if -- memories from the time of B&W TVs rekindled by an instagram chat, and penned down thanks to a writing prompt

The word 'if' always reminds me of Rudyard Kipling's poem by the same name. My favourite lines are these: 'If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same'. I don't recall when I read the poem fully for the first time, but I vividly remember when I heard these lines.

I was 8-years old and watching the Wimbledon Tennis Championships men's final with my dad. A young blond kid whose eyebrows were barely visible walked out onto Centre Court along with a visibly older player -- Boris Becker and Kevin Curran. As they stepped out, the commentator read out these same lines which are inscribed at the locker room exit onto Centre Court, quite sure that the younger of the two would learn a lot that day. The rest, as they say, is history. Becker was the youngest champion and the first German to win the title. He was also super cute, and I became a fan.

Cut to the present.

I've been a Federer fan since I watched him play a few feet away from me, long before he became famous. I've laughed, marvelled, had my jaws drop, jumped up and down, held my heads in my hand, chewed up my nails, cried my heart out and screamed myself hoarse. Poetry. Poetry in motion, every single time.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to an Instagram chat between Nadal and Federer -- eight minutes long, filled with affection, admiration and deep respect for one another. For those of you who may not follow tennis, it's rare to find someone who is a fan of both players. It's almost impossible. Many reasons contribute to this including their styles of play, personalities, dressing sense, etc. but the most important reason is that each has handed the other some of their most heartbreaking losses. The line between triumph and disaster has indeed been very thin.

But if Roger and Rafa can treat those two impostors just the same, what will it take for us, their fans? 

When this is over, I’m ... (lockdown verse)

When this is over, I’m going to write a poem
One that captures the rhythm and rhyme
Of these three weeks I was locked up at home
Absolutely losing all sense of time.

Day 0 was when the announcement was made
And we were given four hours
To ‘prep’ to be indoors for 21 days
The command given by the man in power.

Day 1 was surreal, not much else to say
It felt like a good break maybe in some way.
Day 2 we took stock of grains, pulses and snacks
Biscuits and Maggi added to the list, many a pack.

Day 3 is when the seriousness hit
The consequences, we started to realise, bit by bit.
Day 4 was special, cos veggies I scored
Tomatoes, beans, bottle and even bitter gourd.

Day 5 was friends, family and Zoom
It was nice to see everyone from the comfort of my room.
Day 6, a Corona bingo I made
Before the commonalities I was seeing began to fade.

Day 7 I felt the start of some routine
Home stuff and work from home were more familiar scenes.
Day 8 I wrote a poem about that
In case I needed a reminder about how to keep things on track.

Day 9 I made the first of many lists
Of things learned, not missed, and missed.
Day 10 began with WhatsApp fights
Over the announcement about Sunday’s lights.

Day 11 I listed the things I hadn’t used
To see shoes and shades there left me amused.
Day 12 turned out to be a Sunday
Funday, it wasn’t, just more mundane.

Days 13 and 14 were crazy at work
See how that’s the first time I mentioned work. ‘Smirk’.
Today is Day 15 and I may read this out in class
If at all I’m graded, I hope I’ll at least pass.

I hope to continue this for the remaining time
If more than 21 days, it may be harder to rhyme.
Even though it’s nothing particularly deep
This experience, I want to keep.

21 days will never sound the same again
Let's hope it's 21, and the lockdown will end.

A fake post to break my blog's pause

This post really irritated me last night, so I started to write something about it. This morning, I saw that it's no longer available at the link I've shared because it was fake. It had Bill Gates spewing gyaan, his thoughts during the time of Corona.

Fair warning, this is a response to a fake post. But my post is all real :-)

It is reminding us that the power of freewill is in our hands. We can choose to cooperate and help each other, to share, to give, to help and to support each other or we can choose to be selfish, to hoard, to look after only our self. 

For Bill Gates to say this, after having created the Microsoft platform which is as uncooperative as systems go, and which has hoarded in its lifetime by obstructing others, is ludicrous. It shows a lack of questioning of his own actions, and how they may have contributed to the world turning out this way. He may donate tonnes now, but charity doesn't absolve. It only mitigates and placates the self.

But is it better late than never? No, better late than never has brought us to today. Look at Bezos and Amazon. What a joke. The company doesn't pay taxes, it's giving employees unpaid time off during this crisis. We have to curtail our greed, at least now.

What about family, commitments and responsibilities -- and work, making your company great, making your life greater? How do you choose? Is it even possible to be in a somewhat equal life relationship that isn't dominated by questions of money, and who's bringing in what to the table? For that, we need to think differently. However, to be able to do that, we need to be raised to think differently. How many of us will question the biggies like Gates, Bezos, Ambanis, etc. who have contributed greatly to making our current world? We may all have our parts to play, but as far as this is concerned, you and I barely even feature.

We need to be able to think differently about invention, society and money. Copyright and closed source codes have brought this upon us. And it's further fuelled by greed for power and money -- in that order. The world sees Gates as a benefactor, which he may be for the amount he has donated, and the causes to which he's donated. But we also need to see people like him as the ones who have contributed heavily into creating this disproportionate world.

Existing inequalities and inequities must be questioned at times like this. Sadly, the middle class and lower middle class are aspirational in nature, and this is what makes that questioning difficult. We are not conditioned to question as that has meant punishment of some kind -- hauled up at school, not promoted at work, being labeled something or the other by your family and friends, etc. So you play to the system and you're rewarded, even if it's scraps. That's all of us, middle and upper middle class who control a minute portion of the wealth. The upper and elite classes have no reason to question because life works for them. Status quo absolutely works for them.

While this is a moment to pause, I don't think we will. Because the feds will bail out businesses and banks. But not the poor. That's always been the case, and it continues to this day -- in the US and India, look at the financial relief packages being thrown at those who already have SO much, while those who are in need get a pittance. Those deeply impacted make poor wages, have no security nets, and we are unwilling -- as a society -- to address this or even see it.

Losing jobs is a problem, for sure. But our worry is our possible inability at making our EMIs for the 3 different houses we own, the 2 cars, a piece of land somewhere. It is not for our day to day survival needs, which is the case for the majority who are in real trouble at this point without jobs, wages, food. But we're apathetic because someone will do something. We just have to transfer money into bank accounts, to donate to organisations we think will do the job, or worse, to the PM's relief fund -- because we think charity is the answer. And it's in those time that the spotlight shines brightly on people like Bill Gates and others.

Charity helps, sure, but charity works on the premise that we can give once we have enough. Being unquestioning of that 'enough' is why we are where we are today. That vicious cycle has to break, but for that, it has to be questioned.

With this forced pause upon us, will we do it at least now?