This blog is titled after the very famous Thyagaraja keerthana meaning speak according to the context.
This song takes me through a contemplative phase about how often do we get away with evading the blatant truth in the hope of not hurting others or to rather avoid conflicts? While I was thinking about this I thought it would be nice to trace back my journey through the world of euphemism.
I think comfortable lies form a major part of our defense mechanism. As a kid I was really good at losing things and it has not changed much over time. And during one of these episodes where my mom started investigating the case of a stolen pencil, my brother came to my rescue with his famous line "Deepthi Mallareddy iduthundaalan" literally meaning it seems Deepthi Mallareddy took it. This awesome reply from a 3 years old kid turned my mom's exasperated look into an amused one. My brother, who had not even met her till date could conjure up such a creative narrative makes me think that non truths come innately to us, human beings. God bless Deepthi, wherever she is for entering my brother's imaginative thought process.
This is just one of the many incipient stages to this natural process. I remember when taking one of the may admission entrance exams as a 7 years old, I was asked the question as to "what is the color of the sky?" Unfortunately for me that day it was cloudy and I ended up writing grey. How the hell can the sky's color be a constant one. Apparently I could not make it through the entrance test because for the whole duration of the exam I was still thinking about the same question. After this experience I stopped thinking and started standardizing colors, people and places.
After many such experiences I ended up in one of the "premier institutions" much to my parents relief. This is where hordes of homeworks, assignments, unit tests, half yearly and annual exams prepared me to become an expert in creative writing, if not anything. If this is one of the stages of the ordeal, the other aspect comes in where you have to make up words like awesome, fantastic and super to cover up the fatal performances. How can you tell it to those eager and hopeful faces of the parents that you are putting up a confident facade when you are actually thinking "Is baar pass hogaye toh 108 pakka bhagwaan".
Then comes adolescence, when you are pumped with hormones. You are either hanging the wet clothes to dry for the nth time, preparing for you exams on the terrace or in the balcony or intently reading for your exam when in fact you are either "line marofying" or "day dreaming". For me the latter seemed a much feasible option given the fact that my neighborhood was a mere desert with no oasis. When you seek for recess, you have your friends to rescue with excuses like "yeah aunty we are dong combined studies" when in truth your so called "study partner" is blushing away to glory over a plate of pani puris with "the prince charming".
If these rather absurd and funny stories are the primary steps towards adulthood, the latter part of adolescence is marked with deflecting any romantic inclinations from random strangers with all the excuses that Will Smith sums up so awesomely in Hitch. Talking about Hitch, even our very own "chalanachithraalu" add color to our utopian world with witty anecdotes, surreal locations, dhinchak music, rapchik lead pairs coupled with "vetakaram","chamathkaaram"and "mamakaaram" transporting us to 3 hours of virtuality and extended hours of wishful thinking.
The true-lies are an indispensable part of our mundane lives. These not only have survival value but also add spice to the survival.
