Yo Gawd

It’s summer time again, and that can mean only one thing – pure, unadulterated boredom. The only relief that I get is in the form of lengthy chats with Unnikuttan. My favourite sparring partner on the topics of religion, faith and the “chosen” destiny of Israel, Unnikuttan is now an ex-neocon. His political views may have toned down, but his faith is still unshakeable. So as soon as the little button next to his name goes green on GTalk, I prod him with very deep philosophical questions like “What’s the dealio with the two creation stories in Genesis?” and “Do you think dinosaurs and humans co-existed?” For unknown reasons – maybe he is equally bored at work – he responds, and we get into prolonged debates; with breaks taken only for lunch and unavoidable meetings with project guides.

The conversations take interesting turns in between, and a wide range of topics are discussed – evolution, veracity of the Bible, applicability of the “Mosaic” laws, homosexuality as a sin, etc. The last one caused me a bit of trouble, as my neighbours were curious to know why I was studying the Wikipedia article on homosexuality so carefully. And as Unnikuttan sent across a barrage of links to prove his line of reasoning, I conceded the argument on what causes homosexuality very quickly – it wasn’t worth the embarrassment at the office. (I had already raised a few eyebrows by repeatedly playing the song “Teri Or” from Singh is Kinng in the office. My office-mates are convinced that it’s the only Hindi movie I have seen. I also received helpful enquiries on whether I needed the song translated. Why do people always underestimate the Hindi skills of Mallus?) By close of day, ceasefire agreements are drawn up and consented to. The final words are inevitably recommendations of the works of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and C S Lewis to each other. The next day, however, everything is forgotten and we start afresh. The amount of chat logs we have accumulated through our arguments over all these years should be enough to fill a book.

Our latest round has been going on for 4-5 days now, and Unnikuttan is positively fatigued. “You are so close-minded!” he says in exasperation. I realise that we have come to a stage where neither person is listening to each other, and I look for new directions to take the conversation in. Discussions about work, IPL and movies are non-starters and fizz away. In a last ditch effort to maintain an interesting dialogue, I start to explain the Yo Dawg internet meme to Unnikuttan. He isn’t particularly interested. And all the while I am trying to resist the temptation to add “Hey, did you know that the term meme was popularised by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene?”

Very soon chat history repeats itself.