Autobiography Of A Duffer, Santosh Jha [books you have to read .TXT] 📗

By Santosh Jha

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Copyright 2013 Santosh Jha

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License Notes

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I

Honestly, I do not understand how to make a start. Actually, I do not even know, whether this can be said for a start. Unashamedly I can say that I am not sure, nor do I care whether this honesty is what I can pull off as okay and does not matter sorts. The simple thing; as I think I can put it this way is; I have to say things.

What I have to say? How stupid! People cannot even ask their questions in the right order. The first thing should always be first. Why people should listen to me comes first; then only the questions like why I have to say and why I can say, etc come. What I have to say is basically the last thing in the queue, given that I want to say because I also wish to be listened.

You know, my parents think I cannot even think, let alone think it right. But I tell you; and there is no harm in believing something without questioning; I can think right. That is why I asked myself the first thing first. Actually, to be honest, I asked this to my wife. You know what she said? First, you promise me that you will not laugh. It is bad manners to laugh at a woman, especially when she is not your wife but someone else’s. She said, rather, she asked me whether I knew why teams played sports against each other. She said, they did it not to win but to make others lose. People also listen to or read what others have to say not to learn from their experiences but for enjoying their pains from their bad experiences. Sadism is the best joy; she says, not I.

Actually, she may not be completely wrong, even if I discount the fact that she hates sports. I once read a best-paid soccer star saying it about one of his favorite goals. He said he enjoyed it more than sex with his girlfriend. How could he? Can kicking a stupid ball in a wide net be a joy more intense and satisfying than sex, that too with your beloved?

It looks so. I mean, how they throw themselves into wild exhilaration and boisterous celebrations after a goal! I never get such a huge kick in sex to behave uprooted like that. I admit; I am shocked. How demeaning men can be in relating such a divine experience as body intimacies with a sadistic joy of making your opponent one down. I would have understood and even appreciated if someone would say a goal is like a rape, forcing your way to leave someone devastated. How stupid! People cannot even choose their words the right way. On the other hand, do they do sex the wrong way? How can I say, I am not an expert of soccer or sex. I am just a duffer!

You know, I have read that people need to be honest when they write their biographies so I will also be. Honestly, I think my wife may be right this time. Not because she is far more educated than me or because she has read more books than many around me. I admit her sense of righteousness because she is a very smart and contemporary woman and I know, women today know much better about all possible stupidities of this world as they actually face the multidimensional stupidities of people and society. Mt wife has a brilliant sixth sense of sniffing anything, which may cause her trouble in a decade from now. I usually trust her discretion. I have to, in this case as, I am writing my memoirs only because she thinks I can pull it off well.

I have reason to believe, she is right. Have you been to a crematorium or a graveyard ever? I have been there once. I can tell you; as I have resolved to be very honest; you feel immense satisfaction that death happened not to you but to the close person whom you have brought there. I am talking about satisfaction, not joy. Joy is for conscious self, more surface level. However, satisfaction is very subtle and is in sub-conscious mind. That is why it is not registered easily.

This satisfaction; you can call it joy; after all the common perception of satisfaction is the amount of joy you get in life; is similar to what you get when you peep into the lives of your neighbor and feel good that they are indulging in such foolishness that you would never do.

No…no, please; tell me, why do you all watch the stupid daily soaps on your favorite television channel or the cacophonic reality shows? Ha…ha…gotcha! You all enjoy that the characters in the television serials do those stupidities and horrendous idiosyncrasies that you would never ever do. Taking judgments on other’s stupidities is one huge sadistic joy! It is altogether different matter that you all actually repeat the similar stupidities. Your subconscious mind is actually far more stupid than you are. However, the genius of conscious mind is a master of the craft of procrastinating this simple reality. Sorry, why should I say this? If you feel, you can present your truths when you write your own biography. This is mine and I should stick to my honesty only.

