Chateau/Memento Mori

 Did you know? Everybody’s favourite babysitter & badass Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) is apparently also a singer and goes by ‘Djo’?

Some songs make me cry. For no reason. They just mix with my being and stir my strings. Music may be the best thing the human race has to offer. Don’t believe me. On the Voyager spacecraft(probes launched to observe and to transmit information to Earth about the giant planets of the outer solar system and the farthest reaches of the Sun's sphere of influence), Carl Sagan & his buddies had a whole mixtape made titled “Sounds of Earth” that comprises a selection of Eastern, Western and ethnic music so if ever the Voyager finds beings of another kind, they’ll know the legacy human beings left behind - one not about wars victories and ideologies, but purely music. 

Love that, don’t we?

I’ve had an exciting couple of days. And as an introvert (I still believe i am one, i think), i cant believe hanging out with people can sometimes turn out to not be utter disappointment. 

I also realised that mine is a small world. I keep running into people who know people I know. What the fuck? 

I’ve also realised that despite how smart and beautiful and capable a woman knows she is, it’s hard not to be affected by a bunch of dudes with possibly limp dicks. No offence to the dudes. I love dudes. But sometimes they dude too much and it dudes me out. Am I making any sense?

1.

I’m halfway through to turning 50. What a weird thought, when you put it like that. A couple of days ago, Ahmedabad experienced the worst of rains and a bunch of skateboarders got stranded. Driving back home, one of them had an unfaltering thought of whether she was gonna make it out alive. 

The streets flooded with water and my scooter stopped dead. I was not in the comfort of my home and the warmth of my bed but I was in the kindness of humans. There’s a dog too. Even in the dire situation of their entire basement filling with water, my friends mom asks me to not worry. I think I now understand how humanity has lasted so long. It’s not ideas and ideologies, but it’s because they had each other.

That evening, several people’s basements entirely drowned. I couldn’t help but think then, how we are always oblivious to the fact that we’re puny ass humans who can literally die any moment. We get so used to living that we never think about the possible ways we can drop dead. But that night, I realised - with all the damage we’ve done to our own home, it only takes a couple of days of rain to wash off our lives, our way of living, our civilisation. And in the face of the wrath of nature, we don’t stand a chance. 

Apart from the massive privilege check I got that day, I also realised that there will be an end to my beginning. For someone with skull wallpapers, I sure seem to be entirely oblivious to the whole idea of death.

I remember reading short poetry by everyone’s favourite dead gay punk-rocker, Emily Dickinson back in school that goes somewhat like this:

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

I remember being incredibly fascinated with how she’d personified Death into a civil gentleman. Since then, I’ve watched countless shows and movies that have portrayed death as a character - most notably, this scrawny-ass dude from Supernatural.

2.

I finally had the chance to see Dont Look Up and I cursed myself for not watching it sooner. I originally thought it was one of those star-studded movies with a shitty plot. Turns out, it was more of a gentle reminder of death. Two astronomers discover a comet roughly the size of the one that brought the annihilation of dinosaurs and head out to warn everyone of it. But the world has got too caught up with itself and its material, social-media-fuelled obsession - they were too busy to stop for death. So, death stopped for them. 

I’d be lying if I said I’ve never looked at it this way. I tend to read quite a bit and it was during reading the likes of Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins & Bill Bryson that I’ve time and again realised that we live on a rock floating in space and just happen to exist at a magical age powered by innovation and technology. We’re at the mercy of the universe that can wipe us out at any given moment and yet, for most of our lives, stay oblivious to it, which is incredibly fascinating if you take a moment to think about it.

If you’ve been following the news, you’ll know about the biggest joke going on right now - the US Supreme Court - who on one hand talks about ‘pro-life’ bullshit, making it illegal for women to abort their babies while on the other hand, is making sure these babies are born in a world slowly withering from pollution by limiting the Environment Protection Agency’s authority to regulate carbon emissions. 

Just like the folks in Don’t Look Up, there are a certain other fictional individuals who, after trying to save the world from an impending apocalypse, resign their fate and choose to cherish their loved ones in the last few moments before the destruction of the world. And I think I’m gonna pick up on that. 

“I am troubled, immeasurably

by your eyes. 

I am struck by the feather

of your soft reply.

The sound of glass

speaks quick, disdain

and conceals

what your eyes fight

to explain.”

3.

I had an alarming realisation - one I’ve had countless times before. CNN’s daily newsletter had written about the searing heat wave going on in Europe and how the world is literally burning. The immense irony of the fact that the effects of climate change are getting more and more intense at the same time when America decided to not move forward with its trillion-dollar package to push clean energy forward. The newsletter said that “But time is running out — both for Biden, given that climate-skeptical Republicans are expected to take at least one chamber of Congress in November… and the planet itself.”

Later last night, while reading ‘Project Hail Mary’ that my friend Darlene got me, I read the exact thing all over again. In the book, a newly discovered alien life form (‘astrophage’) is consuming the sun’s energy. A former microbiologist/now a science teacher is tasked to study the astrophage to determine what it’s made of. After he’s done conducting preliminaries, he goes back to school where the kids ask him “what’s happening with the sun”. He tells them the potentially devastating effects of what a dying sun will bring forth. And then, he goes into a realisation, one not very different from the one I went through that morning:

“I looked at their little faces. They would bear the brunt of it all. And it wouldn’t be easy. These kids were going to grow up in an idyllic world and be thrown into an apocalyptic nightmare. 

They were the generation that would experience the Sixth Extinction Event.

I felt a cramp in the pit of my stomach. I was looking out at a room full of children. Happy children. And there was a good chance some of them would literally die of starvation.”

I can relate to the countless memes where people say how they hated the villains in Disney movies and how they promised themselves to not grow into people who are always in a bad mood and are always giving eye-rolls and side-eyes and have a constant bitch face on; but as they grow up they turn into the people they feared of becoming. 

But even villains have an origin story. Nobody is born a dickhead. Everybody starts out with a hopeful existence of trying to save the world, in their own ways and personal capacities. But as they grow up, they’re beaten down by the world repeatedly until they lose hope and turn to the dark side. [Ooof; I’ve been watching a lot of Star Wars.]

I started out with a lot of hope too. I don’t know where I lost some/most of it. 

I literally just began writing this one trying to appreciate the presence of human music. I'm sorry that it took such an uncomfortable turn. But if it still doesn't alarm you, then we all probably deserve to perish anyway. 

I get it - yes, you're alarmed, and yes, you want to do something about it. But what? 

Here's a cheap and effective way to get into it - TALK ABOUT IT!