Dear Readers, thank you for your appreciation of FC #76 on ‘Get that monkey off your back’.
Vaishnavi, my teenage fan and a bright student, says: “It's really interesting how what someone considers a "monkey on their back" is entirely down to perspective. A lot of students like me find having to study hard and get good marks in every subject repeatedly a monkey, but if we ignore this one then we'll have bigger problems later on!”
S G Murali, a corporate executive, says: “In the corporate world one ends up carrying the monkey on their back if they do not empower people and do not delegate properly.”
Damandeep says: “‘Passing the buck’ to someone is so similar to ‘passing the monkey’”
Karthik says: “To me the latest ‘monkey on the back’ is gadgets. Getting kids to stay off phones and tablets is becoming increasingly challenging. WhatsApp is another huge monkey that all of us are carrying on our backs. Sunrise to sunset we are all glued on to this, so much so, that many of us are looking to go to places where there is no network leading to phone detox.”
P A Verghese says: “Wanting to get to the bottom of this monkey business, I googled to see how many many more English idioms involved our monkey. I wasn't surprised, the monkey is indeed popular, there were at least 27!”
Tarun makes a good point when he says : “Aapne man ki baat kari Pras! For me, the biggest monkey is carrying grudges and negative thoughts. To carry the minimum and stay light is the key to happiness. It's a constant battle to offload the monkey.”
Readers, did you notice how the day of the month today and the year form a numerical sequence (19 2021)? Just one of those coincidences. Ah! Let me write about coincidences and how different they are from something ironic.
Coincidence & Irony
The occurrence of two events at once is usually considered a coincidence. But that’s not enough. A coincidence is something that happens unexpectedly — the events or situations should occur in an unforeseen manner, and not by design.
Coincidence often has an element of surprise, which can lead to a happy situation or make you wince. Imagine you go on vacation somewhere and bump into a very dear friend you haven’t seen for a while. You would be delighted. In contrast, let’s say you told your boss that you will be working from home all of next week and you take a flight to attend your friend’s marriage. As you board the flight, you find your boss sitting right in front who looks at you with a raised brow. That coincidence would make you not just wince but make you squirm all through.
Coincidence and happenstance are considered synonyms, but one could make a slight differentiation between the two. Coincidence is about two events taking place at the same time with no prior notice or knowledge. Happenstance is about something that happens if someone experiences a situation because they were at the right (or wrong) place at the right time. To illustrate, coincidence is when you go to a mall to buy something only to find that the same item is on discount. Happenstance is when you go to the mall for something and you happen to find your favourite author autographing her book, so you decide to seize the opportunity.
In our daily life, we encounter such coincidences and happenstances though we may not pause to consider distinguishing one from the other. But when, in a given context, you say, “Oh! I just happened to be there”, you are referring to a happenstance. In my view, both coincidence and happenstance can, at times, occur in the same setting. For example, you walk into a casino and by sheer coincidence, you bump into your old friend. Then, even as you are back-slapping each other, someone taps on your shoulder and says, “Congratulations, you are the 10,000th customer this week and you get 500 chips free.” What happenstance!
Can coincidence be a twist of fate or is that tragic happenstance? Way back in 1978, when I was working in Pune, an engineer of that company was supposed to take a flight to Mumbai to meet an important customer. He fell ill the previous night and another engineer went in his place. Unfortunately, the Avro flight crashed minutes before landing killing all on board. Similarly, can such an unexpected occurrence be both coincidence and happenstance? Any thoughts, readers?
Let me now deal with Irony. Can Irony be confused with either coincidence or happenstance? The latter two are events that occur inexplicably paired, whereas an ironic situation is something contrary to what one might expect. If someone told you that your marriage counsellor has filed for divorce, you would find that quite ironic.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows there is this dialogue:
“Would you like me to [kill you] now?” asked Snape, his voice heavy with irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?”
How about this?
“He is a smooth talker but has a wrinkled face. Can his face be the index of his mind?”
Try this one:
“Coffee City in Texas is famous for its wines and beers!”
There are many coincidences that are mistaken for irony. The best way to illustrate this point is to present to you a few lines from the lyrics of ‘Ironic’, a song written by Canadian singer Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard. Not all lines in the song are ironic. Some of them are coincidences. In fact, someone has commented that “‘Ironic' is an unironic song about irony”. I request my readers to check out the following lines and try figuring out which lines are ironic and which depict a coincidence. Please do write and tell me.
An old man turned ninety-eight
He won a lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?
Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
Well, isn't this nice? Isn't this ironic? Don't you think?
A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife
Isn't it ironic don't you think a little too ironic and yeah I really do think
It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
And who would've thought it figures
You may also listen to this song by clicking play below:
Covid-19 is an incidence and a happenstance where people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong company with a wrong attitude got exposed. No one can say it was a coincidence that they caught the virus. Coincidence is an uncontrolled occurrence, and all of us were aware of the consequences of exposure to the virus, yet many allowed their bravado to dominate discretion. Yes, all of us have learnt our lessons the hard way and are now being wary of Omicron or, for that matter, bracing for the much-talked-about third wave.
Dear Readers, this week has been rather challenging due to a coincidence. The posting of this edition coincided with a wedding in Hubli today which I was duty-bound to attend. If I have fallen short of your expectation it is purely coincidental!
I thought I should end this post with an old quote which is so apt today, given the trials and tribulations all of us have gone through and continue to experience:
“The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces.”
― Marie Lu, The Rose Society
Cheers! See you next week.