Exhibitionism

I have this constant habit of obsessing over words and songs. For this period, which I don’t know will exist for how long; the word is ‘Exhibitionism’. 

The word was put into a constant loop in my head by my favorite author, song writer and lover of my generation. He wrote a note for everyone before leaving for Dublin on Monday, mentioning, he would be forever grateful to his girlfriend but won’t write further on a social networking site because she is not too fond of his ‘exhibitionism’. Now I have always loved this couple for their going apart and coming back together thingy, which again is my mad obsession over one-life-one-love idea. However, I love the fact that the woman in the story has zero oh-my-baby-so-famous attitude and the man, despite being such a show off and genuinely talented ends up being just a random lanky fellow with loose t-shirts and tons of headstrong love for his one and only.

When I told Aniket over Lync that ‘Ankur (name changed) desh chharchhe’, just for his college connect, he was up in fumes because he does like my favorite. Why? Because of his this exhibitionism. But would I get to know him had this exhibitionism not existed? Yes I would have always known of a boy who topped both English and Bengali entrance at JU when I could not, but reading his write ups with such enthusiasm would have never happened had he not been the show off that he is. And I am absolutely in love with his songs, despite the use of the word ‘show off’ which, of course is not the best kind of compliment. I also might go up to the extent of saying that I started to listen to Cohen, not because the man I love loves Cohen but because this said Ankur wrote this song as the Bangla version Suzanne, for his girlfriend, and THAT made me love all the three men I mentioned in the last line more, two of them for their talent, and one, just because

So as I was saying, Exhibitionism! How required or not required is it? And how close or far apart is it from the idea of fakeness and pretention? Is fakeness even pretention? Or pretention, fakeness? And do they both stand out to be almost synonyms for exhibitionism? So many questions just to show off my put on intellect aha? Intellect still sounds nice and fine. The word here is aantlami! As Titoo would put it

Abhimanyu was complaining to Amit over breakfast today, ‘yeh ladki kitna bhi bulao dekhti hi nahi, mast chashma daal k, earphones laga k chale hi ja rahi thi, phir hum hi ruk gaye is paar aayegi tab baat karunga soch k’ on my daily morning half a kilometer walk from Ecospace to Pritech park to Building 7C. There are two parallel roads and I have my walk of swag with the SAAAAME song playing for the last three and half months of Bangalore, trying to live the lines of this particular song, ‘trying’ to be someone I am not. And in all of those ‘trying’ I ignored the dear old colleague/friend on the opposite parallel road, putting up with almost the same life situations, with a smile and without the chashma and earphones, both figuratively and literally. Exhibitionism much again?

So exhibitionism here, there and everywhere. The ones that we do for others, the ones that we do to ourselves, just to present ourselves as a better, cooler version of us that we are not. Because happy and smooth endings are too main stream. I can understand how the post is slightly turning towards dangerous waters now and so I would not write any further. However, if words were people, the last kind of lets-be-different-from-what-the-world-does-because-I-am-Anglo Exhibitionism would be a charming tall man in black blazer, rimless glasses and a big mug of coffee, smiling at me because I would not reach up to him even though I am sure that is all that I want, because, I do not quite match up to the it, because, I am just too predictable, too normal, too mundane, too Indian, like everyone. How much I would hate and love it eternally! Exhibitionism, the world and the charming man. How much! How much? If only you knew! 

Ignore the last bit.

Happy Engineers Day!!!