Hemantha Kalam - 71 "Vintage is attraction"

“No New year’s day to celebrate

No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away

No summer’s high, no warm July

In fact here’s just another ordinary day

But what it is, is something true

Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just wrote to say that

Vintage is attraction”

----Stevie Wonders 

(With due respects to him for the liberal editing and liberties taken)

Just a couple of days ago, I had my birthday. Can’t say it was a celebration, as it was just another ordinary day and if I have to borrow my dear friend Shreenivas Balaji’s words that he mentioned recently, I don’t need to add another year to my age as this year has been mostly wasted, thanks to COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease-2019).

Nevertheless, the day woke me up gently and when I opened my social media, I was overwhelmed by the messages on the WhatsApp, SMS, e-Mails, Facebook, Messenger et al. Thankfully I am not very active on Instagram and not at all active on Twitter (though I do have a handle but conveniently I forgot the password, phew!).

And the message avalanche that started early in the morning did not abate for another couple of days (though the intensity reduced from the second day).  I became busy the whole day in attending to the phone calls and responding to messages. In fact, in the past five months I haven’t been this busy on any other day, even while washing the dishes four times a day.

I go by what Arthur Hailey and his dear wife Sheila Hailey believe – If anyone takes the trouble of reaching to you, they deserve a response.

So, I always make it a point to return the missed calls, answer every one’s message and in this case, at the end of the day (I should actually say, ‘at the end of the night’) I became quite tired. I remembered my wedding day when almost a thousand visitors shook and pumped my hand while congratulating me on the great achievement of marrying a woman (both of us crossed the ages of being a boy and a girl), leaving one painful right arm that day.

It also made me take notice that nowadays when I send birthday wishes on social media, especially the Facebook, hardly any one is answering the wishes except for liking it. Now I understand. You need to really invest time and a lot of will power and energy to do it if you are inundated with affection. And that’s the crux. Not many seem to be having these at their disposal any longer. So we may have to just leave it at that or if need be fall in line and follow them.

Also, recently, I was given to understand that as per the emerging managers of the new generation, responding to messages and mails is not assertive. If at all you have to respond, a simple grunt could be enough or in acronyms or monosyllables. Do the business management schools teach like this too nowadays? If so, I would like to see the faces of those teachers. This is tantamount to being downright rude, and not being assertive. Or is it that the lines between assertiveness and abrasiveness erased? Surely, not every message needs to be answered, but those that require, need to be responded to, in one way or the other.         

Now coming back to my story, this year, I noted that the affection became a tidal wave and making me realise why Vintage Wine is more favoured and savoured. Looks like, the more you age, the more you get attention, if my experience is anything to go by but, may not be quite true as well.

Being a sort of a narcissist that I am, I would have loved this much of attention when I was in my prime but then maybe I wasn’t this attractive then or is it because that only ribs (read abs and six packs) are favoured when in prime? I am not the wiser!

Well, what do you think? Do let me know!

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic), Shukriya (Urdu), Bohoma Sthuthiyi (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Dankie (Afrikaans), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian & Malay), Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tonga) and Vinaka (Fiji).

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India