The Andy God

God’s first name was Andy, as per an old joke I came across one time, probably in Roorkee, where a kid thought that because of the song he often hears and sings which goes:

Andy walks with me

Andy talks with me

Andy tells me I am his own…

Which of course, was a mishearing of the hymn In The Garden which actually goes:

And He walks with me

And He talks with me

And He tells me I am his own…

Misheard song lyrics are mostly always funny. There’s a thin white dude on Instagram who puts on a wig, takes up a hairbrush, and makes reels on misheard lyrics. I forget his IG handle. I particularly love the ones where Lorraine is involved… like “Have you ever seen Lorraine… coming down on a sunny day?” or “I can see clearly now Lorraine is gone” or “I bless Lorraine down in Africa!” High-la-ree-ous.

Speaking of the Gram, going off on a tangent, all these made me think about how it’s insane the way people misread lives. Social media gives everyone who has the time and inclination a free platform. Somehow it has fed so enthusiastically into our narcissism. One, we begin to think we have way more influence than we actually do because of online interactions – our Likes and Comments. Two, because of the same interactions, we begin to think people care about and notice us more than they actually do. And three, unfortunately, we seem to think we know people because of the content they choose to put online.

Social media platforms are designed to be visual, virtual and carefully curated. There are some people who dump 42 near similar photos in one post but those are usually only unclejis and auntiejis. Most of us rethink, clip, pull, tug, filter and enhance our photos, videos and words online. No one knows better than we do that The Us online is not The Us offline. Yet we think we know people based solely on their online content. Why? I don’t know. Maybe social media also makes us more myopic and self-centred yet audaciously confident than ever before.

Society has always put people in boxes. Or tried to put people in boxes. Even some sociologists I know who would fight you over how they do not do this, in fact, do. Human beings wear many faces. Some people wear more faces than others. Not even for malicious or sad reasons. Sometimes, masks are simply necessary. Because they make social interactions possible. And sometimes certain faces are the only ways that the other person will be able to understand them.

One day when the wearer decides that the masks are getting too heavy and they take it off, the audience gasps. Why do we never accept that we don’t know people as well as we think we do? Especially based off of social media content. Or based off of situations far removed from their natural habitat, like on vacations, or church, or professional environments, which demand very specific sets of masks.

So confident to think we know God’s first name because we’ve sung this song for forever. Never knowing or conceiving of the possibility that we might have misheard a hymn. 

Crazy. No?

There are other variants of the God joke. Another favourite of mine is where Forrest Gump goes to heaven and St Peter asked him what God’s name was. And he replied “Howard/Harold” because of the line “Our Father in Heaven, Howard/Harold be thy name…” 

I just thought of the Andy one because Jim Reeves’ version of the hymn is amazingly soothing to listen to, especially on an empty country road, as the sun sets in the west, when you’re feeling down and low, because you’re missing your family and friends, because you’re moving further away from home for the umpteenth time, unhappy and melancholy, to a village where you have no real friends, and God is your only solace.

The Middleton-Markle Of It All

I am waiting for 4PM today so let’s talk.

I saw an IG post this morning that said: Why is Meghan Markle always trying to copy Princess Diana? Why is she trying to project herself as the next Lady Di? Look at her wearing the same clothes, posing the same way, she thinks she can look like her et ce te ra.

Meanwhile, it has always been said: Kate Middleton/Princess Catherine pays lovely tribute to late MIL Princess Diana by dressing like her! She is channelling her late MIL. Kate Middleton looks beautiful dressing as Lady Di, wearing the same jewelry. And so on.

And I find myself marvelling at how the same things can be said in such different ways.

I’ve always said the offensiveness of a stare is inversely proportional to the cuteness of the starer. There is an entire HIMYM episode where they proposed a Dobler-Dahmer theory as well, Dobler from Say Anything with the boom box, and Dahmer, as in you know, the serial killer. If attraction is reciprocated, or at least the demonstrator of a gesture is cute, big romantic gestures are charming. If not, however, well, things gets definitely icky or worse, outright scary. I remember getting a single red rose from a stalker one time and well how I remember the way the flower made me shake from outright fear. Meanwhile, bouquets from most people have definitely been accepted with warmth and joy.

It is the vibe, I guess.

