The profusion of confusion

One month since the flood of bombs left their mark on Bombay. Bombay. Mumbai. It's the same city, just numerologically different. Personally, I've never been fond of the renaming craze, but considering our Government's rather stoic and effeminate silence, perhaps the name Mum-bai is totally applicable. The media was busy coining new phrases for putting forward the indomitable spirit of the city in between it's frequent splashes of live  exclusivity, glossing over the fact that the city thrives on a "chalta hai" attitude. The reason why we all bounce back faster after a tragedy is because of ever increasing amounts of apathy.

If the above line didn't affect you, you know you're affected.

Live death telecast. Interesting. Exclusive mass telecast. Intriguing. The same thing said over and over. Insipid.

In our hurry to push our self stamped envelopes of mass appeal, we sometimes forget that we are putting the moron in oxymoron. So in times like these it's best to sit back and laugh at ourselves at the things we say.

Take that chewing gum ad for instance. The one where the cow has beautiful teeths. Cows have udders I know, but teeths? And milk white teeths at that? Maybe this is an in-joke about doctors leaving impressions (dents in this case) on their patients at a very deep level. It could also be a McBethian reference to the milk of human kindness. After a literal bongland translation it becomes "Mamata-r dudu". Considering the considerable swaying powers (politically only please!) of that particular sample of humanity, you wouldn't wonder for long why she calls the red reign a bunch of cow-ards.

While on the topic of cows, I saw a few miserable ones being led away to their slaughter on a bloody recent religious celebration. And not just the cows, many people got themselves goats as well. After the black sheep celebrations were over, a different BA BA swooped down with its luggage problems. The world will fight, animals will be feasted on and flights will keep losing luggage. Things keep changing, but the one constant now is the getting publicity out of everything. Pubic attention is a huge motivator. Ask Britney and the rest of her friends who check into detox centres when they can't get their regular fix.

Speaking of fixing, we really should do something about our pronunciations. Each of the wrongly said ones become painful sentences in their own right. Sometime back, I saw a  venerable *snigger* Marwari gentleman being served a Chicken Quickie by a gleeful waitress who didn't care about correcting his Quiche. Or the shoe salesman who was only too happy to sell an expensive Woodlund to a drooping shopper.

Sex sells. Making fun of sex sells even more. The recent spate of stay at home homosexual comedies are a good examples innuendo in your endo. But it sounds infinitely better when the press proudly proclaims that audiences are no longer confused and coming out of the closet. So that's buy bi to confusion. Slightly literal when you think of the biPhone. There's still a fair amount of debate whether it's for the "hard-core" business user or a sleek entertainment plaything.

Asking too many questions will never get answers, only add to the profusion of the confusion. It's that much more desirable to go with the flow and lap up commercials as the absolute truth. 

But the season to get our jollies has only just begun. Cake companies are advertising their indigenous versions of the portly figure from the North Pole and inviting us to dig in. Never mind the obesity.. go anonymousse while desserting. After all, Shanta's got her claws ready too.

Spikeology

We leave bits of us behind. Our thoughts, words and actions. Leaving a mark on the world immediately around us. No, I’m not talking about shedded skin and nail trimmings.

There are a variety of roles to play and a number of masks to wear. You never quite know which mask you are wearing until it becomes a part of your regular face. Then it becomes difficult to actually open up. Tell anybody, “You are wearing a mask. This is not the real you” and chances are you are on your way to roadside astrology fame and fortune. Either that or some sluggish stagehand superglued your current expression – wood, paint et al.

Many of us walk with smiles so frozen it’s a wonder the temperature doesn’t drop to sub arctic levels. Or with tempers so flaring, your goose is cooked for the next few weeks. Then there are the lifestylists, radiating more joy than a lampshade will cover. Hmm… I can imagine quite a few people who’d look better with a lampshade on.

Sometimes it’s easier to wear a mask than to actually be yourself. Of course, it’s easier to talk to strangers than to real life people. Now you know the reason behind the success of gossip columns. Only now they are called “Survival strategies”, “Life’s lessons”, or “How to freeze your mother in law with a K look”. No, seriously, it’s much easier to open up to a random person imagining your anonymity preserved than to pour your heart out to the people who truly can make a difference. What difference can a few bits of advice or concern make? Pun intended.

So we discuss everything under the sun with our netizens. Those cyberians who “connect” to life with their yard long wires dangling out of their hardware. Some of them are wireless. In real life too.

And then one fine day you realize that your online existence has crawled into your offline one. Some of us just log in to the net. Most of us live there. We spend our time chatting up folks, talking into the wee hours of the morning or the pee hours of the night, playing games and hearing tales of woe until you realize your own life has become nothing more than the page of a gossip column. Your every move discussed threadbare. Your every thought processed by a billion minds, or worse, stored in a search engine server. And a malicious pleasure in trying to get inside someone’s mindspace. Whatever happened to trying to get into somebody’s pants in real life?!

We are so empty of true human contact that we resort to emptying our already depleted bowels of emotion over these wireless lines, not realizing that the person or persons to whom we are venting to get affected. They absorb our personalities to such an extent that they can almost predict our next thought. Then we get scared and move back. And find some other pot to put our steam into.

Life needs the milk of human kindness. Too bad it’s processed and packaged these days. Fat free.