Political incorrectness gone mad!

One good thing that came out of the Tharoor – Modi controversy which ultimately led to the resignation of Tharoor from office is the realization of the importance of the ubiquitous but underestimated public relations manager.

Political / social opinion cannot and should not be expressed in 140 characters. Political correctedness serves a very important purpose i.e. to minimizing social and institutional offense.

But this is exactly what is happening in the country today. Social media like twitter are unintentionally destroying diplomacy and leading to thoughtless accusations, comments and pop philosophies and our politicians, celebs and social figures aren’t the only ones falling prey to this new system of ‘thinking in 140 characters’. It seems to be the end of thoughtful dialogue and perspective, because how much perspective can you really put into 140 characters.

It also seems like a most irresponsible use of a media which is currently not censored and which gives a false sense of security to the expresser since he is only physically aware of his own personal motives and feelings and the Blackberry or I-phone in his hand.

What is now considered ‘new school’ propaganda i.e. Twitter, is actually becoming a lesson in what not to do for politicians, most of whom wouldn’t have a public persona worth a penny if not for their public relations managers.

Only bad things can happen when politicians and other public figures loose their mouths and get into a very public fall in grace by engaging in self indulging ego clashes. When thought itself is limited to 140 characters what more can we expect. The only thing left to do is censor twitter, god save us if that happens.

Honestly now!

Before I begin, let me say one thing. I love advertising. Being a marketer myself I am pretty much a sucker for advertising, its almost like a misplaced comradeship; “If I don’t fall for this ad, who will fall for mine!’ So for me it's like a moral obligation to try out any new product which has a great advertisement (as long as it doesn't make a huge dent in my pocket).

Something similar happened when I saw Minute Maid’s ad for its newly launched lemonade. Well shot visuals captured the days of youth when your mom made freshly squeezed nimboo pani after you returned from your neighborhood sojourns. Ahh…I was transported back to an imaginary childhood where I was a boy, playing cricket in the neighbour hood field relishing the nimboo pani my mom so lovingly made for me. (Of course the fact is that I am a girl and have never been too great at sports! But so was the impact of this ad). That was that, next day I was at Dadar station sweating in the ticket line when suddenly my eyes fell on MM’s Lemonade and I made a spring for it (not before reserving my place in the line of course!).

Well, I am sure you can all imagine what happened next. I discovered to my great anguish that this is not the nimboo pani my mom used to make after I came back from my imaginary games in the imaginary neighborhood, but lemon concentrate mixed with ‘natural’ flavours and some other stuff like calcium and vitamin c, sugar, etc.

Suddenly the picture of the sunny field and the fresh nimboo pani and ‘maa ka pyaar’ all disappear from in front of my eyes only to be replaced by a factory worker adding capfuls of lemon concentrate & a few pills of vit C and calcium followed by loads of sugar to water. (ok I am sure that’s not how they do it…but u get the point) I was disappointed to say the least and not because I didn’t like the drink. They probably had a customer in me if they had not tried to mislead! But the fact is I hate them for having got me!

Btw…the next product I plan to try is ‘smart chips’!

What if I am…

too rational to be brilliant,
too sensible to have sense,
too clear to be muddled,
too efficient to be improved,
too correct to be right,
too exact to be perfect,
too adult to be childlike,
too smart to unlearn
too careful to be free…

How would it feel to completely lose control? To take the actual physical leap, to be answerable to no one specially not yourself…Would you go wild, would you dance in the streets, would you paint crazy psychedelic paintings, would you make up new worlds, would you tell people exactly what you feel about them, would you really truly feel anything, would you make love to everybody, would you go slap that bitch, would you make a movie, would you disappear, would you eat your guts out, would you shout from the top of a building…

What would you do if you completely lose control?

You are free.

We are lucky to have Freedom of thought. To live in a world of diverse opinions and debate. To be able to express oneself and one’s thoughts. To be given the opportunity to see them turn into actions. To be free to THINK!

It can only be true that the fact that we are free is so incomprehensible to some people that they cant understand the full meaning of how blessed we are. Why is it then that we want others to be like us? Why are we looking for ‘like minded people’? Why do we want to conform?

Its all in the mind – you can choose to be bound by circumstances or you can choose to create your own  realities. You just need to believe that this life was meant to be just like it is. It will then become perfect and all internal conflicts will disappear. Easier said that done right?

When you are 7, you know you will be an astronaut!

When I was a child: Dreams had no boundaries and anything was possible. I used to read books and imagine myself as an astronaut, or a famous writer, sometimes even Nancy Drew! I have given imaginary Oscars acceptance speeches, been on the Oprah Winfrey show, discovered new scientific truths, re-written history, won the Nobel Prize, etc. etc.!

Back to the Future: Today, I am in a constant struggle with my mediocrity! I realize that maybe I am NOT cut out to re-write the world’s history, maybe I’m already too late to be on Oprah, (and honestly I have grown out of the whole Nancy Drew thing :-)) but don’t get me wrong, I have not given up hope.

When I look around I see many e.g.s of excellence all around me in my friends and colleagues. From pro photographers, to budding entrepreneurs, to journalists, to artists, to people doing things for the larger good; the passion to go that extra mile is visible in their work and that’s what makes it truly remarkable in my eyes.

Therefore, I plan to keep struggling to be excellent in small and achievable ways, struggle to keep the passion alive, struggle to keep the belief intact and definitely struggle to persevere…

Start small, but keep walking; is my pop philosophy now-a-days. Let’s see where it takes me…

Stumbling upon an Independence struggle

Had some time to kill between half day of work and a Saturday night party at a friends place. Didn’t want to go home so I headed over to Nehru planetarium (one of the places in Mumbai where you can literally get star struck and not by the Bollywood kind!) They were showing, ‘Hide and seek in the sky’, but unfortunately the show was sold out, it being a Saturday, when some school or the other decides to herd their kids off to such ‘picnic cum educational’ tours. This left me with an option to head to a nearby mall to window shop or generally roam about. So I choose the later. I wandered off towards the exhibition area of Nehru centre. Dissapointment again, found out that the exhibition was about educational institutions. Having no inclination to venture there I had a plate of samosa at the ‘very ok’ canteen in Nehru centre and thought of what to do next. My eyes drifted to the upstairs’ balcony where I saw rows of shelf like cupboards with exhibits of all shapes and sizes. So I headed up. On reaching the landing I found myself face to face with the exhibit on the Indian Independence struggle and something drew me in.

I am not going to bore you with the details of what I saw in there, but it was like revisiting our history text books, with pictures and recreations of major events, famous leaders, fake jail cells recreated to resemble the size and facilities of the jail cells the freedom fighters spent a majority of their time in, etc. But what struck me was this quote by Gopal Krishna Gokhale put up in one of the exhibits, it goes something like this, “We, the present generation of India, can only hope to serve our country by our failures. The men and women who will be privileged to serve her by their successes will come later.” It was amazing to imagine the vision of these people. They could foresee a future worth working towards and dedicated their lives to it. It’s up to us the men and women of the ‘today’ to live up to their dreams.

Ni.