If you don’t like someone, it does not matter what they do. You will hate it anyway and find reasons why the gesture is off. If you like someone, you will find yourself making excuses even if they gaslight you and you can even recognise the pattern. 

Anyway, returning to the British RF, my take in all of it is: why are all the DILs trying to look like their MIL? No, wait. Their dead MIL btw who they never even met?! Do their husbands like it? I mean do the sons of the late Princess like it when their wives dress up like their mother? What weird royal oedipal/electra complex is this?! 

Or is it for the public eye? Which makes it very performative and icky. 

Personally, I think Kate Middleton tries harder to look like Princess Diana and/or try to channel her. I mean this is understandable because she has more to lose, and as the current Princess of Wales, the stakes are definitely higher for her. Meghan Markle, however cringe she sometimes come off as, has a CV in her kitty; she has done things with her life and can stand alone without the crutch of the BRF. But, you know, unfair on both. Comparison is the thief of joy, and the women have always been pitted against each other from Day One.

It is often said the British public and press have been terribly racist towards Markle. I saw an interview of hers where she admits to never having had this experience because she is so fair and has always been white-passing. But that clearly, that has not been enough for the BRF and their fanclub. If that is true, it is terribly unfair, I’d say. People also say she took her husband away from his family. Man’s a grown up, dude. And every single functional family I know – even in Mizoram, ffs – encourage non-heirs to move out of the family house to keep peace in the household because no matter how rich or hoity-toity you are, joint households and two “matriarchs” sharing a kitchen is just a spell for disaster. 

Also it is possible that the two ladies never even try to "copy" Diana but when someone gets photographed that much (for all three) it is possible they end up wearing similar things! There’s only a finite amount of fashion, especially for their uppity circles, the colours they can wear, the style and length of hem they can play with and all that. Especially for Middleton who as Princess of Wales, again, the style she can wear is just limited. And there is certain symbolic merit and ceremony to wearing Diana’s jewels. In which case it is even weirder for the media, social or otherwise, to project this oedipal complex on them no?

Just very off.

I think it is easier to pretend the British RF are secretly lupine, as Doctor Who suggests. On a tangent, I also find this one anecdote very amusing that I heard a time ago. That the late Queen Elizabeth II did not take very well to the late Princess Diana who quipped that she was more English than they were, even had more English royal blood. Which is true because the present BRF line is German, so the Spencer family really does have more English in them than the BRF. Brings to mind how apt Elton John’s Candle in the Wind rendition for Princess Diana was, no?

I realise I didn’t say anything but beat around many bushes. I am a sociologist. I am vague. I engage in tautological discussions. So sue me.

People When They Whelm

People be people. They just be.

Over the years, I have had cause to feel very many different things for people and because of people. The other day as I was walking my dog, I thought that it might be good to reflect on the disappointments.

Not the outright anger and all that. Those are righteous. Some people are horrible and you hate them. In no situation could they have been salvaged. Narcissists, mostly. But some are just mildly disappointing because they could have been better.

Let me explain.

My knowledge of work is limited to Sarkari jobs. My dad worked a Sarkari job. My mum worked a Sarkari job. I entered government service myself aged twenty-six. It’s all I’ve ever known. All I know about jobs is Sarkari. 

Sometimes I ask my sister what her job is like. I think she gets confused because I seem nosey. And it has never really occurred to me to explain to her why I am asking her about her job.

So I asked my friend Atu what her job is like. I ask her what our other friends do. After some point she said: Esther I think most jobs are admin and business. I think I annoyed her. But I also think she’s probably right. 

And this is just the organized sector.

I’m mentioning this because I meet people all the time who seem to think they know how to do my job. They don’t. You can know 70-80% of a job if you’ve held it too at some point in your life. But even then, there are factors like time, place, people, government… variables that change entire equations. You cannot cross the same river twice.

There is a quip in Mizo that says the best parenting is done/known by childless people. Which I feel is true. Not for the worth of the words but the weight of sarcasm. 

You can know of certain jobs and what they might entail. Especially when it comes to someone doing it wrong, it is so easy to announce exactly what had not been done right. Or at least that the job had not been done properly. Hindsight is 20/20, as the Americans say. Very easy to even suggest ways – however wrong and/or inapplicable – to solve problems. But the truth is that unless you’re on the desk, signing off documents that can condemn you to kingdom come, you have no idea what it takes to hold down a job and/or run an office.

