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| Saturday, March 4, 2000 |
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WHEN hungry in Delhi, you buy a Mac; hungry in Chandigarh, you go to some "… Millions;" need to buy sunglasses, get a pair of Raybans; trousers, get a pair of blue denims; shirt, it’s white cotton for summers and a red check for colder days. What else, well, you can think of undergarments, soap, toilet cleaning agents, cornflakes, watches, shoes, et al — if you are in, you now exactly what you’ve got to wear, what style, colour or brand.
Who did this to us? Were we all the while trying to be different only to end up being as uniform as the bogeys of a goods train. Somebody’s cheating us out of our distinctiveness, colour, uniqueness. MNCs? No, surely it can’t be them, they are the ones who produce what we need to use, what we can’t live without. They stand for freedom, movement, quality, world standards, reliability. Go anywhere in the world and you can be assured of constant flavour and quality. |
| Then who is it? Who took the colour out of
our lives? There was a time when you could tell the
attitude of a man by just looking at him. He had a
variety of shirt styles that he could get made; he was
the one who decided what he looked like. He had an
identity, but now he has to wear either solid plains or
checks. The same goes for food. Peras were from
Mathura, petha from Agra and bhujia from
Bikaner. Today, for one, you don’t even mention such
food stuff. Still, if you insist, you do have namkeens,
they come in bright, neat packs that are the same from
Kashmir to Andaman Nicobar. We’ve been robbed of
colour by somebody without our realising it. Is the local tailor to blame, one who lost out to great shirt-makers of England or the street-corner baker who stopped baking his special cookies just because some big bake man started giving standard stuff in great-looking, flavour-preserving packing? Or your skilled carpenter, whom your grandfather called an artist, who closed shop on account of some sturdy steel furniture coming on the market? Yes, it is these very craftsmen, artisans and traders who are responsible for variety disappearing from the market. The lahorias, pashorias, and ambalewalas are getting extinct. The moment big shots came around, taking away their markets, these small-time businessmen acted just plain small. They decided to start selling world-class goods, while the skilled workers jumped tracks and started working on hygienic potato-peeling machines. And what did they do this for? Petty money. They were just thinking of filling their kids’ bellies. Even otherwise, they should not have lost out to companies with crores for product promotion. So what if their shops are on rent and they have loans to pay back, its still a free, open market, where they have just as much opportunity as the MNCs. Anyhow, let the best man win. So what if we look just as distinct as a goose in a gaggle, at least we have MNC quality assurance that we can wear the same feathers for a good long time. |
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Hey, what have we here, a prescription for
living! And we thought we lived in a free world, in fact,
as torchbearers of liberty and freedom of thought.
Whatever happened to our independence, the rebel in us,
life, colour, variety, don’t-give-a-damn attitude? All
of us are wearing torn jeans. Who’s the rebel
here? The gentleman!