During my days as a Master’s student in the Indian capital, I came across a group of women who used to call themselves ‘feminists’-they would organize events of all sorts to uphold the rights, freedom and equality of women. These were well-educated, fashionable ladies from the higher echelons of the Indian society who would pick up all sorts of social issues concerning women and keep themselves busy with that. Ironically, many of them were dependent on their respective husbands for monetary requirements.
And then I come to the US and now in the US capital, I meet these women’s rights' organization people who run offices employing women of all ages (well-educated of course; they even have undergrad interns!) and host high profile ‘women’s cause related’ events where Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton are invited to give speeches! Wow-I was impressed & touched! (A young intern couldn’t stop exclaiming about the exhilarating moment when Hillary apparently looked at her and smiled; the 20 yr. old has of course decided to become a ‘feminist’, to devote her life to the noble cause of fighting for women’s equality!) In such events they sit and discuss and form opinion and write articles on issues such as the righteousness of treating birth-control pills as a mechanism by which life is destroyed and the right of women to choose regarding abortion etc.
In both instances in both countries, they came across to me as highly elitist groups of women who can empathize with any issue concerning women all over the world and will fire up at the slightest mention of any harassment or oppression against women in any country-very noble cause indeed.
But this got me thinking-what do these feminists really ‘do’ to ‘solve’ these real issues that they so passionately discuss sitting in their air-conditioned swanky offices in some high-rise building of DC or Delhi? How many of these women wearing Ann Taylor suits and stilettos and carrying Gucci bags and figuring out which celebrity guest speaker to invite for the next conference on ‘women as rape victims’ or ‘women’s liberation & empowerment’ etc etc, have ever gone out there and seen with their own eyes what really happens in the areas where women are most oppressed or have actually met and spoken to the so-called ‘victims’-the subjects of their own professional careers? It’s true that you surely need influential people to uphold such causes in order to implement any policy that may solve the issues-and sections of representatives in the government are theoretically supposed to be doing so. And then there are the NGOs the members of which actually do the ‘field-work’, raise donations and try to reach out to the women who need their help and support. Amidst all these, what exactly do the ‘feminists’ do to contribute in any meaningful manner? Honestly, I have no idea and if someone has, I will be glad to learn!
It seems to me that ‘feminism’ has become a social-status-symbol, some kind of a mini-cult, a fashionable tag you can carry around like your Gucci bag.
We talk of a post-modern 21st century where couple are going to the space to get married!
In this same era, there exist countries such as Uganda where the sole purpose of women is to ‘produce’-if a woman can’t bear a child, she is considered a ‘failure’-abandoned by husband and parents, kept secluded from the rest of the society and left all to herself to die and it never occurs to the men that their own physical problems can also lead to such issues;
In certain impoverished villages of India, the ‘devadasi’ system is still in vogue where the parents of a girl-child force her into prostitution in the name of serving the Gods;
In the recent Beijing Olympic games inauguration ceremony, we saw proud women from countries such as Bahrain and Egypt marching alongside with the men-but did anyone spot any woman representative for Saudi Arabia or Qatar? Most likely no because the religious leaders of these countries have banned women from participating in sports because they fear that women will get attracted to each other and violate Islam rules once they come out in the open wearing ‘leotards and tight tops’;
Such issues from all over the world are endless and I only hope that some day instead of writing a blog article about these, I can actually go out there to somehow help these women who are forced to live in a totally different era even as the world around them celebrates nuclear deals.
And I also hope that some day in near future, rich, urban women who call themselves ‘feminists’ actually realize that it takes much more than celebrity speeches and fancy conferences or traffic-stopping processions to even get close to these burning issues, let alone solving them.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
a melting pot?
Every morning while going to work, I encounter diverse forms of human life-a perfect manifestation of the 'melting pot' that the US capital has become in course of several years and this gets me thinking to what extent do the people converging here from literally all over the world, really get assimilated in this melting pot?
There're men and women of all possible shapes,sizes,colors;speaking diverse languages,pursuing different religious faiths,hailing from diverse backgrounds,representing myriad cultures-all converging to this city in search of work,of education,of love,of destiny. The contrasts at times can be so stark that one ends up feeling as if it's a huge circus with participants from all possible countries of the world-countries that I didn't even know existed such as Burkina Faso!
But how much do they really get absorbed in the larger whole? And not just for the capital city-this applies to this entire country, the so-called 'land of opportunities' whose visa-stamp seems a must in the passports of urban citizens of all nationalities.