My point being that you can walk a mile in someone’s shoes and still only begin to understand what they might be going through. Even twins in the same household have different lives. Presuming to think you can do a better job than someone who’s already doing their job is high-level pride and mind-boggling narcissism, sprinkled with a generous helping of stupidity. 

Yes, people holding public office or highly visible celebrities have a certain degree of accountability and responsibility to the public, legally binding accountability for the former, in fact. But aside from that, I believe it is misplaced entitlement to berate them for every single thing they do wrong. Unless they are doing more than 60% of the things wrong, shut up.

Also it is possible they just want to feck with you. Because they don’t like you.

So yes, while these people are not malicious and only just dumb, they are incredibly infuriating especially when you’ve been dealing with some frustrating people for a long time on the daily.

You know the types. Like the people who just prefer to hear opinions in bass. They are disappointments in my soprano.

Then there are the people who cannot cut it, not because they can’t, but because they won’t learn. Unchecked stupidity annoys me like little else. People have different abilities and strengths but we can all learn. Some people just refuse to and spend endless Tuesdays in a string of Februarys making excuses. They will try to bullshit their way into the Pearly Gates too. I hope St Peter denies them entrance.

The list goes on. The liars, the deceivers, the two-faced-ers, the cut off the nose to spite the face-ers, the prefer pretty words to good work ones, the can’t-stand-by-their-words ones, the I am this but they do that ones… People just overwhelm you with their amazing and uncanny knack to be just irritating. Or underwhelm you when you expect them to be something and they just fail to reach an ever-increasingly lower bar.

Sometimes, in a row of Thursdays without end, people just whelm.

Potholes, Water and Karma

Every time I travel, I think about potholes because every two seconds, there’s one. And another one. And another one. Till you reach your destination. And then you take the potholes back to where you came from. What a joke.

You know how potholes happen? When you don’t respect water.

Water is soft, gentle and pliable. It takes the shape of the container you pour it into. It moves along the path should you create one for it. Water does not resist.

Until it does. Water is unyielding. It will take its time but if you cannot show it the respect it deserves, or abuse and bury it, it will cause cracks and potholes and sinkholes and take you with it. You will die. But water will live.

You can’t tame water. Water is patient beyond human lifespans. It will win. The best you can hope for is to work with it.

As humans, alive for less than a century, we become so arrogant. At least there’s art and we don’t always have to fuck around to find out. But even then our arrogance just shows up even in our expectations of karmic justice. Take David of the Bible. 

What he did with Uriah's wife, and then to him, you think Uriah should do the same to him. Or someone else should sleep with his wife and kill him in fake battle. But no. David had so many wives. What would it have hurt him for Uriah or someone else to sleep with a wife of his?! No. What Karma did was take out the existing royal line – the princes killed each other. In the end, the adulterer's son became his heir. That's Karma bish.

Things like Karma and Water are beyond our human understanding. There’s something even otherworldly about them. 

All these, by the way, are what potholes made me think about on a five-hour journey. I hate potholes. Even my Spotify can’t really save the journey.

Walking With A Beagle

I like walking. I've always enjoyed walking. Back in Champhai, I often walked the distance from Keifangtlang to Hmunhmelṭha and back in the morning, averaging 3Kms daily. Sometimes I'd take the North Khawbung road to make my trek a total of 5kms. Or when I was in Vengthar, round the block the way the cows come home; I didn’t exactly count steps then. In Aizawl, my walks were once from Armed Veng to Sikulpuikawn and then the much shorter Leitan Hermon Lane to ATC campus. In Aibawk, I often walked from Aibawk to Sateek, rounding off to 5kms on average; I had a pedometer at the time so I counted. It refreshed me and I truly enjoyed it.

A lot of people knew me for my morning walks. They also noticed that my pace was brisk and efficient. I am no athlete but I have always walked like one and have always enjoyed walks, even when I was not counting steps. I can walk. Can’t run for nuts though.

In Hnahthial, I got lazy and demotivated and have stopped all morning walks. It’s crazy how insane a place can make you. I never thought I would ever stop morning walks. But here, I had spent an entire year not taking morning walks until one fine day, I got a beagle pup.

