The Alibi of the ‘World Man’

From how we read newspapers to go about making opinions, there are layers separating the people of different worldviews; but nothing counts as much as how we get rid of petty minds

People have all sorts of ways on how they would start reading the newspaper each day. Some would read the metro section before anything else. One of our high school teachers made a useless yet memorable and short speech that he would start from the back, where there are sports reports. Possibly he grew up playing cheitek-kotpi while he became an adult and taught us politics is just a fuck that we can leave it to the hopeless representatives.

Different beginning pages, so they can psychological! I have little respect for those who start with the Delhi Times. How can you count the Times of India as a newspaper anyway? It is a tragedy some people pass off prints of advertisements as newspapers. And when it comes to places of reading, I find toilet is the most ideal place. Where else should we read a packaged product that is meant for mere consumption?

For me, I usually begin with the section on world news—desperately hoping it would make me a ‘world man’. In doing so, I don’t mind sacrificing all the chances to become a nationalist and do away with the politics of the day in our own backyard. At least, that’s my idea. But I have realised this can take a toll—as is obvious from my ironical narrow-mindedness. See, in life, on so many occasions you get the exact opposite of what you would wish for.

It is envious to find folks who can see the country as one entity. When they make a comment, it is largely a national stuff; because they mean it that way. Life’s little ironies is predicated with the questions of nationalities and the impossibility of ignoring them. The simplest example is that you need a passport to visit another country, unless you are a Don Shan aka Mr Awa, who smuggles drugs from the Golden Triangle located at the junction of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.

Excuse me while I kiss the sky          The solution is embedded within the problems of differences. In another word, we might be one but there is no such thing as oneness. Simply belonging to a country, for instance, does not make room for belongingness. This denial creates a tendency to find fault with the whole. In my context, it is the difference between India and Manipur. I’d keep rambling, regardless of my self-righteousness, on the limited issues of my native place torn by multiple conflicts. It is so severe, though confined to a geographical area, that there is hardly anything of interest other than finding ways out of the maze. No wonder though, do we keep losing ourselves in the whirlwind.

All this is just a wish for belonging to humanity. The flaws are apparent but there is always a desire to be open, no matter where we start reading a newspaper. I have taken this example just as a medium to reiterate my point. It is more to do with the desperation to break free from petty minds.         



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