And having stayed here for a while now, I end up getting the feeling that people from similar cultural backgrounds all still living in their own self-formed tiny islands while hanging out with 'others' -it's a process of voluntary clustering that somehow seems inevitable.
In the capital city for instance, there're strictly demarcated neighborhoods where the residents are of two totally different colors and hence social structures and economic landscapes; the transition from one area to the other is so sudden and abrupt that it can make one feel as if one's walking from one world into another! Everything drastically changes-the houses, the gardens, the people standing in the balconies, the cars parked on the roads, the restaurants and grocery stores, the beggars on the streets, the body language of the people walking on the roads, the slang words used...endless differences! How much do these two worlds living side by side interact with each other? I don't know but from the look of it, it seems they interact only when they have to, at work or in schools-and the follow ups during the happy hours at pubs; but when the time comes to go back home, the subtle segregation becomes so not-so-subtle!
Then there is the omnipresent and gloriously famous for the fake gucci & prada bags-'Chinatown', in every major US city-a section where English ceases to be the 1st language! What is it about the people from our partner-in-crime-country that universally makes them cluster in such a prominent manner wherever they go? And I don't have to reiterate the differences in lifestyle and socio-cultural environment and of course cuisines and even road signs(some of the road signs in NY are actually in Chinese!)-as one moves from the 'city' into the 'chinatown'! And coming from India, I cannot of course ignore the grouping that we Indians do too! Look at Silicon Valley or New Jersey or Lexington Square-from sarees and bindis to pan and mother's pickle-nothing is unavailable in these mini-India's, which at times confuse me-where exactly am I?
Is it economically a more viable option for people hailing from similar backgrounds,to cluster all together in one area in this huge melting pot? or is it because, even if we are far away from our respective motherlands and want to get a taste of 'international exposure' during our pursuit of the 'great American dream', we still want to remain close to people we can relate to without having to spend hours and days trying to explain what we really are?
Maybe the presence of these clusters in some way further facilitate the migration of more and more ambitious young people to this land of dreams, by giving them a sense of security that even though they are willfully getting removed from their own land, they will still be close to their own people?
In a country where the citizens are day and night getting categorized into several isolated camps-liberals or conservatives or neo-cons, yankee-fans or the non-yankees, ivy leaguers or the community college goers, New Yorkers or Californians, techies or wall-street-ers, mormons or scientologists and endless such clusters; maybe it's inevitable that the migrants who constitute such a major proportion of the American population, will continue to have their own separate islands-it's like a mini-world in one country! So maybe after all, we all don't really melt together in this huge melting pot....
There're men and women of all possible shapes,sizes,colors;speaking diverse languages,pursuing different religious faiths,hailing from diverse backgrounds,representing myriad cultures-all converging to this city in search of work,of education,of love,of destiny. The contrasts at times can be so stark that one ends up feeling as if it's a huge circus with participants from all possible countries of the world-countries that I didn't even know existed such as Burkina Faso!
But how much do they really get absorbed in the larger whole? And not just for the capital city-this applies to this entire country, the so-called 'land of opportunities' whose visa-stamp seems a must in the passports of urban citizens of all nationalities.
And having stayed here for a while now, I end up getting the feeling that people from similar cultural backgrounds all still living in their own self-formed tiny islands while hanging out with 'others' -it's a process of voluntary clustering that somehow seems inevitable.
In the capital city for instance, there're strictly demarcated neighborhoods where the residents are of two totally different colors and hence social structures and economic landscapes; the transition from one area to the other is so sudden and abrupt that it can make one feel as if one's walking from one world into another! Everything drastically changes-the houses, the gardens, the people standing in the balconies, the cars parked on the roads, the restaurants and grocery stores, the beggars on the streets, the body language of the people walking on the roads, the slang words used...endless differences! How much do these two worlds living side by side interact with each other? I don't know but from the look of it, it seems they interact only when they have to, at work or in schools-and the follow ups during the happy hours at pubs; but when the time comes to go back home, the subtle segregation becomes so not-so-subtle!
Then there is the omnipresent and gloriously famous for the fake gucci & prada bags-'Chinatown', in every major US city-a section where English ceases to be the 1st language! What is it about the people from our partner-in-crime-country that universally makes them cluster in such a prominent manner wherever they go? And I don't have to reiterate the differences in lifestyle and socio-cultural environment and of course cuisines and even road signs(some of the road signs in NY are actually in Chinese!)-as one moves from the 'city' into the 'chinatown'! And coming from India, I cannot of course ignore the grouping that we Indians do too! Look at Silicon Valley or New Jersey or Lexington Square-from sarees and bindis to pan and mother's pickle-nothing is unavailable in these mini-India's, which at times confuse me-where exactly am I?