Anyway, what I was telling you is that it can be true that people get immense joy in knowing what wrongs and foolishness others have done in their lives so that they could not repeat it and that is why they read what others have to say. Actually, there is no harm in admitting that people usually have a feel good factor, when they read in books about characters and protagonists going through all sorts of silly and manageable conflicts in brilliantly insurmountable ways, to have the pleasant assurance that they are not the only stupid in the world. It is such a relief to know that it is actually okay to be a stupid in this large world. Whether they learn from it, I am not sure. However, I do not think this alone can be a reason why people read others.

Okay, I love my wife but this does not mean I should accept whatever she says and never allow other perspectives. In fact, I have never really understood how people read such bulky books of hundreds of pages. I always feel and I have actually seen it; people have so much trouble in their lives, they have so little time for even themselves and above all, they otherwise look so unconcerned about anything but self. Why then they read books. My Mom always has a thick novel in her bag and she buys so many of them. Even her ipad has over 50 ebooks, she buys from online stores; but I wonder she has the time to flip even five pages. It is altogether different matter that whenever she buys a new title, she updates her status at Goodreads and Facebook that she is reading it. However, this cannot be the basis of my conclusion. I only know my mom well; cannot say about so many others, who buy books. I surely needed an answer before I could write my biography.

I must say I am not very inclined to do what I am doing. I am just 23 years old and all I can garner, as my achievement in life is my class 12 exam, which I passed against the wildest expectation of my family and friends. Yes, my life has been full of unimaginable stupidities but I cannot accept my wife’s suggestion that people would be interested in knowing about them and will derive the sadistic pleasure that they were not as duffer as me.

I have my truths; I have my life experiences and my revelations, which my stupidities and that of others’ bestowed on me have made possible. However, I am not confident people will even accept them. Acceptance is not the contemporary intellectualism; I have seen it all through my life. In Twitter and Facebook, everyone is out to prove other wrong. Rejecting and rubbishing innocence has come to be recognized as highest intellectual pursuit and the social networking sites are the best place to see it happen at its worst. Even on television, anyone can see how every panelist pounces upon the simplest of assertions of others. If you are an intellectual, the first thing you must do is say, ‘I beg to differ’ even when you do not actually know why and what you differ.

My wife has told me, ‘why would anyone listen to you if you are not different’ and she seems to be right as being different has become the core creed of intellectualism. But then, the question is, why anyone shall be interested in my stupidities? There are already so many around! Actually, all human stupidities and idiocy are primeval and all pervasive. I am not saying this; the whole world around me is out to prove that there are so many stupid politicians, bureaucrats and silly middle class around, who are making life hell for others. And, as aping is first instinct of humanity, everyone feels so happily inclined in adding loads of repeat value to these foolishnesses, which they decipher in others. Why should anyone be interested in my own, when mine are definitively anything but different?

You know, confidence is not always a winner; not even an asset if you do not have the obduracy of arrogance to put your foot down and say, ‘yes, I will, come what may’. I have had answers to many questions in my life. At times, I was even confident I should go with my own answers even if it meant trouble for me but I was never allowed. Actually, to be precisely honest, I never had the courage of arrogance.

That is why; I finally accepted others’ answers as the right one for me. I think, I have the answer for this question also, as why people read books. I am 23 now and I have seen enough in my life. I have realized that people have problems only with people. They do not have problems with aliens, devils, ghosts and zombies. They love to know about them, read books a lot about them and delectably watch movies made on them. They do not have problems with dogs or even cats; rather people love them more than fellow humans. I have seen all this in Animal Planet television channel. It is what you can call intra-species rivalry. A tiger cannot tolerate another tiger in his territory, even his own mother or siblings. It can however tolerate and accept hyenas and leopards around. Humans are similar. They cannot tolerate another human if he or she happens to be outside their symbiotic beneficiality.

My dad never had time for my dear grandpa. He did not like him; I know that. However, now when my grandpa is dead, he has got a huge portrait made of grandpa and often quotes his words as ultimate wisdom. He religiously changes the rose garland on his portrait every Sunday. Books are also non-competitive like a dead man. It is like a portrait of a dead reality, which nobody has problem in accepting and even garlanding.

Dead persons cannot speak back and are amenable to any interpretation like a