Forget the management gurus and the spiritual speakers , it is the Cola Kings who give you the mantras to live by. First one they gave you to chant everyday as you woke up was This Heart Wants More ( yeh dil maange more) - considerately translated into almost all the Indian languages for they did not forget that the 1. billion would-be guzzlers were living in a country called a study of unity in diversity . Remember the first chapter of your civic lessons on India in school ? They had it pat and they are a dedicated lot who wanted to ensure that the secret to happy life did not stay with the English speaking la-di-da but reached the masses. So you were told to want More of everything , thus the 250 ml bottle of cola became the 2 and 2 1/2 litre mammoth bottle . When the Enlightened speak and give you the Key to Eternal Happiness it is incumbent upon you to ensure that you adopt it seriously. So everyone was convinced that the 24'tv had to be replaced with the 28' and the 28' with the 35' and the yeah yeah , you got the picture . Everyday, in every possible way, you had to keep replacing what you had with more and more not because you wanted it , but your Heart wanted it and how heartless would you be to refuse the heart . More clothes, more shoes , more gaming gadgets . Some dedicated believers even took it to the level of more relationships in and out of marriage - after all wasn't the plural of spouse : "spice".
After a while the voices from Olympus ,Sinai, Kailash or whichever Mountain they sit on, decided they had outlived that one - how could you go bigger than the big bottle - somehow glugging cola from a jerrycan wouldn't look chic and trendy. Swoosh - they produced the next mantra . With thunder and lightning the new mantra was sent along : Right NOW . ( abhi ke abhi ) you needed to get everything Immediately ! If you woke up to see a new phone advertised on the first page of the newspaper ( of course I mean a mobile phone , who buys the other kind , really !!)with all kinds of features which you wouldn't have the time to use because you were busy working your butt off to make more money to buy the next one ( you guessed it ) Immediately! It had to be instant gratification of all senses .Hungry? Don't cook - order your food now ! And before you think they don't apply this mantra to themselves ra-ra-ree you pizza will be free if it doesn't arrive in thirty nail biting minutes.
Advertisements reflect a society best . Instead of trying to read up reams on sociological analysis or wade through critical papers just flip through magazines or turn on the television. No more advertisements of - you've come a long way baby as the Virginia Slims ads of them days .Heck how do you hock cigarettes that uses a name like Virginia - more chances with the politically correct puffing crowd if sold as Vagina Slims .
Then there are all those nylon-wig-swirling airbrushed women swearing they get their beauty , youth , fairness ( very , very important for the Indian women and men as well) from five rupee mini sachets of magic . What kind of a cave woman are you if you don't want to look ten years younger, not for yourself silly (how dare you) but for your Man . Remember you wicked creature if you don't buy all this stuff and give them all the loose change that they need to build swanky houses , send their children to Ivy league colleges and holiday abroad you are doomed . No college admission, no beauty crown,no jobs, no marriage ; and the worst your family will be so ashamed , that you are not fair damsel . Who cares whether you have brains , brains should stay in the skull cavity to be displayed only as degrees . The CEOs have a penchant for other people's money and sometimes they are bold enough to slip it into their ad jingles : you are a part of our family tra la la ; kind of you-owe-us-a-living -so-be-stupid dictum is foisted on you.Super smiling Moms doing yoga while assuring their families that their health is taken care off really get my goat .
Talking about Super women , I am convinced that our mothers were far better at time -management and at juggling roles than us. They did all this way before it was called multi tasking . Husbands who were chauvinists but didn't feel guilty about it as the term did not officially have the tag-line Pig , parents in law with a smattering of brothers and sisters in law thrown in and who were convinced that they were not wrong to make certain demands as it came with the territory ( or the dowry), and the children that were faithfully produced consecutively depending entirely on the libido of the male counterpart or till the mandatory male child appeared . With all these creatures of the Noah's ark, for each had a different trait : the tiger, the sloth, the snake et al she ran a tight ship . There were servants to do the chores but anyone can tell you getting them to do work may be easy but getting them to do it the way you want , that is the real challenge.
The one person who I await eagerly each morning and after the specified time has passed look , often at the clock with anticipation and bend an ear for the ding-dong of the front door bell is my Maid. When anyone complains about her tardiness or her cutting corners while she nonchalantly re-distributes the dust , I defend her with all the sincerity that I can muster as she is the bulwark of my life. I hate doing dishes and that she does them is enough for me to nominate her for sainthood all her tantrums notwithstanding . She has killed off more relatives than I can think of and married the same nephews and nieces a hundred times over losing count as she makes excuses for not turning up for work . When she does turn up after few days I am on my knees thanking the Gods of Daily Chores.
There are chores I manage to get by, by listening to music and I have the whole thing so music-coded that I live and fall by it . So it's romantic songs while cooking , good country music while dusting so I can swish the duster back and forth with the agility to the beat of the drums and the strumming of the guitar. While I iron Air Supply, Springsteen and Elvis send me to the upper clouds and make my work lighter .
In school my music teacher taught us a ditty that ran like this :
It was on a Monday morning
When I beheld my Darling
She looked so neat and charming
To every high degree
She looked so neat and nimble O
Washing off the linen O
Dashing away with a smoothing iron
She stole my heart away!
I never can look dashing away while ironing and thank the good Lord that my husband never waited for that moment for his heart to be stolen away but stuck to more prosaic things like good food .
More MindBlast next Monday !
1 comment:
EPIC :)
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