Is it economically a more viable option for people hailing from similar backgrounds,to cluster all together in one area in this huge melting pot? or is it because, even if we are far away from our respective motherlands and want to get a taste of 'international exposure' during our pursuit of the 'great American dream', we still want to remain close to people we can relate to without having to spend hours and days trying to explain what we really are?
Maybe the presence of these clusters in some way further facilitate the migration of more and more ambitious young people to this land of dreams, by giving them a sense of security that even though they are willfully getting removed from their own land, they will still be close to their own people?
In a country where the citizens are day and night getting categorized into several isolated camps-liberals or conservatives or neo-cons, yankee-fans or the non-yankees, ivy leaguers or the community college goers, New Yorkers or Californians, techies or wall-street-ers, mormons or scientologists and endless such clusters; maybe it's inevitable that the migrants who constitute such a major proportion of the American population, will continue to have their own separate islands-it's like a mini-world in one country! So maybe after all, we all don't really melt together in this huge melting pot....
Thursday, August 7, 2008
married vs singles
The moment I write the 2-lettered 'vs' for anything, it seems as if it connotes a war or a fight or a battle-so why did I think of using this to separate the words 'married' and 'singles'? Well,my intention is surely not to start a warfare here-that's for a later time ;-)
I happen to be a die hard romantic who believes that someone somewhere is surely waiting for you and if you believe in love, you will meet that person no matter what and get swept off your feet and fall hopelessly in love and then the whole universe will conspire such that things will eventually work out irrespective of the hurdles! However, what exactly do I mean when I say,'things will work out'?
What do we look for when we fall in love(assuming there is something called love which is nice and beautiful and doesn't come without heartaches)?
Do we just enjoy the moments spent with our beloved and get carried away in the sheer romanticism of the whole thing with a constant smile on our face shamelessly giving away how happy we are and find something good in everything around us or do we over and above these, start thinking when will he propose or whether she will say yes(assuming the traditional mode)or what will my mom say etc, i.e.. in other words, work out the possible logistics of the final destination-'marriage'?
Well, most of us will do the latter coz we all want to make ourselves happy by ensuring we get what we want-and we want 'not to stay single'-so now that we are in love(of course while falling in love,we have already resolved the doubts in our minds as to whether this person is the right one and hence have done the necessary subconscious calculations), what better thing to do than to put the 2 things together and decide to 'formally' live together-cutting it short, get married!! And it's actually nice coz you genuinely feel like you want to spend the rest of your life with this beloved of yours and if things go that way, then voila!
However,what about the other half of the population who still haven't fallen in love? Who still haven't 'found the one' and things still haven't 'worked out' for them? For those who are still 'single'?
Maybe some of them had relationships which didn't work out and some actually haven't found anyone--but whatever it maybe, they live their lives the way they want. However,they can't remain like that for a long time! Very soon, the realization that the world around them is fast getting metamorphosed into being 'married'(the 'age' is increasing!), starts haunting them-the 'what-ifs' torment their otherwise peaceful thoughts-what if they end up being 'single'?what if they end up being 'alone'? what if they have to come back to an 'empty house'?And before you know, these pangs get the better of them and in a few months' time they find themselves as the spouses of unknown strangers that their folks and relatives have 'found' for them(thanks to the entire system of equations involving horoscopes and pundits!) and voila,life moves on again!and what about love? well, you start staying with the person and marriage being a lovely bond, generates love between the two people coz 'everything else' looks good on paper-so it happens (yeah right, coz there's no option!)
This makes me ponder, what exactly are the so-called 'singles' afraid of, to an extent that they are willing to disregard all their apprehensions,their fears, their doubts-everything to take the plunge into a supposedly life-long relation with someone whom they hardly know, forget about being able to connect to or being in love-just coz the horoscopes have matched and the 'parents feel' he/she is the correct choice? I hear cases where people meet only twice before they tie the knot!! (how's it even better than not meeting at all!) How can just 2-3 meetings with a person contribute toward a decision to spending the rest of life together!
