Every cloud has a schadenfreude lining

Illustration/Uday Mohite

For years, Reader's Digest advised us It Pays To Enrich Your Word Power (English obviously). I took this earnestly and am still awaiting the promised payment, but every now and then, I do feel the joy of having the word for a feeling, yaniki, though it has been a time of doom and gloom it has also been a time of, woh-kya-kehte-hain… schadenfreude, German for the Punjabi phrase, badi thand payi kaleje vich, yaniki happiness at someone else's misery, especially someone who was previously lording it over you.

Consider that this week we witnessed the alarming sight of white supremacists in furs and horns, storming the US Capitol. As everybody shook their heads, it was grave utterances about the demise of democracy from one side of their mouths while from the other it was kabhi meme meme kabhi shabd shabd yaniki, schadenfreude.

With a palpable digital chortle my Punjabi friend Pearl posted this tweet from the handle @BaeGhairat: "Called my khaala in the states just to say ‘allah maaf kare main toy kabhi bhi na aaaoon America, halaat dekhe hain wahaanke?' Felt good recommended 100 per cent". Indeed, a hard relate was felt by all who had stoically borne their NRI family and friends/frenemies exclaiming about des ka pollution, corruption, politics and traffic as if they had never lived in Kalina, but were Penningtone, NJ ke doodh ke dhule.

(Schadenfreude by the way, is not the same as "aur ignore karo mujhe", a feeling expressed by academics, or as one tweeted: "We sociologists have been telling you about the possibility of this political crisis for YEARS. Yet, you refused to pay $129.95 to get around the paywall to access my article for 72 hours. That is on YOU.")

Schadenfreude was not limited to family politics, but crossed a few state and party lines. Varun Gandhi in a very nau sau choohe khake billi haj ko chali fashion, said starchy things about the misuse of the Indian national flag amid the democracy marauders. Shashi Tharoor responded in the vein of that's-rich-coming-from-a-nationalist-party-member-which-has-turned-the-flag-into-an-extremist-symbol. But, meanwhile, it was revealed that the bearer of said flag was a Malayali supporter of Mr Tharoor, so Mr Gandhi wasted no time in feeling superior about this. No doubt some mom of a less successful cousin of the gung-ho Malyali protestor was also feeling Schadenfreude, ki he might have sat for GRE, but we knew he was a dunderhead only.

There was global shavashava schadenfreude, given the dozens of countries where the US has aided the overthrow of governments, or delivered the daant of democracy. As one person tartly tweeted: "The people of Malawi wish to express their concern with the increasingly volatile situation in the United States."

India had a headstart on this front though, for it was 30 years ago that we witnessed a group of men atop a domed building, bringing it down to pave the way for growing violent majoritarianism and dodgy democracy, so we see that eventually schadenfreude is a pointless, even hollow feeling. Yet, when our head of state tweeted concern for democracy, no doubt the Amrikis would have sputtered "Wha…? Twada kutta Tommy, sada kutta kutta?"-but only if the global world order were different and they knew Punjabi, of course.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com