Humbly Yours

Balloon-like ego was a severe personal problem of mine for long. That ego kept me a butt of many a sleazy joke in the marketplace of the mundane for years. Natural law mercifully interfered and pricked the balloon. My journey toward self-understanding, if not self-realisation, began. A slow and painful journey. It would be rather vainglorious to claim that the journey taught me humility. I’d rather say it opened my eyes to the banal reality that I was just a gargoyle on the magnificent edifice of human civilisation.

No, I’m not about to begin a public confession. On the contrary, it may be just another temptation to inflate my balloon for a while to say, Hello, I’m still around, especially now when I see an unusual surge in the stats of my blog.

It was a bit surprising to see the daily footfalls rising to many thousands. I asked AI bro why this was happening. AI informs me that the reason could be anything from “organic search and algorithm changes” to “bot activity.” Gemini went on to give me a lot of suggestions and guidelines to understand my Blogger stats clearer, but I found them too technical and tedious. So I left the attempt and decided to give a pat on my back with all the humility that life has taught me hitherto. “Take it that your blog is attracting some more genuine readers.”

That’s when I read a weekly column in a Malayalam periodical about the stats of some young leaders of present India who are protesting in Delhi. My newfound pride became subdued instantly.

Neha Bora, the latest Gen Z fireball in Delhi, has acquired two million followers on Instagram. Abhijit Dipke, who started the satirical movement called Cockroach Janata Party, has 6.4 million followers. Much less known figures too have more followers than my blog which has been in existence for more years than these youngsters have existed. Even the Congress party’s youth wing doesn’t have half as many followers as Dipke.

The Malayalam article which prompted me to write this also mentions that the mounting stats of followers are causing some rift among the Gen Z warriors in Delhi. CJP has started feeling that Neha Bora’s group of AISA [All India Students Association] is trying to steal the limelight. Even when you’re fighting for the same cause, your ego tends to rise a shoulder above the others. That’s human nature whether in Gen Z or the senile politicians of ours all over.

Kerala’s own beloved bilingual poet who was a former secretary of Sahitya Akademi, K Satchidanandan, extended wholehearted support to the youth movement in Delhi. Soon he found his laptop hacked.

That’s when it occurred to me to contemplate the role of stats in human affairs. The numbers matter. Also who is with you and who is turning against you matter, even if you are one of the most powerful and securely guarded persons in the world. One man from Thiruvananthapuram drew a meaningful cartoon on this. A cat sits in the centre of a tall, fortified circular wall and tells the mouse sitting outside, “Don’t think a silly mouse like you can terrify a mighty cat like me.”

I patted my back once more. Don’t worry if you feel your ego getting inflated a little now. Even the mighty leader at the Centre is not able to contain his ego problems.