Are today's 'singles' so desperate to find companionship that they basically don't care what kind of a person the spouse really is-as long as the family background and degrees look 'fine'?Are they prepared to make any adjustment required as long as they don't have to spend their lives alone? Are they scared of suddenly finding themselves in the middle of a room where all their friends and cousins are present with their respective partners but not them? Is it like, when everyone around you is not 'single', then you start having these pangs and give in to them, (typically between 25-35 I am assuming for Indian men-women) even if that includes the fearsome possibility that post-marriage you realize you just can't relate to the person sleeping beside you ,coz there was no connection to start with?
What will all the horoscopes matching and impressive resumes and good family background do then to resolve such a fundamental discrepancy?
If loneliness is the main issue here, then does marriage always provide a solution to it? Is the trade-off between staying happily alone and waiting for love to happen or getting hooked to a stranger for the sake of being with someone, so lopsided that the former has ceased to be an option? Are we willing to pay such a heavy price of spending the rest of our lives with a stranger just coz we can't bear the thought of remaining single?
I happen to be a die hard romantic who believes that someone somewhere is surely waiting for you and if you believe in love, you will meet that person no matter what and get swept off your feet and fall hopelessly in love and then the whole universe will conspire such that things will eventually work out irrespective of the hurdles! However, what exactly do I mean when I say,'things will work out'?
What do we look for when we fall in love(assuming there is something called love which is nice and beautiful and doesn't come without heartaches)?
Do we just enjoy the moments spent with our beloved and get carried away in the sheer romanticism of the whole thing with a constant smile on our face shamelessly giving away how happy we are and find something good in everything around us or do we over and above these, start thinking when will he propose or whether she will say yes(assuming the traditional mode)or what will my mom say etc, i.e.. in other words, work out the possible logistics of the final destination-'marriage'?
Well, most of us will do the latter coz we all want to make ourselves happy by ensuring we get what we want-and we want 'not to stay single'-so now that we are in love(of course while falling in love,we have already resolved the doubts in our minds as to whether this person is the right one and hence have done the necessary subconscious calculations), what better thing to do than to put the 2 things together and decide to 'formally' live together-cutting it short, get married!! And it's actually nice coz you genuinely feel like you want to spend the rest of your life with this beloved of yours and if things go that way, then voila!
However,what about the other half of the population who still haven't fallen in love? Who still haven't 'found the one' and things still haven't 'worked out' for them? For those who are still 'single'?
Maybe some of them had relationships which didn't work out and some actually haven't found anyone--but whatever it maybe, they live their lives the way they want. However,they can't remain like that for a long time! Very soon, the realization that the world around them is fast getting metamorphosed into being 'married'(the 'age' is increasing!), starts haunting them-the 'what-ifs' torment their otherwise peaceful thoughts-what if they end up being 'single'?what if they end up being 'alone'? what if they have to come back to an 'empty house'?And before you know, these pangs get the better of them and in a few months' time they find themselves as the spouses of unknown strangers that their folks and relatives have 'found' for them(thanks to the entire system of equations involving horoscopes and pundits!) and voila,life moves on again!and what about love? well, you start staying with the person and marriage being a lovely bond, generates love between the two people coz 'everything else' looks good on paper-so it happens (yeah right, coz there's no option!)
This makes me ponder, what exactly are the so-called 'singles' afraid of, to an extent that they are willing to disregard all their apprehensions,their fears, their doubts-everything to take the plunge into a supposedly life-long relation with someone whom they hardly know, forget about being able to connect to or being in love-just coz the horoscopes have matched and the 'parents feel' he/she is the correct choice? I hear cases where people meet only twice before they tie the knot!! (how's it even better than not meeting at all!) How can just 2-3 meetings with a person contribute toward a decision to spending the rest of life together!
Are today's 'singles' so desperate to find companionship that they basically don't care what kind of a person the spouse really is-as long as the family background and degrees look 'fine'?Are they prepared to make any adjustment required as long as they don't have to spend their lives alone? Are they scared of suddenly finding themselves in the middle of a room where all their friends and cousins are present with their respective partners but not them? Is it like, when everyone around you is not 'single', then you start having these pangs and give in to them, (typically between 25-35 I am assuming for Indian men-women) even if that includes the fearsome possibility that post-marriage you realize you just can't relate to the person sleeping beside you ,coz there was no connection to start with?
What will all the horoscopes matching and impressive resumes and good family background do then to resolve such a fundamental discrepancy?
If loneliness is the main issue here, then does marriage always provide a solution to it? Is the trade-off between staying happily alone and waiting for love to happen or getting hooked to a stranger for the sake of being with someone, so lopsided that the former has ceased to be an option? Are we willing to pay such a heavy price of spending the rest of our lives with a stranger just coz we can't bear the thought of remaining single?
