Killjoy

by Parth Pandya

The issue of this magazine is all about Fun and I know that you, dear reader, have come to this page waiting for fountains of joy to erupt and smiling daisies to blossom in your imagination after you read what is written here. Sorry to burst your exultant bubble. I don’t intend to be a Pollyanna. I will not tell you about the things that give me joy. Instead, I am going to tell you about the things that drive me up the wall; things that others think are fun but what I can’t fathom for the life of me. To each one his own, they say. Let that be true of joy and revulsion. Here goes my top picks from my curmudgeonly list.

The Cake Smear

Imagine it is your birthday. The one day in the year in your limited time on this planet where you get up beaming and feeling special. The one day where your friends and family will remember you, either aided by memory or reminders from Facebook. You wake up and get to work, safe in the knowledge that your colleagues will cut you some slack if you didn’t finish some work, crack some good-natured joke about your age and let you remain in that happy bubble. Then the end of the day arrives and a meeting is gathered. A cake with your name, ordered from the local bakery, is brought to the scene. Three candles are tactically placed inside on it. Someone realises that there is no matchbox to be found and goes in search of that one smoker they know, who’ll be resourceful enough to lend their lighter. The candles are lit, you sheepishly blow them with restraint. You hear the wonderful strains of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song but then the song is abruptly cut short as you finish cutting the cake. And then, the moment when your smile diminishes a little for the first time since morning, arrives. It is time. Goaded on like a hesitant butcher, one of your colleagues approaches you with a glint of mischief in his eyes. A piece of cake is taken and smeared over your face. Smeared, plastered, spread, pasted. No number of adjectives are enough to describe the degree to which the cake is decimated and put to the more unnatural use you could put a cake to. Why a beautiful cake should meet a beautiful face in this ugly fashion is something that drives me up the wall. What possible pleasure could one get from this, escapes my rational mind. This is a particularly Indian tradition. In that, it happens a lot in India. In college hostels, at the work place, and I am extrapolating, in senior centers as well. You can have your cake and eat it too, birthday boy, but only after 20% of it is wasted on your face and your hair. Sigh.

Halloween

Halloween is a source of joy for many. People like to dress up in costumes, have parties with the same exhausting themes and they turn it into yet another source of Facebook profile pictures. I personally don’t see the point in it. Yes, my children dress up and go to their schools and neighborhood because that is simply the way of life for them. Also, they are children. Why adults need to spend so much time and energy dressing up in clichéd costumes of exasperating characters is something I have never understood. Pass on the candies to me. As for the costumes – no, thank you.

Jumping in the air for photos

Gravity exists for a reason. It is to keep you grounded in literal and metaphorical ways. Beautiful sights also exist for a reason. They are there for the eyes to soak them in and enjoy their vastness and grandeur in a moment of stillness. And yet, some people have this strange fascination to defy both at one shot. They stand in front of beautiful vistas and do the most unnatural thing. They jump in the air. Not just once, but many times until the photographer confirms that the right combination of shutter feed and dumb luck has resulted in a picture of them suspended in the air. I simply don’t see the point of it. No need to hold your breath. We all know what happens. They all come crashing down.

Roller coasters

Imagine that you ate a tiramisu. Layer upon layer of deliciousness that puts you into a blissful mood. Imagine now that I put that tiramisu in a blender and cranked up the setting. The beautiful tiramisu would toss and turn and be destroyed while ruing its dumb luck. That’s what a roller coaster feels like to me. Why would I take a perfectly well-balanced state of being and subject it to twists and turns and dips and raises of an artificial nature? Why should I let the food inside me churn like it’s in a mixer, causing nothing but upheaval, while waiting with bated breath for the ordeal to get over? Why do I need an artificial roller coaster? I already am on a real one. It is called life.

Shopping

Someone needs to do a study on this because I have a hypothesis that walking into an IKEA or a Walmart can actually give people headaches. It does to me. Human beings parsed themselves into hunters or gatherers at the onset of time. In this post-industrial age, we are all simply gatherers, all primed to pick fruit from the aisles of consumerism. It is a royal waste of time and resources and yet many treat it as therapy. I am a reluctant consumer. I hate shopping and am often found requesting my spouse to help me find the artifacts I need to continue being a member of society. For that, I am grateful. Otherwise, my eyes always scan a coffee shop or an exit, whichever comes earlier.

WhatsApp flooding

I want a minion bot that can sit and delete jokes, forwards, inspirational messages, videos, urban legends, greeting cards with good morning messages and other “awsm” thoughts from my WhatsApp feed before they reach me.

WhatsApp feels like a giant spam folder to me for the most part! And yet, I must be in a minority, for the world is full of people who think that sending WhatsApp messages of the kind I dislike is an act of love, an act of charity. They press the forward button without compunction, keeping the rest of the world plugged into the lowest common denominator of textual entertainment. Alas, I find their jokes rather unfunny.

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