Monday Musings 254: ‘Fitoor’ is a full time job

Monday Musings 254: ‘Fitoor’ is a full time job

A colleague sent this couplet recently –

Fitoor hota hai, har umr me juda juda

Khilone, mashooka, rutba aur khuda’’

(Quirks change with times..

Toys, beloved, status...and God”

It would be in the fitness of things I take some creative liberty and add the word ‘’mulk’’ (nation). It goes well with the noise of our times.

Fitoor hota hai umr me juda juda,

Khilone, mashooka, rutba, mulk – aur- khuda’’

I add the word ‘mulk’’ because it suits the essence of the debate around. The notion of being a ‘true national’ is being prescribed by all and sundry. I am sure it is important to be clear what it means. It seems that is a test of patriotism that everyone needs to clear before being accorded the right to have an opinion. I am no longer sure who has the perfect test – there are just too many floating around. But this is not a muse about patriotism. It is about quirks. It does however seem that for some the issue of proclaiming one definitive notion of a patriot has become a very pressing and often noisy fitoor.

It appears to me that all of us need a quirk, an obsession to tide through the inherently boring journey of life. The nature of the obsession keeps on changing to suit the palate of age and times but there must be the one that keeps us occupied. This whole thing about being born and fading away can be a very boring wait akin to a wait at a sleepy railway station in the middle of nowhere. We need some music, some fun, and some drama – to keep us occupied.

So we pick and chose a quirk and adopt it as our own. Soon what started just as something to play with becomes such an integral a part of us that we forget it was just a passing flirtation. We were supposed to play with for a while and get on with our lives. The truth is that now we need it not to keep us occupied or kill time but because we don’t know what else to do with life. I reckon people with intense ‘fitoors’, who become consumed and overpowered by it are actually very scared to look at their lives without that ‘fitoor – there is nothing else in it anymore. They have nothing else to look forward to. So protecting it becomes their sole occupation, their only succour. For some its toys, for some beloved, for some status, for some nation and for some God (actually their God).

So what if we did not have any ‘fitoor’? How would that life be? I am not sure but I guess it is a scary thought. Who are a better lot – the ones with some quirk or obsession (and for the purpose of this musing, let me restrict it to the universe of ideology/s) or the ones who have none? Who is more tolerable and who is more dangerous?

So what is your ‘fitoor’ – khilone, mashook, rutba, mulk or khuda - or something else?