Saturday, August 2, 2008
what are we?
Many a time when certain incidents of our personal lives,esp.those related to relationships, cannot be easily fathomed by common sense, we Indians, take recourse to explanations involving our social structure-traditions-customs-religion, that practically have us chained(in the name of being rooted?) and hence the in-built hypocrisies, to comfort ourselves; in the end lo and behold, the inexplicable portions of our lives get very conveniently dumped on destiny-does not matter if we have degrees from a foreign university or if are struggling to earn the minimum wage-it's all the same everywhere. And we tend to think, all this is a crucial element of our Indian-ness; a part of the age-old Indian culture coz the rules and norms have evolved(have they?) or let's say, have been there, for centuries and so we are of course very different from the rest of the world, esp. from the 'white' world who epitomize development and the 'black' world (do they even exist?) about whom we had last heard during the times of Lincoln, may be a bit from Nelson Mandela and maybe just a bit now from the Chinese!
But how different are we really?
The other day I met this undergrad American student from Long Island-a Jew by religion coming from a very religious family and she happened to be in love with this British guy who stays in London and is totally agnostic. And, she is quite uncertain about her future with him due to the religious differences between them but then she draws comfort from the fact they totally love each other and their families just want them to be happy together.
And then another day, in a certain Chinatown bus, I met this African woman from Guinea,traveling with her son; she had come to the US as a tourist. In course of our conversation, she told me how important it is in her country to get married to people from within the same community who speak the same native language( apart from French which is like their national language) and of course have the same religion and how women decide to stay just with their husbands and not with the in-laws and extended families to avoid hassles. She was in fact a bit appalled at the mention of the very concept of 'arranged' fix up where parents find your better half coz apparently even in a poor country such as Guinea, marriages are solely based on love!
And finally there is this Canadian friend of mine who had dated two Indian men at different times and had evidently been quite in love but unfortunately has now decided not to date any more Indian men coz "they never introduce me to their parents..there is this strange psychological hang-up despite the fact that their families live in Toronto!!"
All these left me wondering, where do we Indians stand exactly? And when we claim we are different and 'conservative' coz that's what our tradition demands and that's what our parents have taught us, do we even know what we are saying and what's happening in the rest of the world?
How often do we realize that even the liberal citizens of the so-called developed world also follow similar rules and customs and are not entirely so scattered as we perceive them to be but at the same time, they value individualism and freedom in every sense and believe in the virtues of love? even if ? That, just because the kids leave their parents' homes at 16yrs and have sex way earlier in lives, use birth control pills and don't have an age-old culture or history to always boast of, doesn't necessarily mean they are a wasted bunch? And in fact, just coz we come from a country with an ancient civilization and rich heritage-does that mean we all become virtuous by default when we abide by the so called traditions? Are we even aware that the young people from even the underdeveloped countries in Africa believe in marriage out of love and not just an artificial fix-up by families where you get to meet the person with whom you're supposed to be spending the rest of your life, just twice or thrice before getting knotted with him?
What are we upholding as our principles, beliefs, faith?
To be very calculative when one falls in love?( so that you end up with a person who speaks your language,follows your religious faith,eats your food etc etc; and who exactly are we trying to keep happy by this? ourselves or the larger 'Indian' society, coz the customs want us to do so?)
To maybe have a few affairs here and there(well, you know today's fast generation-you can't really bind them so) but surely stay a virgin till marriage?(and why exactly? coz religion/tradition wants us to think of sex as 'something' that's sinful before marriage but pure after? And how is it that the moment the same Indians cross the national border, the rules change for them?)
I could go on with my questions-but the point is, do we even know what this entire raucous about being an Indian entail in today's world? Does it essentially imply not caring about your own personal satisfaction and happiness but always thinking of what is right or wrong according to the society? How many of us are subconsciously trapped in this web of beliefs-customs-traditions-heritage which has been drilled into us since the day we started interacting with other Indians and hence have forgotten to even question them? We continue to follow the paths chartered by others for us coz that's 'the right thing to do' and never stop to think what we really want for ourselves and even if we do ask during some moments of internal conversation, we are too timid to admit it or by that time, have lost all power to act otherwise and hence follow our destiny--safe and comfortable!
But how different are we really?
