FRIENDING @OGSAFFRON: One DM at a time

Composing poetry which is devoid of dosha, endowed with guna, rendered effective with alankaras and imbued with rasa, the poet gains fame and happiness.  – Saraswati Kanthabharana Second Verse (@Lost_History1)

Walk like you have 3,000 ancestors behind you – @OGSaffron

Heroes are immortal because they continue to inspire – @OGSaffron

Social media friendships remain low in quality– in my opinion, unless of course there is consistent interaction over a period of time, in multiple modes (email, phone, face-2-face, in-person or online) and unless there is a true intention of engaging with another person. Not just to know what she/he stands for, but knowing the essence of who the person is. Like real life friendships used to be. 

Friendships take time.  

Arriving at and in their maintenance. 

Friendships require interaction.  People live and hold each other in interactions.  Interactions create memories.  Memories, so subtle, never the true color of their originals, depend on our perception of the interactions that created them.  No matter where the people involved go, we re-create the essence of events and people when we re-live memories. 

Had to say that. 

In the age of social media, ‘adding/following’ is called ‘friending’. But ‘friendship’—Mitrata—that which binds- happens over a period of time–a series of events.  

That is why Sudama warned Krishna about being too eager to call someone a friend.

Friendship takes time. 

I ‘joined’ Twitter in 2012 and promptly forgot about it until 2016, when I ‘started’ using Twitter, to understand its use for political and cultural expression.

His earlier tweets were simple and without the fancy fonts that he used later. I gasped at the beauty of the first few pictures I saw from his account. I read his long posts on Devayasna (https://devayasna.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/an-abstract-on-modern-man/) https://devayasna.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/an-insight-from-the-ramayana/) before I ever contacted him. I did send a message to the site-manager to let him know that I enjoyed his writing. 

Soon after I followed him on Twitter.  It was one of the first accounts I followed and possibly the easiest decision.  At the time, I used my name in the handle for transparency, so it was easy to locate me on the net.  His work spoke for itself so there was no need to know his name.  

He was OGSaffron.  

It was around late 2016 when I first contacted him to ask if he painted or took the pictures he posted. And if I could use his tweets for a presentation for Swadeshi Indology Conference-2 to be held in Delhi in early 2017. 

From here on, whatever I share is from memory and is not exact/verbatim.

‘Google images’ he explained, ‘glad you liked them. They are not mine. I have a way of recognizing all things beautiful’. He not only allowed me to use his work, but offered to share the originals with better resolution.  When he followed me, I told him that I had little to say.  He said humbly, ‘neither do I’. 

Gross understatement, as we all know. 

Before I left for India, he asked me to bring back pictures of temples, especially roadside shrines.  It was a short working trip, so I remembered his request only on the last day and hastily took some shots while being caught in Delhi’s traffic jam. It was not the best of pictures, but the genius that he was he turned it into something worthy. 

From our early connection nearly four years ago, we chatted often and at length. Like many of his followers, I created a folder to save his tweets and some of our discussions, with book recommendations and research ideas that could be explored further, especially about diaspora, language and media. He was grateful to his parents for using Indian languages at home, which he said, kept him connected to the culture, despite a brief foray into atheism.  He planned to use the same dialect with his children. Later, he told me that he taught himself to write the script from his parents’ state because he understood the salience of language in maintaining culture. 

It did not take long to realize that OGSaffron, who contemplated much, also had a unique sense of humor. Our friendship grew because of that childish humor that is not restricted to chronological age. Once when he asked about my day, I had responded with ‘Got even with students who were not paying attention in the class.’ I was grading exams. He begged me to be kind to the students for they were still taking lessons in life, the ‘coursework’ that adults had already completed, no matter how poor their performance. 

‘Sitting in class is tedious’, ‘Be kind’ he said. 

Friendship makes time.  

As in life, in mitrata, some memories are more memorable than others.

In March of 2017, he started the conversation with ‘Aaj to Yogi-Yogi ho gayi’.  His series on Yogi Adityanath was a big hit.  Having been out of India for long, and despite my love for India, I learnt about Indian politics only after joining twitter. So, I was always amazed at how much OGSaffron knew about and loved India, despite having been raised outside India. OGSaffron was an optimist and firmly believed that Hindus will reclaim their land and culture. For him, Yogiji’s ascent was a brick on that pathway. 

He made time to wish me on festivals, even the ones I had little knowledge of e.g. Mithra, Vaman and Hanuman Jayanti explaining with little snippets, what the festival was about. It was from OG that I first heard about Shaurya Divas 

Friendship is a continuum but not always cumulative.   

Friendship, a word used loosely today, actually has its own spectrum. It varies on the scale of sincerity, intensity and intention. Length of the friendship does not always imply the strength of the bond.  One marker of a good friendship is the range of topics that one can talk about.  The wider the range, the more alive the friendship. Earnestness, sometimes, can make up for the length of friendship. 

