maybe the web is gender-neutral

sometimes, i wonder if my life would have been different if i had a more conventional feminine-sounding name. like rekha or rachel, ananya or anna. i wonder if other women also get as many solicitations for 'being the man your girl-friend fantasizes about' or trying out 'VIAGGRHA without the embarrassment of going to a doctor'.

the thing is...

laugh if you must, but i have just begun to plumb the depths of the internet (as the recent spate of youtube links would testify). many a time, i am just thrown back with the vastness and the range of things 'out there'.

whether you want to look up facts or to learn a language or be amused, or just surf voyeuristically - the amount of information is enough to keep one stuck to the chair for at least 4 lifetimes, not including the hours required for sleeping, eating and shitting.

is there something called internet addiction? even if there isn't one, i think i can offer myself for medical study into the field.

p.s. the internet also salves the ego battered by the daily act of living.

sad-ads

for me, the most pleasurable part of watching TV is the ads. my vacation is evenly split between my bed and in front of the TV watching ads. so i could probably tell you through an academic study of ads, when the indian IT went mainstream, how indian sexuality has evolved over the years etc etc. i adore indian ad-sense. the release of a new ad is always a time of great excitement for me, almost like the childhood games of hide-and-seek played from under beds and behind cupboard doors. my sister watches out for me, and my co-mediawatcher buddy calls me at odd times to inform me when a particular ad is on some channel.(my other TV obsessions are Simpoo Singh and Lola Kutty. but more about them another day).

of course i know admakers are the footsoldiers or rather the mataharis of hypercapitalism. they seduce us into salivating for objects we don't need and into spending money we don't have. creating illusions of hunger and want is what they are supposed to do and if they must manipulate our finer sensibilities, so be it. i am smart enough not to have any money to spend, and if some fool wants to consume, i am okay with that. as long as the ads make me chuckle/laugh/shed a quickie tear in 30 seconds, i say bring it on.

but i draw a line at their unimaginative attempts to coopt our sacred symbols for consumption. and i don't mean pop-icons like stars of bollywood and cricket.

as an example, some time back, Rediffusion-DY&R created an 'express yourself' campaign in a series of many. it uses the same distinctive A.R. score that has very much become a part of the urban aural landscape. the visuals however are unoriginal and offensive. as words like 'one dream can change the world'/'two (fingers) can win a world war' roll underneath, images of Mr. King's 'i have a dream' speech and Churchill's victory image appear on the screen. now wait a minute - Martin Luther King and Churchill pitching in for Airtel? i am not sure if they were the kind to have made money out of product endorsements, let alone lending their names to a telecom company.

one could say this ad went beyond narrow corporate image-building to the higher purpose of rousing people to speak up (for what is not clear). if the theft of images of 20th century history was to inspire people to greater participation in the public domain, that ad failed. the ad did not get the india with cellphones to call up the prime minister's office to ask why farmers were killing themselves in vidarbha and andhra pradesh and karnataka. no, urban india still continued fixing up appointments for a cup of coffee in the evening and not much else.

i think i am writing this because i am part of that impotent india with cellphones. all i can do is protest against being manipulated by a telecom company into believing that if i made my impotent calls on its network, then i would have done my bit. (dayymn. and i was thinking of posting something funny.)

here is
the ad.



as you must have figured by now, i have just discovered youtube and the 'blog video' function on the bottom. i can't even imagine what the world is going to be like in the next five years.

subtexting ads

Haka Dance



the ad above is for a sportwear company - adidas i think. it plays on the imagery of the martiality of war and sports, and uses the haka as the theme. the tattoed faces of ancient warriors are juxtaposed with the somber ones of modern-day rugby players of All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team. in new zealand, rugby teams have been performing hakas since 1884. as war cries go, hakas have lent themselves well to sports wars.

All Blacks are sponsored by adidas. but as a national sports team, they belong to the country first of all. the Haka is a maori taonga - a cultural treasure and the All Blacks perform it with respect and pride. can a sponsor of a sports team lay claims to a national treasure and turn it into an ad pitch?

anyway, here's the text of the haka and its translation.

Ringa pakia
Uma tiraha
Turi whatia
Hope whai ake
Waewae takahia kia kino

Slap the hands against the thighs
Puff out the chest
Bend the knees
Let the hip follow
Stamp the feet as hard as you can.

Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
Tenei te ta ngata puhuru huru
Nana nei i tiki mai
Whakawhiti te ra
A upane ka upane!
A upane kaupane whiti te ra!
Hi!!

It is death! It is death!
It is life! It is life!
This is the hairy person
Who caused the sun to shine
Keep abreast! Keep abreast
The rank! Hold fast!
Into the sun that shines!

DID i do it?

i am becoming a borderline case of dissociative identity disorder.

waiter,
coffee for mommy
cannabis for me.

clut-clut-clutter

i am messy. my physical space is never fully uncluttered. there is always one loose paper on my desk that i don't know where to file. and thus too my mental space operates. the one unsorted feeling, that last messy thought has to be tossed away in the secret drawer of my mind. once in a while, it all spills back into my life. my life hinges on sloppiness. on sloppiness it will unhinge.