After Mavena came home, I started walking again. Because the doctor said so. Apparently, beagles are very prone to obesity.

I walk, yes, but my walks are no longer brisk. Efficiency has also left the chat. In fact, my walks have become the very definition of irregular. These days, I walk the pace of my puppy. He likes to sniff, then run, then pee, then trot right by my legs grinning goofily up at me, then pee, then run, then eat grass, then trot jauntily, then freeze into position tails up like an antenna, then flirt at people, then poop, then sniff, then eat a discarded biscuit, then talk to other dogs, then pee. It’s like walking with a 11kg squirrel.

The concept of a pace does not exist with my dog.

It's very Bible of me, very Jesus to Peter. Peter-esque. Peter-adjacent. Very, you know, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. That’s from The Gospel according to John 21:19. Walks with a beagle truly is not for someone counting steps or calorie-burns. It’s just a way to get fresh air and in the process, get up off the couch.

The one with the leash is him, though. Although, again, technically I suppose both of us are on the leash together. Most importantly, Mavena is always most definitely never off-leash. I tried once. He ran off to chase a dog and ended up lost in a neighbour’s garden. His silly floppy ears whipped in the wind when he saw me, and manic with joy at having been found, ran to me. Goofy stupid idiot.

Walking with Mavena is like being on an adventure. It's sometimes nerve-wrecking. It also poses the challenge of scooping up poop. Very smelly business.

But it's also a bit like the phrase ‘stopping to smell the roses’. Mavena doesn't have a particular affinity to flowers except that he seems to really enjoy the taste of Ṭawkpui leaves and some grass. But he definitely stops to smell Life. He smells the traces of other dogs and potential friends (I think), follows the aroma of food (always with the food with the beagle!), and searches for possible fun (he is so ready to have fun!).

You know how white people say "walk" and their dogs understand the word? Mine understands "bye bye" as me leaving for a walk. Mavena can go from a sleeping and snoring beagle at 0% energy to hearing me tease him with a "bye bye" and instantly rev up to 100% pure chaotic energy, crying, pleading, negotiating, the works. He never seems to understand that I walk because I walk him. That whatever walks I take, I wouldn’t take without him.

But every morning we do this song and dance routine of me testing him with a bye bye as I change into my walk outfit. It amuses me, so sue me. I have very few joys in life. By the time I put on my sneakers, Mavena is near the end of his tethers, arguing against the injustice of why I am trying to leave him (he is very dramatic). When I put his jacket on him and clip the leash on, his tail is nearly invisible from wagging so hard. Undiltuted joy. He always snatches the end of the leash from me and would walk himself at least 10 steps out of the door. Until I take over the leash. It's a lowkey fun tradition.

I'd never have thought this irregular walk could ever be remotely fun because there really is no rhyme or method to our walks. Pure manic chaos. We go where his beagle nose leads us. I just time us and we go back in an hour. Or we run home if it rains. That is the very loose structure on which my walks have now become based. 

Walks are so chaotic today. And I realise that as my life has become so mundane, structured, unvarying and my world so limited, I like how there's a little bit of pure beagle chaos in this one section of my life.

Snehana Prithana

Snehana Prithana is a Kannada movie. I watched it in a local theatre in Mysore. I did not understand a single word. I knew before going in the Hall that it was a remake of the Hindi film Ishq, so I was not that concerned with understanding dialogues.

What was I doing in Mysore that I had enough free time to watch a movie in a Cinema Hall? I do not even remember the year – shit, I am old! – but my LSR Sociology Class had gone to Mysore to do fieldwork for our final grades. I think my chosen topic was something to do with religion because I have always been obsessed with the impact of religion in society. 

Gunjan was my study partner; we’d chosen similar fields. We visited a lot of holy places. We took off our shoes plenty of times; I did not enjoy those because I hate going barefoot, especially in unfamiliar places. My partner in crime however was Mamu. So it was with Mamu I found myself paying something like 60 rupees to watch a Kannada movie that neither of us understood. On the big screen, no less.

