“told me love was too plebeian”
Those words from Ella Fitzgerald’s song Cry Me A River get at ideas that have been swishing around in my head for a few months. Is love really too plebeian?
I remember an instance when a dear friend of mine sounded distinctly like he was in love. I said, on hearing him speak of it, “Wow, I’ve never heard you sound so giddy!” He quickly admitted that he was indeed feeling giddy. Then there was a pregnant pause after which he came back with “Ah, that’s so embarrassing!” I asked why ever would he feel more embarrassed than pleased, to which he said with his characteristic half-joking half-serious charm, “Oh, because. Because love is sooo bourgeois!” 
More recently, I hung out with people in Bombay after many years. These are folks in their late 30s and early 40s, most of whom are married, some single, others divorced. The unanimity of their attitude towards romance in marriages startled me. Their jargon revealed a certain irreverence towards love and it was a rude surprise. How openly they stated that men and women were not really designed to live together! They spoke nonchalantly of how monogamy is unnatural and how marriage is something they would advise only if and when kids are involved. I detected an odd acceptance of extramarital liaisons and I realized that phrases like ‘fuck buddy’ have migrated and are proliferating in the East – not just in the upper crust but in the middle class as well.
When I challenged their stance, they said “But it is like this in the West. Why are you so surprised? You are being a tad naive. Surely you have lived in the States for long enough to realize that romance and marriage are incompatible! It’s all an illusion.” To that my response is: I agree that marriages are often not held as sacrosanct in the West either. But the brazenness about these issues seems to be greater in Bombay (where I was born and lived till my early 20s) and in Dubai (where I’ve been for a year now) than in the US (where I spent close to a decade)!
What exactly, I keep wondering, is going on? Yes, we all know that virtually 50% of marriages in many a cosmopolitan city end in divorce. Still, I am continually alarmed at the explicitness of (what I find to be) the cynicism. And I don’t consider myself a prude of any sort!
Perhaps it is because I have not been married before, and that I’m in my early 30s, but I still hold an idealized image of it in my mind. Or perhaps I have been swept away by the Hallmark-and-Hollywood fantasy of love over the years. Or even more likely is the fact that people who trivialize love are merely all talk; maybe it is a defense to preempt getting hurt by love? Whatever the reasons, the truth is, I sense a disregard towards the concept of happily growing old with one someone – and that shakes the foundation of what I (want to) believe vitality is all about.
That said, I am glad that people are talking about these things. It’s SO much better than sweeping such stuff under the carpet. But it brings up more questions than answers for me on further introspection. Like is love merely a pedestrian idea that we, as a society, propagate to facilitate couples getting together? And does love really have nothing to do with people staying together? Is romance slowly but surely devolving in to a relic of the past? Is it truly unsustainable?
grim
I was on vacation in South India this last week. My cousin and I traveled a few hours from Mysore to a beautiful resort in Coorg. Coffee plantations, elephants roaming free, lush greenery, and plenty of rain-induced relaxation later, we decided to return by bus. It was a charming ride through tiny villages that made me feel connected with India again after years – even as we were at times tossed a foot off our seats by monsoon potholes galore!
That was all until about a hour and a half in, when we heard a sickening crunch, as we rumbled through a village called Kamalapur. The bus ground to a halt and there it was, plain for all to see, a 4 year-old kid splattered on the street. Words cannot describe the feeling and I will – for my peace of mind and yours – omit gory details.
What was almost more disturbing was the reaction of the villagers. They gathered around in hordes within minutes, all looking for someone to blame. Apparently, drivers of all vehicles involved, whether directly or not, were considered criminals. The driver and conductor of our bus simply ran away in a jiffy. Perhaps they thought escaping in to a neighbouring village would be safer than facing the wrath of the mob that had gathered. And what a mob it was! A buzz spread through our bus; we were strongly advised to get away as soon as possible, owing to a good chance that the bus would be stoned by people provoked before the arrival of cops. We left and walked a few kilometres down the highway, where we eventually hitched a ride to the nearest town.
What I could not get past is that, in all this, the remains of the child were ignored, with no one to simply cover him up with a piece of cloth. In fact, it seemed like people wanted to keep the terrible sight there, in order that the anger that was seething would not wane. Were the incident to be covered by a foreign press, it would be easy to portray India as a brutal land of ignorant people. We somehow could not blame the dirt-poor and vastly uneducated villagers for their reaction however. All we could hope for as we brisked ourselves away – on the eve of Independence Day no less – was more of a drive towards literacy.
such a shame
I met with a Europe-based client today, who expressed concern over how moving their factories to India would affect the marketing of their product. Relocating manufacturing makes sense for them financially because the cost of production is lower, but they worry about whether the MADE IN INDIA on the package will affect sales in the Middle East. So they suggested we help them conduct market research that tests consumer reactions to the product (brand appeal, purchase intention, etc), highlighting in one group and minimizing in the other, information about where exactly it is made.
