I haven't seen a single episode of Game of Thrones and I love my life

You shouldn't worry if you haven't watched a single episode of the Game of Thrones. You are not a sinner. Nor are you alone 
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones

We're only halfway through April, it is almost 40 degrees in Chennai, we are already sweating like pigs (personally I've never see a pig sweat but it's a pretty good allusion). With the sun trying to prove that you can cook an egg without LPG or a Prestige induction stove, any mention of winter can be strange. 

Except, it isn't. For some people, 'winter is here'. I should put out a disclaimer right at the beginning of this as I could possibly get hate mails and a lot of snarky comments from friends, colleagues and countrymen. But, I would like to tell them one thing — we the people, who haven't watched a single episode of Game of Thrones, sleep peacefully at night. Thank you.

I hate to admit it but just like most other people around me and across the world, I too was waiting for Game of Thrones' final season to air on April 15. But for an entirely different reason. I was waiting to laugh at memes that popped up immediately after the first episode, which although they made no sense to me, are inexorably funny. The memes provide necessary comic relief for the times when I am tired of the numerous phone calls from my friends asking me to watch it, the exhaustion that comes with scrolling through the truckload of tweets and posts blotting my timeline, talking about the Starks, Lannisters, Jon Snow, betrayals, reunions, and the White Walkers (did I say all the names right? Because I had to Google all of it.)

So what is the big deal anyway? Honestly, I have never understood the hype around the show. To me, it sounds like all the intrigue, drama and politics involved in Game of Thrones is our everyday news cycle anyway. For us, it's Modi Ji leading the battalion. How much more entertainment do we need in life, seriously?

I have no problem if you are a die-hard fan, I am absolutely okay if you find your much-needed escape in watching cousins rape and kill each other, people freezing to death in the stark white snow and dragons being petted. If that's your mojo and it brings you all the joy you seek in life, I am cool with it. 

Before going to sleep the night before D-Day last week (April 15), I was skimming through the insta-stories and Facebook posts of, I must really point out, weird and strange people who were putting up screenshots of the alarm tabs on their phones — 6:15 AM — requesting fellow social media brethren, and praying to God (like they never did even when their board results came out), to help them wake up for (oh, give me a break!) the first episode of the final and eight season of their beloved Game of Thrones.

Cut to — a lazy Monday morning (really lazy for a Bong who has to go to work on Poila Boishak, Bengali new year) where my half-asleep eyes were checking my phone to see if there are any important messages, got greeted by 100 messages on my friends' groups on Whatsapp. Everyone began discussing the episode and how great it was. If you are aware of the White Walkers of Westeros from your Night Watches or if you're fluent in Dothraki or whatever strange language it is they speak, all wrapped up in scraggly fur in badly lit caves, I do not have anything against you. It must be pretty mindblowing and have really high production values if so many people around the world love it that much. Genuinely, I just find it too dark and unnecessarily violent for escaping from a real world that is already so dark and violent.

I have grown up in a joint family all my life, but, the family tree in GOT seems too complicated and the cast is so extensive that it is absolutely exhausting to remember after two episodes who fits in where and what their names are.

I believe there are more people like me who have not watched a single episode of the show and does not care who got killed or who sits on the throne. Trolling us for not watching it won't help either. We've weathered other trolls who don't like our way of life and have ideological difference with us. We'll weather this one too. Winter ot otherwise. 

So long Jon Snow. 'Twas good venting about you. 

Views expressed are the author's own.

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