Skip to main content

Identity Crisis


Sometimes the society gifts me an identity crisis.  My association with the society is usually limited to my workplace and that being a school there is little problem.  [I must admit that I get an enviably fantastic set of students year after year.]  However, when I meet people occasionally in certain gatherings like wedding or funeral, friends and relatives often introduce me to others as a fiercely anti-BJP blogger.  That has always embarrassed me.

When I look at my blog posts, I find that politics is a rare subject in my writing.  I write short stories, book reviews and reflections on life much more than politics.  Yet I get labelled as “fiercely anti-BJP” probably because I articulate my political views without the sweetening additive of diplomacy. 

Lack of diplomacy has always been my nemesis, my lifelong companion.  That’s one of the reasons why I chose to stay away from the society.  I’m incapable of sweetening harsh facts.  Light doesn’t terrorise me and I’m incapable of understanding why it terrorises others.

I’m incapable of many things.  For example, I don’t understand or can’t appreciate most of the messages forwarded to me in the different WhatsApp groups to which I belong more by necessity than choice.  I can’t understand why people believe such balderdash and why they think it worthy of being passed on to thousands of others. 

I understand that I don’t belong in too many places.  My blog is a virtual escape, the quiet bower that John Keats discovered among daffodils and musk roses.  Even my political blogs belong to that escapist realm.  It is not fiercely anti-BJP, it is fiercely escapist.


Comments

  1. People with a polarized mindset (such people are in abundance now-a-days) can only perceive you that way Sir. People having an unbiased, rational, objective and balanced approach towards various things and thoughts can't, don't and won't do so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree. It's not easy to find rational people, however.

      Delete
  2. As I see, one's identity is the real cause of one's misery. It's good that you are having identity crisis. Get rid of it as soon as possible. We don't need identity to live a quality life. One's identity only feeds one's ego. It's said true happiness lies in egolessness. I think I should stop now. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The problem is other's rather than mine 😀

      Egolessness is too mystical a state for a very ordinary person like me.

      Delete
  3. Your post is an inspiration for me..I fear the idea of belongingness itself,when you belong you have to obey all sorts of stupid social rules and diplomacy..As Mark Twain said,'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.'Keep writing..keep inspiring.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sir, can you please go through my essay on Ayodhya issue and tell me what you thought of it? I'll be very grateful. Thank you.

    http://rantsofabookishboy.blogspot.in/2017/12/thoughts-on-ayodhya-issue.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...

Truths of various colours

You have your truth and I have mine. There shouldn’t be a problem – until someone lies. Unfortunately, lying has been elevated as a virtue in present India. There are all sorts of truths, some of which are irrefutable. As a friend said the other day with a little frustration, the eternal truth is this: No matter how many times you check, the Wi-Fi will always run fastest when you don’t actually need it – and collapse the moment you’re about to hit Submit . Philosophers call it irony. Engineers call it Murphy’s Law. The rest of us just call it life. Life is impossible without countless such truths. Consider the following; ·       Change is inevitable. ·       Mortality is universal. ·       Actions have consequences. [Even if you may seem invincible, your karma will catch up, just wait.] ·       Water boils at 100 o C under normal atmospheric pressure. ·    ...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...

The Impact of Your Deed

Illustration by Copilot Designer Thirteen-year-old Briony makes a terrible mistake. She falsely accuses Robbie of raping Lola. Robbie is arrested. Cecilia is heartbroken. Briony herself regrets her act, but too late. All the painful harms have already been done. Atonement can be meaningless sometimes. Briony, Robbie, Cecilia, all belong to Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement (2001). Why did Briony make a false charge against Robbie? First of all, there was a serious misunderstanding. Briony presumed that Robbie’s romantic interest in Cecilia, Briony’s elder sister, was lust with a mask. Secondly, Briony was probably jealous of the relationship between her sister and Robbie. As a little child, Briony had jumped into a river merely to be saved by Robbie. When asked why she did such a dangerous thing, her answer was, “Because I love you.” Robbie is accused of raping Lola, Briony’s cousin. It was Paul Marshall who actually violated Lola, not once but twice. Briony did not see the man who r...