TWO CHATS AND A RANT
We have a WhatsApp group, our school friends group. We call
ourselves Lourdes Angels (after our Convent’s name) and on most days we are the
most angelic group in the whole wide world. We enjoy and forward jokes, erotic
messages, good morning visions, motivational and moral messages: we also
discuss slivers of our lives, we upload pictures of our kids triumphs small and
big, our maid woes, our shopping sagas, from our sagging assets to men and
monster in laws bashing; we do everything that makes us feel like tweens again.
We have grown immeasurably close through this WhatsApp group, than many of us
were with each other when we were in school! I digress, dear reader, but yes I
do that, to just recount a spate of recent spats we have been having on our
angelic group.
Voice 1: itna sannata kyun hai bhai?
Voice 2: hahahaha
Voice 1: the BJP had a resounding win in UP DESPITE
demonetization
Voice 4: Maybe they had a resounding victory because of
demonetization
Voice 2: (puzzled emoticon)
Voice 3: the people voted for Modi
Voice 1: where are the debate girls lets have a debate today
Voice 6:
Voice 5: Gosh, this new UP CM Thing is very depressing
Voice 2: Why Yogi is extremely qualified. (Sends a long link
exhorting the Yogi’s virtues)
Voice 4: Maybe the cat is now out of the bag.
Voice 5: this is so eerie
Voice 3: Wow voice 4/5 are on fire today. So good ,to see you
talking.
Voice 4: why did you think we wouldn't talk
Voice 3: Arey, I am happy to see you talking
Voice 5: Hatred and bigotry are growing
Voice 7: can anyone suggest a good English Tutor in Surat, must
teach Hindi too…
Voice 2: sends a quote by Carl Jung “Thinking is difficult
that’s why most people judge”
Voice 4:( getting confrontational) so what do you think of
Yogi A, as a woman and as a responsible citizen?
Voice 6: Mujhe news channel dekhna padega
Voice 7: Yeh kon he Beheno?(to diffuse the tension)
Voice 3: Well, what I have heard about him is he is a BSC, at
26 he won his first election, 7 consecutive years he is the MP…and people of
Gorakhpur have voted for him. Today if people of Gorakhpur feel he will bring
development in the state then we should respect their views and judgment.
Voice 2: Yes, we cannot disrespect people’s mandate
Voice 1: (sends a joke on Raga and Kejri)
Voice 1: see these jokers, hahahaha
Voice 2: really, we need a strong opposition
Voice 4: aren’t we disrespecting Kejri…he had overwhelming
majority in Delhi too
Voice 3: Hhhaahahaha
Voice 2: it’s a humorous joke. Don’t you have a sense of
humour, it’s just a forward. Take it lightly
Voice 8: Yes laugh at the politicians, they are all dirty
Voice 5: Can we laugh at Modi too?
Voice 2: Of course not
Debate rages on the next day too.
Voice 9: If yogi A had been declared before the elections
things would be different.
Collective groans, Oh no not again, please don’t start this
again,
Girls propose starting our own political party.
Raga’s name is proposed to be in the Guinness book for losing
27 elections says Voice 3.
Voice 4: I wish I was his advisor wouldn’t lose as badly
then.
Voice 5 puts up Ravishkumar’s acceptance speech.
Voice 4: the last bastion of honest journalism
The debate rages on becomes more heated.
Voice 10: Unless we put ourselves in their shoes, we cannot
truly understand their struggles as human beings (politicians). I am not taking
their side…what they are doing is not right at all…no discussion about that…but
ranting about it doesn’t help.
This statement gives the debate another colour.
Voice 4: Voicing opinions is not ranting. It begins from the
ability to think and question.
Voice 10: calm smiley
Voice 3: India needs doers. Man of action.
Voice 10: we must forgive; it is human to be greedy.
Voice 8:
Voice 4: Divisive politicians can’t be forgiven; their
actions take away countless lives.
The debate rages on. I forget about it in the day’s hustle.
But one word stays with me. A verb I am getting increasingly fond of…will
disclose the verb later, dear reader.
Meanwhile the other WhatsApp group is also equally animated.
One irate mom has removed another Mom from the school Moms group. Now this
action is scandalous and blasphemous, as anyone who is on the school Moms’
group would know. My gossip antenna gets all up and about. I am the first one
to barge in.
Me: What happened? Who removed Mom 2?
Mom 3: I removed, I am absolutely fed up. (Angry emoticon)
Mom 4: oh thank you dear, I love you for it
Mom 5: she should have controlled him long back
Mom 6: well, he is a very gifted child
Mom 3: rubbish! every child who is slightly above average is
called gifted these days.
Mom9: can someone please put up the work done in class today,
Adu was absent
Me : yes true (sad emoticon) and every child who does not
make the mark is made fun of and called Ld
Mom 7: Ld?
Mom 3: learning disability
Mom 2: this guy was a megalomaniac
MOM 4 messages me privately (is this what they call a child,
who wins many prizes and medals?) I send her the meaning of megalomaniac.
Mom 4: I agree we are all responsible. The school is responsible too.
Mom 5: yes, even the Principal was too scared to do anything
to that child because, he was winning accolades for the school in inter school
competition.
Mom 9: didn’t he win the sportsman of the year?
Mom 10: yes, best dancer and actor too
Mom 11: he is good at studies too
Mom 2: well, his mother worked very hard to get him to win
all these competitions; I wish she was a bit stricter.
Mom 3: when children go out of hand the school should control
them
Mom 4: school has limited access to the child
Mom5: yes the mother should first accept his faults
Mom 4: Oh Yes.
Mom 2: without doubt, its our duty to monitor our child
Mom 10: ya ya
Mom 11: yes of course
All agree sanctimoniously: a huge rarity on a school moms
group…
I wonder if my two WhatsApp groups have a common thread.
That verb, which stole
my heart was ‘rant’. While I write this, my phone buzzes, it’s my foodie friend
Amit, a kindred soul whose heart beats as manically for food as does mine. He
rants without preamble “where will I find Tunde Kababs?” then adds as an
afterthought, maybe pitying my pathetically receding memory, “I am in Lucknow.”
I grapple to switch off my intellectual rant and answer his. I remain silent.
“Dell”, he screams, “tell me quick, I am out for Tunde, tell me where will I
find them!” I don’t know the answer to that one, all I want to do is rant. A
collective rant can become a powerful scream, and it will then be heard. Rant,
my dear.
