Paromita Vohra: When words lose their meanings

IllustrationRavi JadhavAlzheimers disease does many things to the human brain Most of all it hollows out that most human of traits mdash the ability to make connections To connect the past to the present a name to a face a meaning to a word In this way those suffering from the disease lose the ability to make sense of their world Context dissolves and an isolation occurs Suspicion and paranoia can start shaping the persons emotional landscape as for instance they forget where they have kept something and suspect others of having stolen it Relationships cease to have meaningPerhaps this might be the most compassionate way to understand the state of the citys municipal administration right now I dont know about you but I need all the compassion I can muster in the face of inexplicable callousness even as I cope with the million mosquitoes now that is the citys airEach premonsoon begins with the declaration of preparedness in the monsoon and as children at the mercy of abusive parents each time we feel this time the loving moment has arrivedAnd its entirely possible isnt it that the municipality fixed the potholes and of course all the waterlogging in the city but simply forgot it has done so What else can explain the persecution of RJ Malishka for her satirical and excellent song on the pothole situation if not suspicion and paranoia They fixed the potholes but now suspect Malishka of aiding and abetting denguePerhaps the ultimate perversion of meaning which beggars explanation is in the case of Jagruti Hogale a biker who died because of potholes on the MumbaiAhmedabad highway last week Preliminary investigations indicate that Ms Hogale perhaps miscalculated the depth of the pothole she went into causing her to fall over and be crushed to deathNo regret or sadness is forthcoming from the administration No moment of shock leading to sobriety and soulsearching what soul we might wonder anyway Instead in a moment of stellar farce first the authorities blamed the rain generally yaniki God and now the police have lodged a case against the dead woman herself for negligent driving Its unclear how they mean to bring her to book But perhaps it doesnt matter that life has been severed from being when in their brains words have been severed from meaningIt is pointless to say that had the administration cared to fix the roads this accident and many others might have been avoided This requires making connections a healthier psyche than the culture can currently claimAfter all the death of people has long ceased to have meaning We are quick to classify a death as an ideological occurrence not a human one The debate which then ensues becomes a battle of ideologies not a reflection on human life and the kind of society we want as citizens to sustain itDeath is always the fault of the person who died in contemporary discourse mdash he should not have bought meat she should not have answered or ridden a bike or been there or been who they were Our systems and us reflect each other in this spiteful perversion of connectionsWhat can cure this breakdown of meanings What jaadu ki jhappi can we send out to those around us indeed to ourselvesParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at wwwparodevipicturescom