Please do appreciate that I never would watch a Kannada movie (without subtitles no less) on any smaller screen variance. There is just something lovely about metaphorical larger than life characters that are displayed literally larger than life onscreen that just makes everything magical for me. I even sat through Gulliver’s Travels in 3D one time and while even today I find it pointless to watch a fat Jack Black get red and bumpy and peeing into the ocean as I did while I was watching it, I do not regret it. I mean I watched Love Story 2050 on the big screen at Batra. There’s no coming back from there. Not for me and not for Priyanka Chopra, I don’t think.

The funny thing is I do not remember anything about Snehana Prithina. But I do enjoy telling the story because it is one of the weirdest flex I have. Who else do you know who would sit through 2 and a half hours during a movie they do not understand on the Big Screen not only voluntarily but also would willingly pay for it? Not many people at all.

It’s not a good flex. It’s just one, is all I am saying.

I think we were in Mysore for two weeks. 

I fell in love with Mysore Pak there. I can’t eat very much of it anymore but it is one of my top favourite Indian sweets, running a tight race with local rasgolla when in West Bengal (but not the tinned ones), chamchams, kalakand, gajar ka halwa and kaju barfi. That would be a funny race; I can see it being sponsored by diabetes. I also fell in love with “set dosa” which I think is how pancakes should taste like but fall short of. I ate it for breakfast every single day for the entire duration of our stay. I also fell in love with filter coffee; Urban Cafés will serve you fancier looking coffee but I think South India makes better coffee. 

I did not fall in love with much else. It is very humid in Mysore. Also they make you take your shoes off in way too many places. I do not enjoy that. 

I did visit Srirangapatna and climbed 600+ steps and that’s another flex. I also visited Ooty from there which was pretty and I had fun, but it rained so that was less fun. I also visited Brindavan Gardens and ordered a local charcoal BBQ fish but also nearly missed the local bus so Mamu and I ate the full flavoured, right-up aromatic BBQ fish wrapped in a leaf at the back of the last bus and felt appropriately shamed in what felt like a bus full of vegetarian locals. Mamu and I tended to do that. I remember on the college trip to Kasauli, we ate over-ripened Cheeku in the bus and it smelt like booze and everyone thought it was booze and there were whispered gossip in the bus over our indulgent driver and Mamu and I just silently let the poor man take the fall for our own secret fruit indulgence. Pardon, good sir. 

In our defence, when our teacher said “Please pack enough snacks because there won’t be places to buy more”, we took it to mean for the entire trip. Which was extremely stupid because of bloody well course there would be shops in Kasauli. But she and I went to Amar Colony and bought juice, nuts, chips and fruits to take with us to Kasauli. We crammed our clothes in one bag and packed one bag full of snacks. When at the bus we discovered Bhavna Ma’am had meant snacks for the night because our night bus would not make pitstops, we felt so embarrassed we decided to eat the whole haul. Which was again stupid because there was a lot of snacks in the bag! And juice. And fruits. We reasoned at least we can eat the fruit. Hence.

It is a very weak defence I know but take it as “explanation” maybe. I only remember the Kasauli Trip for two things because of this. One, the very heavy snacks bag that we carried around stacked on top of our clothes bag, because the weight of the two bags was very uneven. We were joined at the hip because we carried the two bags together between the two of us because it was our shameful secret because nobody would have believed anyone would be that stupid to think Kasauli would not have anything to eat ever and they would laugh at us. Nobody really cared much because Mamu and I lived out of each other’s pockets at the time anyway. But we carried the bags and the secret together. And quietly brought all the Amar Colony snacks back with us again because weirdly enough, there was food in Kasauli. Two, the sweet corn is very expensive in Kasauli.

Mysore, though? Good food. I’d gone back in 2019 as part of my MCS training. I was a more experienced traveler at this point. And I visited a mall this time. I did not have set dosa. I did not drink filter coffee. I had Mysore Pak though because I was determined to; the bus nearly left without me because I was waiting for my Pak order.

Seems to me I don’t do well with Mysore buses.

Strange take-away. Life is very random. So is this blog.

Pawisa Enkawl leh Nunphung

MBA ka zir laiin kan zirtirtu pakhat hian thingpui break ah titi pahin Savings/Investment tip hmasa ber chu “Live one step below your means,” a ti ṭhin a, sawi nuam a ti khawp a. A Mizo takin tlin phak bak aia hniam hretin nun zir tur, tih hi mi ka hrilh ve phah ta fo bawk a.

