On The Ning Nang Nong

Tareefan: what's that?

My mornings are usually noisy with random gadgets playing random things. A BBC dramatization here and yoga instructions there and some intervening song belting out from music charts. To make any sense from that entangled noise is futile yet every now and then a compelling song dwarfs the other clamor.

From that noise emerged the song of the day: Tareefan from "Veere Di Wedding".

When I heard the prelude of the drum beats, I knew this was my song. I switched off the other noise and played the song again from the beginning.



Hor dass kinniya tareefan
chahidi ae tenu

What's tareefan? When I hear Gerua and Pinga, I scramble to search for lapsed sense in them. So I pursued Tareefan. It chimes with taareef (praise). That't it or am I missing a subtler guise of the word. I looked up the English translation wrought by the online Hindustani punks and every one translated that line as "how much should I praise you." With that I concluded that the word probably means just 'praises' and nothing fancier.

There are two types of songs (1) song —listen to (2) song — dance to. But rapscallions like Iravati have a third kind (3) song — leap from sofa and record a pyjama cover of the song and send to friends.



That's my terrifying tareefan of the day to torture my friends.

 

In pinnacle of happiness

"Did you notice that guy. He is cheesy and overacting .."

"Overacting? like he is acting and then acted himself out with his overly acting..", Ira inquires.

"Shut up.. meant ..he is too showy ...like as if he owns the world ...look at him laugh and not a damn care ...as if he is the only person who is so heady happy."

"I think pathologically happy folks tend to be that way. They come across as insufferable showy just because they are uninhibited and unrestrained in their merry makings. They really don't damn care about the general angst of the world. They are very self-absorbed in their self-sustaining mannerisms. He is just fulsome happy."

"But happy about what ...was there a joke that we missed out that he is spontaneously and recklessly happy ...and even if he is happy does he have to swagger his way to happy vibes. I think he is showy.."

"Happies come across as showy to grumpies. That's the operative model of the world. Grumpies wonder why happies are loudly happy and happies are intrigued why grumpies have trouble in reconciling to the wondrous world. They are partisan! They inhabit in contrasting psychoactive states. One is too happy for no reason and one is too grumpy for every reason. I think we should overlook those blithe happies and not condemn them as pretentious and showy ..."

"How do you have much inner and finer details of the minds of your so-called happies..."

"Erm, er ...erh ...what can I say, just a conjecture, erh, that's it"

 

Homo Ludens

Johan Huizinga, the Dutch cultural critic born in 1872, popularized the term "Homo Ludens" to emphasize the playfulness in or of culture. There is even controversy on the nature of his grammatical preposition and human play element.

Today, we look at a simpler and outright playfulness proposed by James Carse in his Finite and Infinite Games book. Very often, playfulness in human nature is mistaken for facetious inquiry and mannerism. Doesn't have to be. The below passage chimes with my ideology that people who breathe too rigid in life close out on the allure from vagaries of the unpredictability in life. Being playful means being open to the shifting possibilities in life.

To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary,when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons,and the relationship is open to surprise; everything that happens is of consequence. It is, in fact, seriousness that closes itself to consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself.​

 

Hehe! I have been teased that Pangloss on several occasions because of my fulsome optimism even in dire and bleak forecasts. Good things fade so that better things occupy their place. Bad is an illusion gone awry!

In all three 'hangover' poses, we seem to be harmless! We are a great danger to ourselves but not to anyone else.

 

I can imagine Humphrey Bogart consoling Ingrid Bergman



Bogart: We will always have Paris and feu.

Bergman: We will always have Saigon and fen.

Bogart: Baby, we have never been to Saigon.

Bergman: Our whole affair was faux, how does it even matter!

About that broth: It is one of the most complex, beguiling tastes in the world, a dark, brooding mixture of slow-simmered beef bones and charred aromatics and warm currents of toasted clove and black cardamom. Taking after the French, the pho cook works hard to keep the broth clean and clear as the fat and marrow are boiled out of the meat melange. But if you look closely, you can see the little globules shimmering on the surface, a reminder that there’s always just a little life left in that beef. That might not fly in Paris, but in Saigon, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

 

Discretion of the ladies, by the ladies, for the ladies

I just finished reading the book "A History of Women in 100 Objects" by Professor Maggie Andrews and Dr Janis Lomas.



I found this trivia on sanitary towel interesting.

When factory-made sanitary towels were finally introduced, they created an advertising problem for manufacturers, as it was not acceptable for such intimate products to be mentioned openly. This British advertisement from 1894 shows the discretion that had to be used in advertising and selling these items: For private parcels of Southall’s Sanitary Towels by post securely packed – with private address labels, quite free from anything to attract observation; write to – The Lady Manager, 17, Bull Street, Birmingham – this department being entirely managed by Ladies.

 

Receptive arguments: Principle of charity

Very often a friend of mine gets embroiled in online altercations. 'Look Ira, does this make any sense to you, what I am saying and what they are saying. We are arguing at abominable cross-purposes!'

Before anything, I inquire, who are your audience, are they high-strung and opinionated who are unsparingly close-minded to even consider a cross-viewpoint. Your argument though demands well-reasoned points should only be delivered amidst a well-disposed crowd. There is no point in arguing with clamps. You have to watch out for receptive audience and how charitable they are to your well-intended articulation. Here's a typical scenario.

Say, "I like oranges."

"Did she just say oranges! That's cruel...what about mangoes and apples."
"This is ridiculous, you think only you like and no one else likes oranges."

Say, in a friendly dialogue you utter, "Men are funny."

"You cannot generalize men. There are savages and dour-looking men."
"Not all men are funny. My second cousin's first daughter's third husband was sour-faced and hardly looked or spoke funny."
"We women are funnier than men. Why are only men funny? Women are also funny"

...the above are the kind of uncharitable voices you might want to retreat from and avoid belabouring for they are too wallowed up in their buttonhole reasoning. Dare you try to even explain to them..."but I only meant" still they would persist to mud-sling your reasoning into a war-cry and further vilify you, as they are fiercely reluctant to be reasoned with.

In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity or charitable interpretation requires interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation. In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies, or falsehoods to the others' statements, when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available. According to Simon Blackburn "it constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject's sayings."​

Next time you encounter "men are funny", be amenable to the poster’s anecdotal and not dogmatic voice and be charitable to their context and not fling the oft-abused "generalization" at them. Be cooperative to their casual observation and be insightful to their friendly context. Arguments are not to be always loaded with one-upmanship challenges, at times the nourishment and learning is your ability to cultivate amenable interpretations of even (seemingly) provocative counterweights. [Given the context, perhaps they meant...]