Sai Mukhesh

You do not have to know me. My diary entries read:

15th August 2031

Today, I have been irate. Then, my cousin asked me if I would ever live a post-irate life. The word ‘post’ has been buzzing in my ear for reasons I will never understand. And I grow more irate. I do not quarrel with the word ‘post’ when used well and left alone. Nonetheless, ‘post’ has become too heavy a word to use, thanks to the phrase post-truth that supposedly heralded an age where there are only narratives about narratives. It is out of fashion to use the word truth unless it is attached to post. It is no longer trendy to talk about truth. Apparently, truth has died a long time ago, and I wonder who killed it. It could be a suicide as well, who knows!

I was told by my friend Plum that a precocious shitter like pigeon would shudder at the prospect of dropping on post-truthians, not that she fears them but grasps the truth that they don’t deserve her art. I wondered if it was as bad a situation as Plum had made it sound. But now I know it is that situation where pigeons think better.

16th August 2031

I am a convinced post-truthian.

I was invited to speak at a conference. And my pre-written speech for the post-truth lovers is as follows:

I am glad, beyond explanation, that I was invited to speak at this conference titled “Why I am a post-(insert anything you like)ian and why you should be too?” I was surprised that I got baptized just yesterday, and my rigorous flame of being a post-(insert anything you like)ian touched the famed “in search of fire” committee. I am honored! The speech preparation was a cakewalk, thanks to world-leading experts on meaning. We live in a post-meaning era, so my speech could not be nothing; it is something, and if I err, it is not just ‘I’ who err, and if the elite and humble invitees do not get it, it is their duty to come up with a theory to demonstrate in a rather non-understandable way how understanding is not possible in post-(insert anything you like) era.

Therefore, everything, when said and done, is accepted as said, done, and dusted. Isn’t this blissful situation where everybody is happy our greatest achievement? Anything goes! I wonder what Socrates, the famed ancient beard grower, would say had he witnessed the spectacle unfolding in this post-world and that the good life is lived in the age of post- “please insert here whatever Socrates is famous for; I forgot” What greatness the present entails! We have settled for once and forever on the question the weird beard guy posed about how to live a good life when we abandon the pursuit of “whatever Socrates is famous for.” Today, I am convinced beyond my conviction that a hundred Newtons fall short of surpassing the immense profundity of this discovery. 

Yes, I guess I am a post-truthian. My astrologer told me the same. There is no need for second opinions, for Mars and Venus have been influencing the moon, which is influencing me for non-romantic purposes, so there is no doubt about it. I am a convinced post-truthian. Everything I encounter these days is an affirmation that I am a post-truthian. Therefore, I love astrology. This morning, I watched an installation of men taking turns to piss on the translucent glass wall facing the audience. The deafening applause generated by the awe-inspiring clap of the audience was crazy, to say the least. Am I the only traditionalist left in the world? But every time you entertain other thoughts that do not fit well into the post-truth paradigm, I just need to repeat the mantra, “Go with the trend; you will be everybody’s friend.” Yay! A possible reason to live and die for. At the art exhibition, I was not eavesdropping, for the precocious talent—a gentlewoman termed it as “piss art”—one could witness can numb other senses, but I could not help but overhear a conversation between two young people that slacking wood signifies liberation. Yes, the world is post-traditionalist. Thinking of wood, my good friend Wood, who earned his name by collapsing houses and selling off the wood retrieved, told me that the best way to collapse a house is to detonate the columns.

(Note: Pause here; you can expect a burst of belligerent laughter here. In case of no laughter, you laugh like a cat and move on)

I have to stop here to explain why I am a post-truthian, as my friend Lattu explained. It has to do with the word ‘know.’ I was told I have an arrogant ego because I say ‘I know,’ thereby humiliating non-I, which is part and parcel of I. I am constantly being conditioned, and supposedly, this conditioner never runs out. So, ‘I’ does not come alone; it is always I and the conditioner. Therefore, I am post-I. But doesn’t that also make me a post-knower? I don’t know. Well, that’s the whole point. I don’t know, you don’t know, nobody knows, and everybody’s happy. Is it not the whole point? To be so happy, like a pigeon who does not give a foot about who she is shitting on. 

