Humour by Rehana Munir: FOMO no more: Shake off that social pressure!

A glib thought recently struck me as my auto crossed Soho House in Juhu, one of the new purveyors of poshness

A glib thought recently struck me as my auto crossed Soho House in Juhu, one of the new purveyors of poshness. “What if my impostor syndrome is fake?” I said to myself with a laugh, too lazy to peel the layers of this particular thought-onion. It did, however, make me think about the rampant pretentiousness that sociable living necessitates. Here’s a list of five kinds of pressures we’d do well to shed.

The cultural bandwagon

A few days after Geetanjali Shree’s Partition-themed Hindi novel Tomb of Sand, translated by Daisy Rockwell, won the International Booker, I stepped into a hipster coffee shop to buy an overpriced, bitter Americano I’ve developed a disturbing appetite for. I found two young women, dressed alike in pretty, floaty dresses, reading the book synchronously. It was quite an arresting sight, considering the book is 725 pages long; not your regular Tuesdays with Morrie or Jonathan Livingston Seagull kind of café performance staple. Made me wonder about the last time I read a book without posting about it. But then writers are allowed all kinds of vanity in the guise of connecting with readers. Phew.

The (second-hand) opinion factory

Is anyone else here afraid to google a film they liked right after watching it? It’s like fiddling with that overfilled shelf in your kitchen cupboard that’s the prototype for Jenga. One tug and the whole thing tumbles over. There is no space for ambivalence in our love/hate world of digital discourse. Woke opinions. Cancel culture. Virtue signalling. A whole new—and useful—vocabulary sprang up when we were busy trying to figure how to make rent. For all the jargon, there’s a glaring lack of nuance in how we respond to an ad, a celeb or an ideology. Everyone’s so anxious about absorbing the most influential ideas available, there’s no time left for an original thought or unadulterated feeling. Ah, the much-missed joys of the tacky, the soppy and the lowbrow.

The travel compulsion

Now that our home/travel equilibrium has been somewhat restored, let’s ask ourselves honestly: is travel always the answer to restlessness or boredom? We’ve all convinced ourselves about the merits of destination birthdays and weddings and whatnot, glossing over the many little and big challenges that travel entails, from uncomfy beds to stressful companions. I’m often relieved to return home after trips, struck by some version of homesickness in which temperature and food figure prominently. Travel is great, but only when you’re really feeling it. Meanwhile, it’s so comforting to loaf and loiter around one’s own city by day, ending up on the right side of one’s own bed at night.

The Saturday Night demon

Capitalism has a lot to answer for. One of my pet peeves as someone who operates in its outer suburbs—for who can fully escape its jurisdiction?—is the fixation with weekend merriment. I get it. Not everyone is lucky enough to control their own schedule, but that doesn’t mean this TGIF monster should be allowed to stomp all over our lives without resistance. The weekend has a big appetite, typically sated by exotic cocktails, superhero films, frenzied mall visits and supersized meals. As a lifelong fan of staying in on a Saturday night with a good book and zero FOMO, I urge you to consider its many merits. Mostly, a hangover-free morning gives you the moral high ground over your less austere friends. Wickedly satisfying.

The food mafia

Today, Facebook, the keeper of shoddy memories, reminded me about a sandwich I made eight years ago in a toastie-maker that everyone who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s will recognise with delight. Known elsewhere as the jaffle iron, the long-limbed metal contraption, which encloses a butter-slathered sandwich, walks straight into the fire of your stove. How many character-building sabzis of my childhood has this toastie-maker transformed with its cheese-and-ketchup simplicity! The point of the story is this: in our breathless chasing of gourmet glory in the eyes of friends and strangers, we forget the joys of one-pot meals and last-minute hacks. While we’re on the subject, it’s time to restore the humble fruit custard to its former glory. And let’s keep an open mind about Udupi Chinese, too.

Follow @rehana_munir on Twitter and Instagram

From HT Brunch, August 20, 2022

Follow us on twitter.com/HTBrunch

Connect with us on facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch