TWEET AND TROLL... AND LOSING THE HANDLE













“Each reaction we have is there to inspect us
and reveal our own nature to ourselves and for ourselves;
it is never about others.” 

― Bryant McGill,

Right now, as I type these words, a bird is chirping. There as a small garden just outside my office… She is sitting somewhere on the branch of one of the trees in this garden… She must be a small bird… For, I cannot spot her despite my efforts to do it… But, her chirping – call it her communication, voice or song whatever – yes, I can distinctly hear…

What is that this little bird wants to tell the world?

Who cares, anyway!

It is a different scenario early in the mornings while I do my rounds of walk… It is pitch-dark and there is absolute silence… In this silence, I can listen to my heartbeats… I can hear and feel each breath I take as I walk… Suddenly, the birds wake up from their sleep… and they all start chirping together incessantly, endlessly… My attention goes to their sound, and I can sense a different rhythm in it, a different beauty… I don’t understand even a bit of what the invisible birds are trying to tell the world… But, I want them to keep telling it…

“The Song of the birds,” I like to call it… I can weave a poem or a song through it… But, once the darkness goes, once people start appearing on the scene… the song of the birds gets lost in the frantic human buzz!

I do not know how many of us know this: The gentle chirp of a small or young bird is called ‘Tweet’… and, in folklore, an ugly cave-dwelling creature depicted as either a giant or a dwarf is called ‘Troll’…

Do you get my point? Can you see the correlation?

The dictionaries tell us the ‘other meaning’ of these terms, too…
“Tweet: A short message, image, etc. posted on Twitter.”
“Troll: “Someone who leaves an intentionally annoying message on the internet, in order to get attention or cause trouble.”

The less we react, the more peaceful our life becomes. I do not know if we really know the depth of these words… It seems, the mankind has lost the grip on this ‘Twitter Handle’… thereby making Life a chaos, a disruption!


GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Anil Bedi


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MUTHU KODI KAWARI HADA

Image
Pic.; Ashwin Mohta M y Hindi was always bad. It still is. One reason for this was, that they introduced Hindi for us only in 6 th standard. Or, was it in 8 th ? I don’t remember… I only remember struggling to write and read… leave alone speak! But, I loved Hindi movies, and, strangely, I could understand the dialogues and the lyrics of the songs… I used to sing those songs (of course when no one was around me!) as if I was the lyricist… One of the songs was a very funny one. ‘Muthu Kodi Kawari Hada’. It was from Mehmood’s super-hit comedy – ‘Do Phool’. I was a 15-year-old high-school boy when I had heard that song (not watched the movie). I could grasp the meaning of two words – ‘Muthu Kodi’… which meant ‘Give kiss’… But, what ‘Kawari Hada’ meant, I have no clue till date! It was just like ‘Why this kolaveri di’... Yes, why ask? Simply enjoy the beats… And, the beats are great… The rest... Who cares? Really! So, whatever bit of Hi...
Read more

SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

Image
“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. I laugh when I hear that people go on pilgrimage to find God.” - Kabir T here is a universal human weakness – and it dates back to the days of fallen civilizations – and it is: to place people on pedestal and trying to be smothered by them, feel loved and protected in their company… worship them as mentors, heroes,  gurus, Mahagurus and Satgurus… Make these mortals larger-than-life cut-outs, worship them as flawless, pure and give one’s all… And, then, ‘take’ everything from them blindly as divine… Give everything to them blindly… Eventually, what happens is:  one more dangerous bondage… What was supposed to free you now becomes a new prison… It’s sad to see this happen! T his room, where I am writing this Post, has no image of any deity. I have no image of any Guru or Master around me… My question is: “Am I not able to feel close to Almighty God?  How ...
Read more

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE AREN'T THINGS

Image
  “ A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” Henry David Thoreau   I remember feeling the strongest, the most confident and secure – when I had decided to knock on strangers’ doors, telling them, “I want to teach young boys and girls.” That’s when I was just 20-something… I was a newcomer in this big city… consumed with the desire to teach… and restless. I was jobless and penniless, too. The earlier evening, TC had caught me ticketless at Mankhurd railway station, which, in those days, was the last Harbour-line station. The next local arrived only after 45 minutes… and the fine for a ticketless passenger from VT (now CST) to Mankhurd was a ‘princely’ sum of ten rupees and fifty paise! And, I had nothing in my pocket to pay the TC and get off his hook. Nor did I possess a wrist watch or a ring to pledge as security till I could arrange the fine amount. But, that evening, when I went through some forty-five minutes of embarr...
Read more
THE WILD, WAYSIDE FLOWERS
There is, always, something extra-ordinary in the wild, wayside flowers...