The other day I met this undergrad American student from Long Island-a Jew by religion coming from a very religious family and she happened to be in love with this British guy who stays in London and is totally agnostic. And, she is quite uncertain about her future with him due to the religious differences between them but then she draws comfort from the fact they totally love each other and their families just want them to be happy together.
And then another day, in a certain Chinatown bus, I met this African woman from Guinea,traveling with her son; she had come to the US as a tourist. In course of our conversation, she told me how important it is in her country to get married to people from within the same community who speak the same native language( apart from French which is like their national language) and of course have the same religion and how women decide to stay just with their husbands and not with the in-laws and extended families to avoid hassles. She was in fact a bit appalled at the mention of the very concept of 'arranged' fix up where parents find your better half coz apparently even in a poor country such as Guinea, marriages are solely based on love!
And finally there is this Canadian friend of mine who had dated two Indian men at different times and had evidently been quite in love but unfortunately has now decided not to date any more Indian men coz "they never introduce me to their parents..there is this strange psychological hang-up despite the fact that their families live in Toronto!!"
All these left me wondering, where do we Indians stand exactly? And when we claim we are different and 'conservative' coz that's what our tradition demands and that's what our parents have taught us, do we even know what we are saying and what's happening in the rest of the world?
How often do we realize that even the liberal citizens of the so-called developed world also follow similar rules and customs and are not entirely so scattered as we perceive them to be but at the same time, they value individualism and freedom in every sense and believe in the virtues of love? even if ? That, just because the kids leave their parents' homes at 16yrs and have sex way earlier in lives, use birth control pills and don't have an age-old culture or history to always boast of, doesn't necessarily mean they are a wasted bunch? And in fact, just coz we come from a country with an ancient civilization and rich heritage-does that mean we all become virtuous by default when we abide by the so called traditions? Are we even aware that the young people from even the underdeveloped countries in Africa believe in marriage out of love and not just an artificial fix-up by families where you get to meet the person with whom you're supposed to be spending the rest of your life, just twice or thrice before getting knotted with him?
What are we upholding as our principles, beliefs, faith?
To be very calculative when one falls in love?( so that you end up with a person who speaks your language,follows your religious faith,eats your food etc etc; and who exactly are we trying to keep happy by this? ourselves or the larger 'Indian' society, coz the customs want us to do so?)
To maybe have a few affairs here and there(well, you know today's fast generation-you can't really bind them so) but surely stay a virgin till marriage?(and why exactly? coz religion/tradition wants us to think of sex as 'something' that's sinful before marriage but pure after? And how is it that the moment the same Indians cross the national border, the rules change for them?)
I could go on with my questions-but the point is, do we even know what this entire raucous about being an Indian entail in today's world? Does it essentially imply not caring about your own personal satisfaction and happiness but always thinking of what is right or wrong according to the society? How many of us are subconsciously trapped in this web of beliefs-customs-traditions-heritage which has been drilled into us since the day we started interacting with other Indians and hence have forgotten to even question them? We continue to follow the paths chartered by others for us coz that's 'the right thing to do' and never stop to think what we really want for ourselves and even if we do ask during some moments of internal conversation, we are too timid to admit it or by that time, have lost all power to act otherwise and hence follow our destiny--safe and comfortable!
validation....
Today's generation(gen y or gen z?) is supposedly much more independent and confident than those of the yesteryears-be it a function of globalization or fast paced evolution. Even then why do we-the youngsters of the new millennium, seek constant validation? An all-pervasive manifestation of this being the social-networking websites-myspace,facebook,orkut....
what are these websites for in the very first place? Well,theoretically they are used to keep in touch with friends-near and far ,connect to and network with people hence making the world an even smaller place. There was a time when friends and loved ones would exchange handwritten letters and anxiously wait for the postman to deliver it-the love and friendship and affection were so palpable through the pages of the letters and their smell. Then comes the internet-the blessing and curse for modern youth. Emails make life way easier and save time and effort and so letters become obsolete-but what about the emotions involved? Do they also get commercialized in the process for all the new generation of netizens? And now it's the time for writing 'posts on the wall' as a way of keeping in touch or 'scrapping'-saves even more time and one can write even less and yet be in touch!It's magic! But do these innovations really bring us all closer together? Well..maybe I can ponder more over this in a later blog..
But what about the pictures we post,the endless albums we create in those 'networking' websites, (thanks of course to digital photography), the status updates we write, the applications we use? What purpose do they serve?Why do these networking companies even have such features on the websites? Not to mention how every myspacer or facebooker or orkutter religiously uses all these features and ends up spending all that extra time that gets saved by not having to write and post letters!
