Thursday, July 29, 2010

World Around Us




My day began at 6.00 am, with me getting straight out of bed and latching to the Idiot Box – the mirror of the world for me.



The first glimpses on the day were that of the Friday Blockbuster – Haji Mastan. The man’s aura was described all over in the backdrop of Mumbai and the mafia and underworld world.






The content ignited fire in me more so based on what I was experiencing in my life and world.

But what inspired me to begin writing was the article on Aamir Khan’s (increasing appearance/overdose) and various other articles from Parliamentary functions to British PM’s India visit to Indian cricket and plethora of commercial advertisements (majorly), with everything up on sale.



It makes me wonder, how the world of today came into picture where everything is up for sale and ideas generated to get people to buy each one’s product and services.

Not everyone succeeds in it and it takes time to learn the art of how to make sure that we sell convincingly.

Is everything around us up for sale and why do we hate the idea of something being sold to us, even though when we have a need for it. Somewhere a sale is equivalent and symbolic of self interest (which could also involve missing on interest of the other), and though it involves a return (product/service/interest) to us, we fail to understand and accept the concept of it.



If you sell me something, it makes me wonder – what’s in it for you. But does that happen every time. Certainly there are times when we don’t doubt and readily proceed to make the deal/purchase thinking it is in our interest. It could be our interest/self-gain or the aura/image/trust that makes us go for such a deal.

But is the selling concept of selling so very demeaning or just involves self/one-sided interest? These are a few objective questions that come to my mind, before I go on doubting the entire concept of sales.

However if I get back to the world around me/us – there is greed, self-interest, hypocrisy, criticism and every negative thing one can think of, happening around us and yet not many of us are unaware or become aware of it until it involves them/us personally.

As I flip over the pages of HT – I see plethora of advertisements making an effort and trying to make a mark to grab people’s attention.



It is strange that common man’s stories cannot showcase or make place for them without a commercial advertisement making place around them (which in turn makes place for those stories, therefore the commercial angle). You would find an entire page dedicated to a HP Printer (not a need for many) to a household plot (out of the reach of so many and so desired by them) with another page (at back) dedicated to another not so very famous brand (making me wonder) if they actually make enough to afford this entire page of commercial display.

Every news from cricket to Maradona to Olympics to commonwealth to war pictures etc. is encircled by commercial content. The humor is reflected when a picture of Anupam Kher, playing a dramatic act (which I was expecting) to be around a not to meaningful advertisement was just above and around the Government and Proclamation notices, DDA ads and everything not so commercial and advertisement like, AK and theatre is known for. So someone like AK gets place in not so wonderful areas on the newspaper whereas a Tendulkar advertisement gets a highlight on the main page just below the commonwealth Glitter.

Something similar was voiced in the HT City article (getting 1/8th the space Aamir’s article got) sharing thoughts from Amol Palekar (his picture also makes place here) on how Aamir managed such hype for a content which was considered so distasteful for the Indian audiences. That’s how the human mind works. Everything in this world, howsoever non glamorous it may be, is attended to, based on who endorses for it thereby making it a piece of attention.





It’s all in the mind after all.

And the first glimpses before anything (in HT) was that of India’s Got Talent ad., with the face of three (not sure how much talented, or moreso now in work, a few seem just the replicas of the foreign show).

Not all of us may be that talented, but our search is to seek the Most Talented among the talented – leaving behind all those whose talent was never recognised.