We would go weeks without connecting.  Then I would get a mundane question, ‘What did you have for dinner today?’ 

‘Nothing special, deadlines and all. Khichdi and dahi.’ 

‘Oh, but Khichdi is s-p-e-c-i-a-l, you should try it the way my mother makes it.’  

And we would move from talking about ghee and dahi to Malhotra and Adhluri, from chawal and curry to Elst and Juluri.  His love for the Iliad and the Odyssey is clear in his work.  But his love for the Ramayana underlined almost everything. It was apparent in the way he addressed each character in the epic. Ma Shabri, Bhaiya Bharat and simply Prabhu. When I shared that people in ISKCON campuses and in some north Indian towns address each other as ‘Prabhu’, he disapproved.  ‘It’s inappropriate, there is only one Prabhu’ was his admonition.

I earned my first badge of trust when he shared an image from his shrine.

A sacred exchange. 

Friendship defies norms

Friendship between different age groups is special. It works with an inherent unspoken respect that may be missing in contemporaries.  The older one in the friendship re-lives silliness, as the young one (hopefully) realizes that it may not be so bad to arrive at the other end. A recognition in both, which is simultaneously present and perpetual. There is a blurring of social norms. And because of this, we may, sometimes, test the friendship only to claim our earned rights (adhikaar) to be affectionately irreverent.  

I would poke fun at him as he would return with his own jokes. When he named the state his parents came from, I told him that I knew a few from that state and that they were friendly and hospitable people.  He responded with, ‘Don’t expect that from me’, with an evil-grin-emoji as a full stop.  

Since I lived for over a year around the city he grew up in, he shared notes on its recent changes.  I promised to cook fresh aloo-paranthas when we met, he promised to contribute with a bowl of Maggie and a copy of the Iliad.

Two things he detested the most were cow slaughter and mocking of our Hindu Gods.  He insisted that our only duty was to the Devas. 

He said often that there was much ‘intellectualism and rarely much to stir the heart’ on Twitter. And then wondered how many pushups could the ‘smart-handles’ do at a go? Truly fit minds can only reside in fit bodies, he argued. 

Fitness freak that he was, he advised that I schedule time for daily exercise.  When he sent a gif with multiple exercises as a suggestion, I replied, ‘Just looking at it will make me loose 20 lbs’. 

‘That made me legit-laugh-out-loud, House Uppal–at least do some Hindu squats.’, he still insisted.  I asked him if everything he did was somehow ‘Hindu’.  He sent an emoji with sunshades.  

Swastha sharira is the foundation of swachch manas – @OGSaffron

He always got upset at twitter polls about rating Indian states based on architecture or cuisine. ‘It’s all Indian, all Hindu, how does it matter?’ he would say.

Once I suggested that after he graduated, Twitter-elders will be glad to find a suitable bride for such a Dharmic Dude.  His ONLY condition was- ‘She must give an emphatic nod to ‘Mandir wahin banega’.   

A year into chatting, upon asking, he gave me his name.

Mitrata is the aamdan (income) for the time and care invested in mitrata.  

Our friendship was definitely that of a mentor and mentee but the truth is that I was not always the wiser one. His wisdom was beyond his years and there was a clarity in his thought that I envied. That clarity is what resulted in those words that the twitter-world knows him by. 

One day I was upset about an argument I had on Twitter with a scholar about misrepresenting India. The argument had left me shaken and sad. Social media can be an aggressive place where quick and sharp comebacks are sometimes equated with intelligence. As he did often with other events, his poetic tweet that day indicated that he had followed that Twitter spat.  When I shared my disappointment at being unable to control my anger, his clear, concise, to the point suggestion was, ‘Do what I do. Don’t interact.’  

But OGSaffron did interact and more eloquently than all of us. His tweets often incorporated news/events floating on Twitter. Only, he communicated like a poet or maybe a poet(ic)-warrior. So he spoke to those with a poetic bend or poetic aspiration. His words made us reflect on present and forthcoming festivals. His images put us in the state of celebration, devotion or inspired us to take resolve. He diverted our attention away from the brawls and towards the core of what was being contested.

That was the secret of his following. 

He may have been too young to understand – but he evoked the poet in us, while strengthening the warrior in us with righteousness. I believe a word-cloud of OGSaffron’s tweets will present Dharma in the boldest and the biggest font. His memes concretized the abstract. Dharma was not a lone word, as many young had heard; it is in the context of adharma. Dharma is, what adharma is not. And dharma was not always prosaically without violence, but definitely with the present, posterity, longevity and civilizational concern in mind.  Dharma considered civilization in terms of humanity and not merely India or Hinduism. In that it was universal. OGSaffron understood that. While his impact was not restricted to any age, his contribution toward inspiring young minds who may have wandered out and away from dharma is noteworthy.  OGSaffron’s words were not some older person’s sermons, but that of a young man of conviction!