As an advertising professional, I understand the dilemma – sure you do what you can to sell your product. But, as an Indian, I must confess it makes me cringe. Just the same way I cringed when I still lived in America a couple of years ago. ‘Outsourcing’ had become (quite literally) a rage by then and I noticed a lot of brands had begun displaying MADE IN AMERICA signs prominently on their websites. That was when I realized that businesses truly fear the boycott of their brands based on where their products are made. Amongst others, India and China are on the (s)hit list.
Funnies aside, I see that the quality of products is often at stake – if I remember right, Mattel recently had issues with the toxicity of paint used on kids’ toys in their China factory. There are indeed some very real concerns with the kind of ‘globalization’ that exists today – companies will do anything to save money. The loss of jobs that occurs locally from such cost-cutting is awful and remedies** clearly need to be institutionalized. But is the stigma, which gets attached to developing countries for taking away the jobs in question, appropriate? The people there are often simply struggling to rise above the poverty line.
If companies adopted suitable quality control, perhaps they wouldn’t have to be so embarrassed about those involved in the creation of their products.
** What if, for example, the people laid off could be transferred to a barrage of new businesses (perhaps mandated by governments in the West) such as the Swiss Life Straw? Now that sort of thing could actually give us a shot at building a truly ‘global community.’
a brimful of asha
I have written a lot about Western music on this blahg, but never about music from the Indian Subcontinent somehow – even though I consider it one of the most rich and nuanced musical traditions of the world. Much of my regard comes from being born to a house filled with it and also because I trained in singing a classical version for many years growing up.
One thing is for sure, no matter how great it is, it is not packaged for popularity in the Western parts of the world. Of course, there are some Indian artists like Ravi Shankar and Zakir Husain that have gained some fame overseas. But for most music aficionados, it’s the Bollywood type stuff that is off-putting. One of the reasons is that it it’s typically sung in an octave so high, it sounds like Mickey Mouse music to those unaccustomed! Anyway, criticisms and analyses aside, here are two folk songs by Asha Bhosle - the one from the Cornershop song this post is named after.
The first of the two songs is in Hindi/Urdu and is a beautiful song, the music of which is by the great Pakistani musician Ghulam Ali. The second is one of the loveliest Marathi folk songs that I have ever heard. (I think both these would be much nicer at a lower pitch too, but ah well.) If you aren’t familiar with Indian music, and happen to have a listen, please do leave a comment about what you think. Lyrics aside, I am curious as to how the melody sounds to the uninitiated…
anatomy of a controversy
Free some underwear from those irksome dangling tags to get a pretty good product: Hanes Tagless Underwear. Then come up with some well-conceived copy to sell it: Because the world gives you enough tags. Add a tri-series of neat artwork. So far, so good, right? Now, add a dash of sensationalism, let a mindless handful of viewers get a peek, and there it suddenly is: the perfect recipe for a disaster. McCann India is the ad agency in question and their campaign – now withdrawn – had 3 print ads. The first showed a man bearing the burden of a vivid bunch of “gay” things, the second had a guy pulling at a similar collage of stereotypically “black” things, and the third depicted an assortment of “Pakistani” stuff – each with the same words at the bottom. Hanes Tagless Underwear. Because the world gives you enough tags.
People have been calling the campaign “anti-gay” and “racist”. How is it either of those things? The fact that it was seen as biased is odd; it’s anything but! (The only thing that does bother me about the campaign is that people who aren’t really aware of the stereotypes in question will indeed become so after seeing it.) Yes, the executions are hard-hitting for the times, but I also think that the basic brand idea borders on brilliant! And that is what McCann’s defense should have been – instead of the spineless apology they actually mustered up.
how to track well-being
cheap cheep
The Tata Nano is undoubtedly the world’s cheapest car, but consider the context in which it is embedded. The Chevy Aveo (~$11,000) is less than 1/4th of the US per capita income. Granted that India’s middle class is growing fast, but the Nano (~$2500) is priced at more than 3X India’s per capita income!
Now that says something.
And its a fact those that levy accusations at Ratan Tata – for furthur choking up India’s roads with bizarrely affordable cars – should consider. When you add to it the fact that European safety and emission standards are met by the Nano, then outright naysayers begin to look just a little silly.
ra ra rall?
Sunday’s cartoon responds to the generally respectful tone accorded Mike Huckabee, who does not believe in evolution and is therefore, by definition, a lunatic.
