"Hello,” said Ma, in her cheerful evening voice. It was 8.30 p.m. She was probably having dinner.
“Hi,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“I’m watching NDTV Good Times,” she said. I zoned out. There was talk about beaches, food or something that didn’t interest me. My television – which was a mute, stale discussion about rising communalism – was more interesting. I grunted to keep myself in the conversation.
“What did you eat?” she asked.
“Rotis, rice, raita, some paneer thing…” I said. I didn’t ask what she was eating; how did it matter anyway? I replied with the same words every time she asked me. And she asked me every day, sometimes twice a day.
“I visited Radha aunty today,” she said. I asked her how I was related to the lady. Ma said that she was my aunt in some convoluted way. I’m sure I’ve asked her the question before. I’m sure I’ll ask her again. The conversation went on for two more minutes. She asked, I answered. Then she said goodnight. I hung up.
“You talk to your parents every day?” said the voice from across the room.
“Worse,” I said. “Ma calls once. Dad calls once. At least. Sometimes, I talk thrice a day.”
“Ouch,” she said. She played with her phone. “What do you guys talk about?” she asked me.
“The usual. What we ate, what we did, who we met, are we going out, when are we coming home next, what’s on the news, how Modi’s Twitter profile is so active…”
She grinned. “I don’t know why parents love making such small conversation. I simply refuse to discuss such things.”
“What do you say?” I asked her.
“I dunno…” She got back to texting whoever she was texting. “We… have this understanding.”
“I just don’t pick up those calls,” said Joint, plonking himself in front of the tele. “See?” he said. Dad Calling. The phone vibrated for forty-five seconds and then fell silent.
“Doesn’t that feel horrible?” I asked him.
“They understand man. If you tell them, they’ll understand you’ve got stuff to do. Why would you want to have shallow talks with them?”
“We have shallow talks with everyone, no?” I asked, turning towards her.
They threw me blank stares, almost as if they expected me to erupt with laughter and tell them I had them for a moment. They shook their heads – no.
“If your girlfriend wants to tell you what she is learning to cook, what will you do? Hang up on her?”
“It’s slightly harder there,” he said. “You need to feign attention. Continue with your stuff.”
“What do you actually like talking about then? What is important in this world?”
“Physics, genetic science, economics…”
“Why… Philosophy, mobile technology, politics, energy!”
“They make our world man… These are pointless trivialities we bother ourselves with. They just expand to occupy our time.” He then turned up the volume of the television, and we returned to our own mobile devices.
My eyelids were closing. I should go to the bedroom, I thought. “I’m gonna crash. Good night,” I said.
“Good night.”
“’Night…”
The irony of the situation rushed into my head; as I walked to my room, with my laptop cradled in my arms, my eyelids stopped feeling heavy. I smiled and continued my walk into the bedroom.
We drown ourselves in innocent conversations without life-changing implications all the time. We time our lives with clocks, we go to the gym, we eat dinner together, we build routines, we laugh at stupid things, we kiss and forget about it, we read books, we wish each other goodnight, we ask our loved ones what they had for dinner.
It is only necessary in this overpowering void. In the beginning, there was only emptiness. A human being was cast into this vacuum and told, “Make what you want of it!”
Voids can be intimidating. Imagine you are in space. There is nothing around you. You are floating; there is nothing to anchor you. Your feet are useless. You are spinning, faster and faster. You cannot control it. There is nothing to grab, there is no air, no sound, nothing. You are just a mass of flesh, alone without meaning, without purpose, without anything to hold on to.
So humans began developing society, and complex systems to act as girders and beams. We developed chemistry and math, mythology and music, wars and painting. These can be seen as a gigantic framework protruding into space, attempting to spread into this supermassive black-hole. But that is as much as they ever will be – a framework.
In order to make them useful – in order to endure this void and perhaps live in it – humans must find ways to use this skeleton made of science, values, art and all cumulative knowledge to access the world. While we access the universe, we populate this minimal framework with habits, fleeting actions, whimsical decisions, words and thoughts that mean nothing. These help us fill the world and make it bearable.
The worlds of science and music and fantasy exist only so that you can carry on with your meaningless telephone conversations. Remember that. Pick up that phone-call. Talk.
"Good night!"
