All about ‘keedas’ and Split Personas
As you enter the sixth decade of life some privileges come as an add-on. No sooner do you blow the candle on the cake overnight, than the State offers you travel discounts and concessions for museum and theme park entry. If you don’t use it, you become a loser but if you use it, be named a freeloader. That’s Hobson’s choice for you.
With these perks, you may expect respect and reverence from some quarters but more often what you receive is a latent message to retire and resign gracefully. That is when the idle mind of the sixties plans the devil’s workshop.
Over the years realization has dawned that Hutchinson’s Principles Of Clinical Medicine (the Bible of your times) has given way to iPads and other gadgets to swear by. Bed-side medicine is taken over by broad spectrum investigations and you are slowly becoming redundant in a world of artificial intelligence with robotic arms. That’s when the witch’s cauldron of the sixties starts brewing the potion for sinister ideas.
If forty is considered naughty, sixty should be labeled nutty. For lack of a better word, I prefer the vernacular ‘keeda’ which literally translates to worm. However, the embarrassing location of the pinworm and the symptoms it produces is the reason for its notoriety. Being peri-anal, it causes intense pruritus, sleep deprivation, and the consequent behavioral waywardness. The nutty at sixty is apparently infested with the ‘keeda’ i.e. to resort to an irresistible urge for mischief, a la Narad Muni.
Yours sincerely was nominated by the admin of the Whatsapp group to be in a disciplinary committee and monitor the deeds of these grown-up brats. The rule was simple — censor political and religious posts. I wanted to be the perfect prefect and took my mission too seriously. Know by now that the virtual ‘keeda’ is more difficult to eradicate. It was easier to keep the mouse(away) from the cheese than the super grown-ups from the said taboo.
Though in my dreams, the ensuing melodrama is what resulted. Be forewarned. You are entering a grey zone.
The mansion was in a god-forsaken place. The access was wearisome. The rooms were dingy. The smokescreen was thick. Chairs and tables were scattered or upturned. The area was in total disarray. Even the faces were blurry. However, my forty- five year plus association was enough to recognize their moves. Even their silhouettes wore a signature. I could identify all of my batch mates.
They were all Dr. Jekylls. The gathering was to display their Hyde(hideous)-side and they just couldn’t contain their alter egos. I could see banners of protests all over the lobby. Placards with signs of ‘TNMC Mutiny’, ‘Running Amok TNMC’, ‘TNMC Unleashed’ were strewn all around.
As I entered the next room, a heated argument was raging about the ruling and opposition parties. It was free for all. Pandemonium prevailed. Chaos reigned. Soon the area became a representation of a Banana Republic.
The background score of ‘dum maro dum’ was playing repeatedly in the dining room. That’s the only way people in their sixties can relate to getting high!
The discussion here was at a higher platform — International matters like Israel, China, and more choppy waters. Countries as remote as Burkina Faso also made their presence felt.
The huge bedroom was converted to an arena for boxing. The ring had no holds barred, fisticuffs, kickboxing — name any combat event, and the scene was set up. This was the faith and prayer room of different religious beliefs and the fights had to be physical. It just couldn’t remain verbal anymore.
I was shaken up to reality from my dream. A chill ran down my spine and cold sweat down my limbs. My better half woke me up fearing I had an acute adrenergic crisis.
Our ‘devis’ can be as menacing with a broom and mop as Goddess Durga even without a trident and spear. To be fair, they have also witnessed several catfights.
She gave me ‘gyaan’ on how to manage the home front efficiently before undertaking to run the country. The sermon extended to how people will continue to fight i.e. Shia-Sunni, Roman Catholic-Protestant, Shaivite-Vaishnavite, Atheist-Pagan. If you noticed, it was all about intra-religion and not inter-religion supremacy fights. I admire the wisdom of the fair gender, especially when they are riled.
We all know who has the final word in the ministry of home affairs. There was no showdown, only meltdown from my side.
I was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy till this not-so-coveted post was handed over by the admin. Overnight the status got altered and my dignity nose-dived. I became the ‘jasoos’ to my friends and a good-for-nothing-fellow at home. Let me clarify that I don’t play my victim card often.
One thing is for certain, everyone knows how to kill a mockingbird.
