Abuse, That has faces!

Mumbai, a Maximum City, a city which embrace everyone in it’s chaotic culture. It has quite a lot of thing which always amuses me, one of which is- Political Party Hoardings. An innovative idea devised by all politician to praise them self, their leaders, wish them birthdays, celebrate ganesh puja, any occasions... you will see a dirty looking rectangular/square shaped huge banners and hoarding filled with numerous most ugly people you had ever seen in your life. I am saying it is Mumbai’s idea to put a political hoarding coz Mumbai is the first city I had seen putting it across. I have grown in Jamshedpur and never saw anything like this; I did my engineering from Aurangabad; it had some occasional banner only at the time of some election or rally, and then I lived 1 year in Pune where again this was not that regular a culture. I also occasionally happened to travel places like Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore but again never saw 100s of banners/hoarding on roads showing every tom, dick and harry belong to political parties of that respective locality and yes, never miss the father figure poster of their high command/Boss who are flowering blessing to all these ugly smiling faces in their banner.

It might have started in Mumbai, because Mumbai is Bollywood hub and banners & hoarding been a quite integral part of this city. As a Marketing person my idea of outdoor hoarding is Promoting something which enhances it’s brand image to Audience which lives in that particular locality and it always suppose to look glamorous and attractive. And then we see all these political hoardings, literally from every parties ranging from largest to smallest. The typical format of hoarding is—From top they show their top most leader, the middle order shows regional/divisional leader and bottom are colleagues and key or say strategic supporters and not to miss the bottom right (sometimes it is also on top right corner), a Person with full fledged colgate smile on their face... the sponsor of that hoarding. The Body Copy and Content are usually – Welcome & Birthday Wishes of their leaders even if that leader is not based out of that area. Its their way to show affection and loyality to their leader. Their arrogance can be seen in hoarding when they put for Ganesha Chaturthi, wehere lord itself shown with small picture and all these morons with over sized dick headed images; and ugly ones, really ugly to core. Some with bad beards, with dirty smiles and some try to show glow in face and eyes by doing some photoshop which looks like someone made a desperate effort to look good as they do in some cheap matrimonial service.

Now let me take you through that how as a citizen what I feel, and I am sure the feelings will be same across a lot of people for sure. My feel is to abuse; the moment I look at them I just say or sometimes when I am around with some people, I Just think of abusing them and I think aloud. Earlier I used to be bother seeing all this ugly faces but now I look forward for it. In our typical day-today commuting the moment you take out the car, you are never so sure how long its going to be to reach anywhere you intended to reach. The surrounding scares you, everywhere there is dust constructions, blockages, jams, repair and that too for ages. Its been 10 years for me in Mumbai and stil I see that 4 km. Stretch of JVLR is some of the other construction going on. Sometimes it takes 90 minutes to travel just 10 k.m. From 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. you cant drive because of peak traffics of vehincle and from 11 p.m. – 7 a.m. you can’t drive because of heavy vehicle on your main highways. 


So, what I do- Visualise this- I am stuck in traffic, I see everywhere people stressed and tenses, I see this city getting uglier day by day and then I see at the same time a poster/banner/hoarding of some party and all those morons in that poster smiling (which looks like laughing out loud) as us. Telling us, it’s us who did this to your life. Even after paying tax, not doing anything illegal if this is what I deserve it creates huge anger inside me and I just want to vent off. So what I do- I abuse, abuse as dirty as I can. If I am in alone in car, I look at all the ugly faces in the poster- I abuse loud and I feel much better. It doesn’t make any sense but so does plenty of things happening around also doesn’t make any sense. I am not superstition but would like to believe, if abuse like this affects them I will be more than happy to achieve that sadistic pleasure to curse & abuse them more. Practice it, it really helps you to remove stress and anger.

Lastly, I thanks for putting their Ugly Faced Hoardings, coz it gives my Abuse a Face an identity a target to try my dart.

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We're Like That Only !!!!!! -- a thought after 1 yr. of terror attack in bombay.

As I write this, it is the 26/11 “day”. There has been a gradual media build-up over the last week, culminating in Thursday’s intense newspaper focus. I presume this is true of the television networks as well, but I no longer bother watching. The print media is full of interviews, post-mortems, analyses, etc, among which, are a few articles comparing the “then and now” scenarios. How then a lot of us were angry, motivated and ready for action. And how now, all of that seems to have dissipated.
I have taken this little time off in the middle of my weekend to think and introspect. The door doesn’t need to be shut with “do not disturb” orders as I am home alone, and it is mid-night so none can bother on my cellphone too.

I was in Bombay only that day; having dinner & watching movie from my collection and I got a call from my friend Anish as he was enquiring whether I am fine or not as it is very likely for me to hang around in place like Leopold café and café mondiger of South Bombay. Just after knowing from him about the incident I suddenly switched on news channel and saw the smoking Taj on all the news media. I called few people whom I wanted to know whether they are rest assured. Though the company had decided to let its employees take the day off, we proudly kept all our set-ups open; there was seething anger and this was our way of answering the terrorists back and not letting terrorism win and cow us down. 

I didn’t join any group or cause. Though, I didn’t know anyone directly who had died, we all knew someone who had lost a friend or family; during those days, most of us would have willingly given an arm and a leg to help and change things. Most people I knew were angry, especially at the politicians but more at the “system’ itself. 

A month later, a foreigner colleague wanted to see the “sites” and we took him to see Leopold and the Taj. These areas were teeming with tourists. 

Then came the elections, where even though some candidates tried to capitalize on this incident, nothing much really happened. Voting rates were pathetic. I didn’t vote as well. 

And life went on. 

A gruelling 12 hour daily schedule, the commute, the social responsibilities, the friends, meetings, conferences, domestic and international travels...all of these eventually pushed all the November angst aside. The media in the meantime moved on to other issues as well; swine flu, elections, Rakhi Sawant, Koda and Shilpa Shetty’s wedding. 
The only reminders were the irritants; the inability to use Arthur Road because of Qasab’s trial and the added security at the hotels. 

Recent all the newspaper coverage has brought back a little of that November angst, but it is highly muted. The blatant use of this occasion for self-promotion hasn’t helped the cause much. And the mudslinging among the police officers as well as between them and the politicians, which seems to have reached a crescendo today, has just made things worse. And I know that I am not the sole person in the city thinking along these lines… in fact, most people I know seem to be in the same boat as me. 
I have a lot of questions in my mind when I think about it. What to do? Politicians are back with same politics of language, castes and no one is still bother about real issues. Police force is un-divided as their own senior people have confusions on roles and responsibilities of cops. The infrastructure and resource of defense is pretty much same except few things as frisking & drama of checking cars bottom at malls and hotels. 

Does that make us insensitive boors? Are we self-centered, insular creatures? Is this a typical Mumbai problem, or is this what happens universally, after events as shocking as these? During those rare moments where I am able to be with myself, without being disturbed by people, phones and email, I wonder...are our daily lives so filled with tasks that we forget to feel and act on those feelings? What is right? What should we be doing? Was a world without a “to do list” and where the word “multitasking” didn’t exist, a better one for empathy and caring? 

I don’t know. Do you?

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