Are we subconsciously seeking validation of our own existence by showing off to everyone else snippets from our daily lives? pictures of our travel pursuits/parties attended and hence the fun associated with it/new dating partners/getting wasted on booze and hence being very cool/new dog/arbitrary snapshots of the nature or strangers on the road revealing the photographic skills; status updates re:what we are doing at any given point of time; adding all possible 'cool' applications and inviting friends to add them--how much time each day we spend on these? Why do we have to let everyone else know what we are doing and where we are going and with whom we are having fun? Does that mean the whole point of existence becomes futile if you can't show it off to others?
Aren't we the more self-confident, liberated,ambitious bunch of young people who are supposed to know what they want and go after it with passion disregarding silly norms and rules? If so, if we are so sure of ourselves, why do we feel this continuous urge of publicly exposing our life (and of course only the good things that happen-has anyone ever written a status update that reads 'I am so depressed and lonely' or post snaps of mundane,boring daily activities?) and telling people everywhere-we are happy and having fun and being cool? Why do we create a pretty/nice/smart/handsome perception of our personalities on these websites when in reality we can be quite far from it? Does it mean the more isolated we become, the more 'individual space' we seek, the more 'independent' we want to be, we also seek more and more assurance and approval re: our success and happiness over and above others competing in the same race from their isolated, miniscule, closed worlds? Is this a fall out of modernization and ambition or is it an intrinsic part of human nature-that the more secluded we become in pursuit of our self-defined happiness and success, the more insecure we get re:who we are in the very first place?
what are these websites for in the very first place? Well,theoretically they are used to keep in touch with friends-near and far ,connect to and network with people hence making the world an even smaller place. There was a time when friends and loved ones would exchange handwritten letters and anxiously wait for the postman to deliver it-the love and friendship and affection were so palpable through the pages of the letters and their smell. Then comes the internet-the blessing and curse for modern youth. Emails make life way easier and save time and effort and so letters become obsolete-but what about the emotions involved? Do they also get commercialized in the process for all the new generation of netizens? And now it's the time for writing 'posts on the wall' as a way of keeping in touch or 'scrapping'-saves even more time and one can write even less and yet be in touch!It's magic! But do these innovations really bring us all closer together? Well..maybe I can ponder more over this in a later blog..
But what about the pictures we post,the endless albums we create in those 'networking' websites, (thanks of course to digital photography), the status updates we write, the applications we use? What purpose do they serve?Why do these networking companies even have such features on the websites? Not to mention how every myspacer or facebooker or orkutter religiously uses all these features and ends up spending all that extra time that gets saved by not having to write and post letters!
Are we subconsciously seeking validation of our own existence by showing off to everyone else snippets from our daily lives? pictures of our travel pursuits/parties attended and hence the fun associated with it/new dating partners/getting wasted on booze and hence being very cool/new dog/arbitrary snapshots of the nature or strangers on the road revealing the photographic skills; status updates re:what we are doing at any given point of time; adding all possible 'cool' applications and inviting friends to add them--how much time each day we spend on these? Why do we have to let everyone else know what we are doing and where we are going and with whom we are having fun? Does that mean the whole point of existence becomes futile if you can't show it off to others?
Aren't we the more self-confident, liberated,ambitious bunch of young people who are supposed to know what they want and go after it with passion disregarding silly norms and rules? If so, if we are so sure of ourselves, why do we feel this continuous urge of publicly exposing our life (and of course only the good things that happen-has anyone ever written a status update that reads 'I am so depressed and lonely' or post snaps of mundane,boring daily activities?) and telling people everywhere-we are happy and having fun and being cool? Why do we create a pretty/nice/smart/handsome perception of our personalities on these websites when in reality we can be quite far from it? Does it mean the more isolated we become, the more 'individual space' we seek, the more 'independent' we want to be, we also seek more and more assurance and approval re: our success and happiness over and above others competing in the same race from their isolated, miniscule, closed worlds? Is this a fall out of modernization and ambition or is it an intrinsic part of human nature-that the more secluded we become in pursuit of our self-defined happiness and success, the more insecure we get re:who we are in the very first place?
Friday, August 1, 2008
wear sunglasses!
Buz Luhrman wrote 'wear sunscreen'..I write 'wear sunglasses'!
Amazing accessories--they conceal, they reveal. Are they always worn as a shield against the sun? Well..that's there and maybe much more to it.