- Ted Rall
HS, LS, and oh yeah, MS
Okay, so I seem to be whining exclusively about women today. But how can I help it! See I heard Archana Puran Singh on the radio. She is a sassy actress and comedienne who delivers – in her upbeat Hinglish sort of style – Indian celebrity news. And as she does so, she classifies actors and their acts, whether on stage or off, as “HS”, “LS”, or “MS”. If it has you scratching your head, that’s high society, low society, and you got it, middle society.
Believe it or not, her audience laps it up! India has historically been a country of much hierarchy – from the caste system, to the imperialism imbibed from the British, to the recent-haves and always-hads created by the more recent economic boom. Which is precisely why I find Archana’s system of stratifying Bollywood gossip to be irresponsible. I’m very tempted to label her deejaying as deeply LS, but I’ll settle instead for HI. As in, highly ignorant.
in sight
I had the honour and pleasure of meeting Santosh Desai recently. He is one of India’s foremost account planners and a weekly columnist (typically in the role of a commentator on popular culture) for the Times of India. Chatting with him was uplifting for he is eloquent, down-to-earth, and has integrity. It gives me great hope that people like him (those with a holistic bent of mind) have a voice in advertising and media in India.
Here is one of his columns from the TOI. I think it nicely demonstrates how his unique brand of acute observation, unapologetic introspection, and nuanced articulation might generate deep insights in to why we feel and do the things we feel and do. (How this sort of thinking might be relevant to understanding consumer behavior is perhaps easy to see, but more on it later.)
THE FEAR OF GIVING
Old ladies begging in winter nights get me. I am always shaken, disturbed and moved in a way that goes beyond sympathy or pity. It seems colossally unfair that one should be so vulnerable, so shrivelled by penury at this stage of one’s life. Of course the sight of poverty always induces guilt pangs, the homeless make one uncomfortable, the idea of street children failing to find avenues to channelise their obvious energies is difficult to live with but, for some reason, the idea of old ladies in winter wearing smudged glasses held up by strings has the most powerful emotional impact on me. And yet, for all the trauma this sight induces in me, I find it impossible to actually reach into my pocket and give her anything.
I think about it with increasing desperation and then the light turns green and I am free to go. I dream of making a grand gesture, of emptying out my pockets on an impulse or going round the city distributing blankets but of course I do nothing. And I don’t think I am alone in this. While a large part of our attitude towards the economically underprivileged is made up of indifference, there is a small but significant part that is unable to take the step from concern to giving. What explains this inability, this paralysis that stymies good intentions?
And I am not talking about the rational arguments against giving charity to people who beg on the streets. There are those argue that begging is a nuisance and giving only encourages dependence. You frequently hear accounts of how when meaningful work was offered to the people who were begging, it was almost always turned down. Without getting into the argument for or against encouraging begging, let us focus instead on those situations when we have no conceptual problems with giving something but find ourselves unable to bring ourselves to do so.
Perhaps, what prevents us from giving is that it appears to be a cheap way to buy absolution. It seems too easy, to rid oneself of guilt by offloading some money into an outstretched hand. Are we merely purchasing a cheap ticket to heaven, finding a way to postpone facing up to some deep sense of guilt at our relative good fortune?
The other possible reason is that the problem seems too vast for one small gesture to make any real difference. The sense of “so what will it really change’’ might stop us from taking that small step.
The enormity of the problem mocks at the futility of our gesture and makes it appear to be an act of indulgence aimed at making us, rather than the person begging, feel better. The feeling that there is no symbolic way of shouldering responsibility, that once we cross the threshold and take any action then we somehow become responsible for the problem in its entirety. And if we are not ready for that, then it is perhaps better to do nothing at all.
In some deep-rooted way, we are afraid of playing God with other people’s destinies. The act of giving seems laden with arrogance; we attribute superiority to ourselves based on material comfort and somehow this feels wrong. It feels wrong that one should be in a position to make such a difference to someone else’s life.
The transaction is too naked, the difference too palpable for comfort. Also, there is this other problem with playing God—we need to be completely fair and impartial.
Who is to say who needs our charity the most—is it the shrivelled old woman or the urchin without a leg? Do we give on the basis of an internal pathos-meter that measures the relative direness of the need? Do we then end up summing up human beings by the size of their afflictions?
And hence the irony of doing nothing for those in need not out of callousness, but out of some form of respect for them as people.
Perhaps this too is only a way to rationalise indifference. Perhaps this whole debate is too self-indulgent in the first place. And it certainly changes nothing.
The next time an old lady raps on my car window, I will still be a deer in her headlights, trapped between my fear of arrogance and a need to do something.
Read more from him here. (Search for ‘Santosh Desai’ or ‘City City Bang Bang’ on this link.)