“The future belongs to those who show up when the conch of dharma is sounded – OGSaffron

If adharma is not trembling, then Dharma is not being practiced – OGSaffron

Bhakti is the poetry of dharma – OGSaffron”

We discussed turning his work into coffee-table books for dharmic purpose but were unsure of copyright issues. I think he was working on a book and hope his family gets it published. We’d share notes on books, food and music.  He would recommend a bhajan or his favorite version of Hanuman Chalisa. Sometimes he’d talk about TV shows and contemporary music. With my below-zero knowledge of music, I had little to contribute, except once I shared a song by a Fiji-Indian musician.  His one-word response was, ‘Dope’.  A slang I have never used. 

Click–one more point of learning and one more point of agreement!

Mitrata – a continuous process of mutual learning. 

As his following grew, I started calling him Mr. Popular/Twitter Celebrity.  He protested saying, ‘I make some stuff and it gets shared, that is all.’ Commenting on his writing, I stated that his phrasing used ‘paucity principle’ in social science. The art of ‘saying more with (a) few (words)’- to explain a phenomenon. Many of his tweets can be expanded into dissertations or seem like gist of an entire book, e.g. the famous, ‘Dharma is a family affair.’ 

‘Want to know the secret? An obsessive mind. I think about it constantly. When something precise emerges, I get to work.’ he said. Like a poet, who knows the ingredient he relies on are words, but the impact he hopes for is a classic painting, which goes beyond words and time. Or maybe, it is not a conscious thought but a byproduct of the poet being connected to his own pravritti—nature.  

Since I spend much time with students, I often ask about their aspirations. OGSaffron’s response was one of the simplest I have heard, ‘An honest life, conviction in dharma and being around family.’ The sweetest memories are when he paused our conversation on two different occasions.  One time was when he did not want to skip his puja, another when he heard his mother call for him. I told him that his parents must be proud to have such a devoted son as he.  

I will never forget his response, ‘But they are like living temples to me’.   

Our Ram Bhakta was a Shravan Kumar!

Less than a year ago he wrote ‘Have something to share, blessings welcome, could we connect on WhatsApp?’, and signed his name. This time, the real one.  

I had been placed on the next rung of the friendship ladder. The honor!

That is how we reveal ourselves in friendship. While technology can be a tool, both for instant friending and everlasting anonymity, shedding of privacy-layers happens only when time has been invested; when friendship has been tested. OGSaffron was now like a family member. Unfortunately despite our best intentions, we could not speak in real time. 

Mitrata is its own reward.  

And when we arrive anywhere near mitrata, it cuts across realms and claims its rightful emotions, actions and reactions. 

I cannot imagine what his family is going through and what they will have to endure as they mark their own milestones in the years to come. All wounds do not heal with time. Instead in some cases, time crystalizes the questions that life never promised to answer. What the Hindu twitter feels, we all know. In that context, to express the loss that I feel seems irrelevant. We have his legacy to fall back on, and I have saved some of his work. Suffice it to say that it will hit home when I acknowledge that I will not receive a mundane text asking me what I had for lunch, or trying to convince me that Khichdi is no ordinary meal and if I had any doubts I should try his mother’s recipe.   

In magical-fantastical thinking I feel that one day Twitter will light up with his words and I will be relieved to know that I can show my anger, ‘Where have you been?  Your family and friends were looking for you.  The festive season is about to begin, and we need to see the world through your eyes. Get to work and listen–you are NOT allowed to pull this disappearing act again.’

None of us know what happens beyond this world, but in this world, what matters most is OG’s favorite word: Dharma. The young and old, who followed and shared his work should memorize at least a few of his aphorisms and try to live by them. That will be the best tribute to the young man who sang from his heart the melodies of dharma.  

In his own words: ‘Dharma alone matters’.

More than the sum of its parts, friendship is always whole. 

Thankyou OGSaffron, for time and trust, jokes and jest, but most of all, for revealing your beautiful mind and allowing us to see through your perceptive eyes.  I know OG had some critics. The best of minds do.  He must have had flaws, but friendship takes it all, wheat and chaff – all together. Adds crunchiness to life. Wholesome for the anter-atma. 

It results from ‘friending’ someone, one DM at a time. 

In closing, I will share something I heard long ago, that fits when a young person full of promise leaves us –

Badi aas se sun raha tha zamaana, tumhi chal diye dastaan kehte kehte….

The world was hanging on to every word (in your story), only you left us in the middle of your telling…

In another life mitr, till we meet for the first time!