Why would someone spend $90 (not quoting prices paid by people who belong to the category of don't-know-what-to-do-with-money aka orange county and hamptons' citizens)on a pair of shades/coolers/sunglasses which can be bought for a mere $15?Why buy 'branded' ones when you can buy them from the street shop?Or even, why would men and women alike,own more than a pair of sunglasses when one pair is good enough for keeping them un-tanned?(I ask that to myself as well, being a proud owner of quite a few pairs!) Coz, like shoes,belts,bags,watches yada yada yada...sunglasses in the modern consumer's urban world are viewed as the must-have-beauty-accessories too! (And oh yeah-men have them too;maybe the ones labeled 'metrosexual' have more!!)And why not?
They come in different shapes, colors and sizes and can turn any ordinary-looking homo sapien into an attractive damsel or a smart dude! not to mention of course the 'cool' quotient associated with it. And considering that some part of the intellectual society is still engaged in the endless yet unfair debate about whether beauty matters or whether good looking people get better jobs and better halves,who doesn't want to take a shot at looking nice(and here sunglasses have a double virtue:by not getting tanned you look good an they make you look cool as it is..voila!)
And they hide too--they hide emotions, they hide expressions-simply by virtue of the feature that they hide the eyes. post-breakup,walking down a familiar road and passing the restaurant full of memories and hence eyes watering which is embarrassing in public?wear the shades!
Abusive husband, has the habit of drinking and beating up wife and need to hide the scars when going out?wear those coolers! Super awesome sex/watching Godfather-all 3 parts back to back/trying to finish long-pending work/listless in love--and hence no sleep at night but wake up with bad dark circles(of course here it's only the female species!) which need to be hidden coz it's a whole new days and need to look fresh-wear the sunglasses!
The stories behind each of those pairs are so divergent, so diversified...just as the stories behind the faces...
And often times they even can conceal who exactly you're looking at(drooling over?) in a busy intersection ;-)
So if you're a quintessential urban resident attempting to make a living in every sense, be it the harsh New York or the soft California, whether you look pretty or ugly (according to the 'onlooker'), whether you're 20 or 50, whether you're married or single and whether you care or not-Wear Sunglasses my friend!
Amazing accessories--they conceal, they reveal. Are they always worn as a shield against the sun? Well..that's there and maybe much more to it.
Why would someone spend $90 (not quoting prices paid by people who belong to the category of don't-know-what-to-do-with-money aka orange county and hamptons' citizens)on a pair of shades/coolers/sunglasses which can be bought for a mere $15?Why buy 'branded' ones when you can buy them from the street shop?Or even, why would men and women alike,own more than a pair of sunglasses when one pair is good enough for keeping them un-tanned?(I ask that to myself as well, being a proud owner of quite a few pairs!) Coz, like shoes,belts,bags,watches yada yada yada...sunglasses in the modern consumer's urban world are viewed as the must-have-beauty-accessories too! (And oh yeah-men have them too;maybe the ones labeled 'metrosexual' have more!!)And why not?
They come in different shapes, colors and sizes and can turn any ordinary-looking homo sapien into an attractive damsel or a smart dude! not to mention of course the 'cool' quotient associated with it. And considering that some part of the intellectual society is still engaged in the endless yet unfair debate about whether beauty matters or whether good looking people get better jobs and better halves,who doesn't want to take a shot at looking nice(and here sunglasses have a double virtue:by not getting tanned you look good an they make you look cool as it is..voila!)
And they hide too--they hide emotions, they hide expressions-simply by virtue of the feature that they hide the eyes. post-breakup,walking down a familiar road and passing the restaurant full of memories and hence eyes watering which is embarrassing in public?wear the shades!
Abusive husband, has the habit of drinking and beating up wife and need to hide the scars when going out?wear those coolers! Super awesome sex/watching Godfather-all 3 parts back to back/trying to finish long-pending work/listless in love--and hence no sleep at night but wake up with bad dark circles(of course here it's only the female species!) which need to be hidden coz it's a whole new days and need to look fresh-wear the sunglasses!
The stories behind each of those pairs are so divergent, so diversified...just as the stories behind the faces...
And often times they even can conceal who exactly you're looking at(drooling over?) in a busy intersection ;-)
So if you're a quintessential urban resident attempting to make a living in every sense, be it the harsh New York or the soft California, whether you look pretty or ugly (according to the 'onlooker'), whether you're 20 or 50, whether you're married or single and whether you care or not-Wear Sunglasses my friend!
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