I thought I shook my distant, smug acquaintance Shanky by asking one of the best spontaneous questions of my life. ‘I’ thought ‘I’ should tell my close friends ‘I’ am proud of the question. But realizing that the sentence has three ‘I’s in it and reminding myself that one ‘I’ was enough to realize that I am in a post-I world, and which donkey knows what three ‘I’s are capable of! So, I abandoned declaring my common sense to my friends. Perhaps it is a symptom of living in the post-truth world. Therefore, it must be a happy symptom; I don’t have to question it. Remember, it is not ’ I’ who asks the question, but I and some cheap conditioner, which I was told is available for cheap in any god-awful market. Coming to the question, it goes something like this: Considering that we live in a post-(I, know, truth) world, it makes perfect sense for us to play games in this ChatGpt-simulated space called university.

Speaking of this university, for the uninitiated, it is akin to the ship graveyard where cruise ships come to die; so far, nicely cruising ships have been sent here for reasons we will never know. University is a space where profundity runs out of its use, evil spirits capable of hypnotizing students lurk in the cabins, destruktion of books is rampant. More importantly, it is a great opportunity to figure out which camp you want to belong to based on which of it is going to be of use to you in securing jobs that generate more post-truthians. In this best of all possible worlds, the best of all possible ways of education is the one that helps you choose camps. I am convinced that post-education, post-truthians have post-ethical and post-honest jobs, and who does not want post jobs since we live in a world where ‘post’ is the new trend? And remember always another mantra, “go with the post, and you won’t get lost.” 

Returning to the question I asked my not-so-nice acquaintance, it is right for us to live the junkyard fantasies in the university, but the other day, I came across an ordinary person using a neem stick to brush his teeth. I sensed he could not live in a post-(I, know, truth) era. Spitting out the pulp of the neem stick, he said, “I want to know the truth.” “About what?” inquired I. “About the truth of you walking like a duck that lost its way in the Himalayas on a winter morning,” he gargled. I explained to him that we live in a post-(insert anything you like) era. He threw a used neem stick at me, and he gave me an ‘I will send you back to lunatic asylum’ look. But I left the place in jubilation because I am a convinced post-truthian, and he must be wrong.

(Note: Expect unconditional applause here. If there is no applause, just cough like a sheep and move on).

Regardless of my encounter and unhinged conviction, I continued my conversation with the not-so-well-read acquaintance: He does not think using ‘I’ is as egoistic as we maintained it to be, and most importantly, he wanted to know the truth. My low-lying finger-licking acquaintance’s response was it was not his duty to care about them; such lowly “managerial and clerical work” was not his cup of tea. I did not understand, but anyway, that is the point. Perhaps, on ethical grounds, we are still required to use the word truth in a post-truth era, but I was shut down and politely asked to stop being an ethicist. Since I am a convinced post-truthian and astrology can never be wrong, I stopped being an ethicist. It’s funny how relieved I am not to have to think, shed complexity, and go with the label. And isn’t that what we all want, to be blissfully unaware of complexity and play games?

In all possible worlds, post-world is the best. My gratitude to all the great chaps who have been crucial in theorizing post-(insert anything you like) era, which is rightly considered the greatest achievement after we settled for once and forever that eclipses are caused by dragons swallowing the moon in China and cobras spitting magical venom on the moon in India.

Post-conference Post-script:

I read this magisterial piece to an audience whose sympathetic ears did not seem to close, as it often happens in conferences. They protested my narrative about post-truth narratives. I protested: not my narrative; it is ‘my truth’ about post-truth narratives.

(Note: I know both are one and the same, but I was told by my friend Falthu that I should sound profound, and the best way to do that is to bring up non-trendy word truth and start a war of sorts. I don’t know if I succeeded in doing it, but there were enough uffs, ahhs, and shits when I uttered that word without ‘post’; I must say it satisfied me).

Unexpectedly, a simian crashed the conference with an unpeeled banana and occupied the stage with a serene face. I moved to a corner to give Simian her due credit. To the audience’s horror—perhaps they were witnessing, contrary to the fashionable destruktion—the simian gradually peeled banana, balancing an orange on her head, with the skill of an artist mixing up the colors patiently to paint a single peanut, the concentration of Dostoevsky, and the confidence of Pushkin. At this point, horrified audiences left, but there were few people whose bright brains conceived a brilliant idea, I guess, for they scribbled furiously. The Simian left. I said thank you, to which no one responded. I realized that apart from post-(I, know, truth), I must talk about our post-satire world. It has to wait for the time being, though.

17th August 2031

Today, I was invited by “the committee for post-satire,” which I co-founded with what I took to be the similar-looking Simian that took center stage the previous day, to wreck stimulating destrucktion on Jonathan Swift. And my pre-written speech for the post…