A tap. A scroll. A like. A troll.
I first logged onto mine when I was 16.
I had been around, floating outside in the universe of the “real”, looking for an entry point (device, internet connection, cool coins, know-how) into the reel. In the time I got in, the split between the two worlds collapsed. Tapped (in) and now scroll, scroll, scroll. Reels, one after the other. Did you know these three ways you suppress your true feelings and what it says about you; a one-pot 24-minute nutritious recipe for 25-year-old neurospicy adults; solidarity and the many ways we fail at practising it; that moment when a South Delhi girl has to hail an auto lmao.
Suddenly, a headache.
What does your world look like?
As my eyes blink open, catch some light, two windows filtering rays in, I am blinded. I grab the screen, the light, that is less blinding, my world awake with me. I jump into my city, my corner of this world, itching to get caught up; itching to get away. “Morning Starbucks before submitting my soul to the overlords of capitalism lol”; “woke up depressed, today is giving bed rotting, I’m afraid.”
The cliche “this city never sleeps,” was made for my city, my world. New York got nothing on us. I woke up to 50 (!) notifications today. A friend found seven different reels that perfectly capture our relationship; halfway across the world, more bombs were dropped, 70 people died — the drop-down feature has never been more important. Closer home, two people were arrested for sloganeering. My city never sleeps.
If the internet is the world, and my pocket of it the city, I often wonder: What kind of citizen am I? What kind of citizen does my city make me? What kind of city is this? To answer that, I look around — the nooks and crannies, the hidden spaces, the big billboards that take centre stage and what they advertise. What is my city — and what am I?
In my city, all us 20-somethings care deeply about the world. Some days we care more about it being known that we care: Our billboards have had the word “justice” graffitied on them for a decade. But we care, deeply — about politics, society, expression, community and the injustice that threatens them all. Me and my fellow citizens have travelled through many almost-revolutions together: 2019 and the denial of refuge and the criminalisation of faith; a statehood snatched, toil and moil worth no more than an engineered ploy — and loud protest. 2020, 2021, 2022 and the race for oxygen, beds, a race against death — oh, and loud protest. 2023, 2024 — one year to a massacre that my city livestreamed, citizens sitting with mouths agape, devastation, fury and loud, loud protest.
Amidst this, we talk — at each other, not with — into the void. Fat-shaming, body positivity or body neutrality? Three hot takes where X marks the spot (it used to be a birdhouse). Is Taylor Swift a saviour or the big bad culprit? Her new album is a hit and a miss. Cancel this, cancel that — I learnt in my city, that mistakes are a thing of the past. And yet, subscriptions to those cancelled accounts revive themselves. Just give it a week, a month — a year, if it’s especially bad. Here, accountability and decimation look alike — we point fingers at each other in my city, always trying to find a way to justice. Those in ivory towers chuckle at a failed project, and scream bloody murder if the finger finds them. How many new book and movie deals does hashtag cancelled J K Rowling have now?
This city is cut off from the rest of my (the) world. It was built on, as we call it, vibes. More accurately, it has no grids, no blocks, no districts, no laws. An echo chamber that values virtue; it just does not value cultivating virtuosity — a task accomplished through time and error. There is no pause, no space to breathe, contemplate, or arrive.
So, as I look around this city that floats, suspended from time and space, always awake, always enraged, I realise. My city has made me kind; it has also made me blind. I am floating, with fellow citizens, like my city, far removed from the world, and all citizens not like me. A space that offered connection, and suddenly, I feel as disconnected as I did at 16.
What does your city, your world look like?
sukhmani.malik@expressindia.com
