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.