I'd have run away to my own little chalet in the hills, inviting only such guests as fit my definition of civilized. I am sure I wouldn't be troubled by too many visitors!
These days, I scroll through the phone to find out things that give me hope that there are still people who are doing their own thing, and good things at that, things that keep them happy while healing the planet (or at least harming it a little less than others). There is a web magazine called The Better India which feeds me with stories like that - I recently read about a young lady who has given up her media job and joined hands with her retired dad to open up something called BaapBeti Farm somewhere near Pune, and another housewife in Mumbai who has trained her family to reduce, recycle and reuse waste instead of throwing it all away. There is also a local initiative called Support Elders - the name ought to be self-explanatory - with whom I am planning to get involved. And I have some hopes of those old boys and girls, my own daughter prominently among them, who have stayed close to me: not that they will all become great, but maybe good, socially valuable human beings. Sparks of light in the enveloping darkness...
I have quite a store of stories to tell on YouTube - I have for now decided that I shall upload one every Friday - but there, too, I shall be glad to have ideas and suggestions to keep me going. And likes and subscriptions and comments, which will assure me that I am not hollering down a bottomless abyss. As for new readers, do look up the old posts on my channel too: some of you may find them interesting and useful.
Tailpiece: It tickles my funny bone when some people tell me that they still look up my Facebook page now and then. Funny, because I use it for no other purpose than as a notice board for current and future students and their parents!