He pa hian sawi nuam a tih leh em em dang leh chu “Only lend out money you will not miss if it never comes back to you,” tih hi a ni a. I hmuh let loh pawha pawi i tih loh chin chauh pawisa mi puk tir rawh, tih hi midang pawh ka hrilh ve ṭhin.

Thil pahnih sawi chuan pathumna awm lo hi a kim lo riau thin a. Lungthu kim nan hrim hrim enge thil dang a sawi thin bawk aw, tih ka ngaihtuah a. 

Ka hriatchhuah belh chu NIFM Faridabad campus ah a chen tirh khan ka zirtirtupa hi chhangthawp lei turin a chhuak a. Chhangthawp man a daih lohna cheng 5 hi Dawr-I khan a lo bat tir phal lo a, Dawr-II khan a lo phal thung a. Kum 20 chuang NIFM ah hian ka awm ta a, Dawr-II chiah hi ka dawr ta ngat ngat a, staff leh students lo awm thar apiang hnenah Dawr-II hi an fel, tih ka hrilh ziah bawk, a ti a. “Hehe” a ti ṭhin.

A 3-na hi chu Mizo tak chuan, Ṭawngkam ṭha in sial a man, tih hi a zirtir ber chu a ni tawh mai thei a ni. Strict taka teh chuan Ṭawngkam em em ai mah chuan Chezia a ni zawk ang a. Mahse business ṭan tur tan chuan ṭawngkam ṭha hliak hliak in mi a hneh loh chinah pawh Chezia-in investment a siam theih a ni, ka tihna ber a nih chu. Dawr-II in pa pakhat cheng 5 a puk tir kha ka pu khan a let tam takin a rul tihna te pawh a ni bawk ang chu. Business investment hi chu Mimal/Personal investment nen a inang chiah lo deuh bawk a. Pawisa kan puk tir dawn a nih chuan tunge kan puk tir tih leh eng zat nge kan puk tir, tih ngaihtuah a ṭha, tih te pawh a zir theih ang. Zirtir a va ngah si tak.

Pawisa enkawl hi thiam tak tak a har khawp a. A thiam tam tam hian an duh tam zel mai bawk a. Tawk chin neih a awm lo a. Mahse ka tawnhriat ve chinah nunphung leh Nun hlohna lo chin zel hi a lo thlanawm ṭhin in ka hria. Pawisa lakluhna awlsam chu a chhuak leh hma, tih te pawh hi a lo dik khawp a. Hun pangngai lo deuh hlek han tawha kan nghin nghal vek lohna tur tawk te te khawl a tihpun erawh hi chu mahni phak tawkah chuan tum ila a ṭha. Engemaw zawng chuan a Bible thu hla riau mai bawk a. Talent kawl tam leh peipung tam hnenah chuan pek belh zel kha a ni tlat a ni.

Hmanni ah ka ṭhiannu in mi ṭhenkhat puk chawpa Inkhawmpui Kawr lei te, installment a perfume lei te, ba a Hydra Facial leh eyelash extension ti te a hriat thu min hrilh a. Mi ṭhenkhat ba ngata zu lo rui mai mai te ka hre fo bawk nen, ka pu hian a ngaisang awm lo hlawm mang e aw, tih ka ngaihtuah phah ta a. 

 

Ba hrim hrim hi Hamlet-a drama-a Polonia-an a fapa Laertes-a thu a chah, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” tih ngawt kha chu Sorkar ah emaw Business ah emaw Mimal ah emaw theih loh chin a awm a. Mizo ṭawnga William Shakespeare thawnthu let tu JF Laldailova’n, “Mi hmuhsit tur khawpin lo lungngai suh la, incheina kawngah fimkhur la. I neih phak bakin inchei ngai suh la. Inpuktawnna hi ngaihsamna lantirtu ah ngai tlat ang che. Denmark ram lal upa min, i pa, Polonia hming hi tichhetu ah ṭang ngai suh ang che,” tiha a lo dah mai kha pawm a nuam viau in ka hria. A hun leh hmun milin pawisa enkawl dan te, awmdan hrim hrim pawh hi zir a lo fuh.

Chhangthawp man cheng 5-a min tlawm thei tu chu min tlawm duh miah lo tu ai chuan kan dawr nawn ve tho mai thei a ni. Ni em?