Quizzer, Blogger, Cynic, Lover (Part 2)

With due apologies to John Le Carre, this is about the small world phenomenon around me and not some spy novel or even about schizophrenics inhabiting multiple universes (sorry!). This is about the only four kind of people who I find myself surrounded by. Yes, the rest of you, sorry. Do remember that I've been nice to you on occasions.

If you have quoted from Simon and Garfunkel if someone asks you why you are this way, then you will probably empathise with what follows. If you couldn't comprehend the previous statement, do not have too much pity on yourself, you are free to read on anyway.

Quizzer:
You are always on the lookout. This gives an appearance of a predator - lean, mean, hungry, agile, ferocious, like a leopard. Except that this appearance is all in your mind and in your eyes. The body is mostly softer (putting it politely) and although you are hungry (food and quizzing go together like hot water and Horlicks), all you have to show for the leopard is the glint in your eyes.

A non-quizzer would think of this as manic obsession or a crazed streak. They are quite right.

Thus, you will not have many friends outside your circle of leopards. You will be known as a 'not a nice man to know'. You will read Dan Brown (half of it, and the rest on Wikipedia) and listen to Take That (once) to get all the facts right and establish the synapses which will result in a quiz question one day. You will even go down to the depths of Page 3 and find connections between Tejaswini Kolhapure, Shamita Shetty and Arzoo Govitrikar. Then, in conversation, you will rip Page 3 apart. You will have Take That for lunch, but comment on how Gary Barlow got a raw deal and should have held on to the band. In a non-leopard zoo, you will be the only one who will have any opinion about Gary Barlow. When someone else comments that he was cute, you will steer the conversation to manufactured bands and art and comment upon either Kavya Vishvanathan (current affairs) and Milli Vanilli (who?). Occasionally, when someone will recognise things like Milli Vanilli, you will comment sagely that after all Andrew Loog Oldham made the Rolling Stones and thus they were a Boy Band too. Soon, you would be engrossed in conversation with the two people who couldn't move away, in a party of four hundred. You would be find yourself talking in between a sixty-two-year old, who has actually heard of Andrew Loog Oldham and a six-year old, who understands Pokemon better than you do and thus is the object of fascination.

At work, you will have insightful (to you) things to say about everything, from CBSE exams to Flags of Convenience. Then, someone will bring up the latest Sensex crash. The other five people at your lunch table would look expectantly at the change in conversation and lament upon the losses they made yesterday. Suddenly, you will sweep in and start on how Calvin Coolidge could have stopped the Great Depression through preventive measures....By the way, Calvin is a great name. You anyway swear by Calvin and Hobbes. However, you frown upon (literally, visibly and not as in the dubious metaphor) anyone who will call Calvin cute. That's because, you actually find Susie Derkins cuter, plus, anyone who's clearly in so much pain as Calvin can't be reduced to cute. You will start on how Che has been appropriated on cute T-shirts. Although that day, Preity Zinta did look kind of cute in the Che T-shirt.


You do understand that it's difficult to switch from one car to another on a highway, especially if they are travelling in opposite directions, though Sunny Deol has done such things at occasions. You also realise that doing this feat four times in three minutes is impossible (especially if the highways are in different states). However, you can't see why people refuse to have conversations with you.


Blogger:
You wake up and reach for the laptop to either check your sitemeter or read bloglines. If you see a jump in hits, you would quickly do a blogsearch to find which new incoming link has been created. Your life revolves around getting readers for the trite and the tripe. You will read "...If we get 20,000 eyeballs, we want 30,000. The Internet, then, is tailormade for us, just because we can lure poor unsuspecting souls into free blogs such as this one..." and find it well-put and think why you couldn't have thought of something clever like that.

If being a quizzer makes you the opposite of the life of the party, being a blogger makes you the non-invitee. You will rather stay at home and read RSS feeds. You stop reading newspapers (which you call MSM) unless you need material for the blogpost. You will occasionally dip into your own life to manufacture long posts about nothing. You will feel the need to tell everyone about your latest trip to Maine, the trip to Pathankot where you got showered and the nearest restaurant. You would think that all three are equally deserving of an entry and a mention on Desi-Pundit (couldn't resist!). However, you will never be able to string a story together when in actual conversations. The long winded statements that you have started thinking in, are difficult to speak out in the real world. Especially, if you have to quickly write it down for 'tonight's post'.

The alternative side is that you develop a social circle spanning continents. All your friends are people you haven't met and wouldn't have seen unless Google talk had not put the option of sharing your photograph. You can't see how that is abnormal. Very soon, you start chatting and start pointing people towards your blog instead.

You tell people about the 1000 hits that you have got on the one day you blogged about censorship in China (when what attracted people was the mention of Gong Li and naked in the same post - Oops, I did it again). Firstly, you fail to see that people are uninterested. Second, you can't see that the three people who actually give a patient ear to you, are actually frowning upon (as in the dubious metaphor) your ostensible sadness at not getting visitors for the serious posts.

At times you do wonder why people are refusing to have conversations with you. However, you do not mind as it gives you material and time for another post.

Cynic:
You were an idealist once. However, you don't remember any of it. If a quizzer and a blogger are' 'non-happening' in parties, due to their reliance on stream-of-consciousness conversation, then you are completely opposite. You, being a follower of Hemingway or Hemingway himself, believe in economy of words. Thus, you build up a collection of short phrases and sounds which you can spring upon innocent bystanders. You call it witty repartee. You are reading this post, thinking of your witty repartee as a comment. You will probably never post it.

If someone talks about Page 3 (even a quizzer talking about the misfortune of B-grade star sisters), you will smirk. Heh.

If someone was to talk about Milli Vanilli, you will sigh. Sigh.

If Andrew Loog Oldham will be brought in sideways, you will utter a pithy comment on everything being an illusion. Pity.

In case you end up in an argument, you can quote Chomsky or Derrida or something. Something.

You would roam about stating things will not be this way, and the moment somebody wants to change, you will laugh out loud. Whatever.

Since society won't accept you, you will be forced to hang with books, music and the pack of leopards mentioned early on. You will not blog (sigh again) and might claim not to read any. Whatever.

Lover:
Obviously, the forces of natural selection have not been strong enough to prevent the blossoming of the above three species. This is because of lovers. That's all.

We prefer them to drink beer, understand what we do on Sunday mornings (quiz) and on weekday nights (blog). We like if they curl up in a corner with a book, while we attend to our passions (quiz, blog and the book of wit, what did you think?). We like if they make use go through edgy experiences, as we don't have the balls to do so on our own. This often takes the form of going to the gym, going shopping and going around. We also like if because of them, we get invited to parties. Sincere thanks.