'Graph'ing 'photo's -3

New addition to the collection of my photographs



Dhol player during the Ganeshotav 2010

Flags in the air

Rhythm

Halo around the moon during the 'Kojari Poornima'

'Insect' ing

'kid'ding around

Its an 'ads'olute world

Any commodity in the market needs to make its presence felt for visitors and users alike to make the use of it and for that commodity to sell better. The realization of this concept lead to the origination of the idea of advertisements. To advertise means to promote. Here is a take on the way products are advertised, kind of products which are advertised and the type of advertisements which throng people’s minds.

Advertisement as a field is sheer brilliant as each advertisement needs a ‘unique’ concept and should act as a catalyst to boost sale of that particular product. Such is the brilliance of the field that it has penetrated in almost all spheres of commodity promotion. If one looks at the way product is promoted- one can see the advances being made. Right from the old ads of Nirma, the Rasna girl, utensils flying for the prestige cooker ad, liril ads, the famous garden varelli ads, cinthol , only vimal and many more. One can track with way these television ads have ‘come of age’ with passing times. ‘One black coffee  please’ made a huge stir in the way ads were being perceived and that gave rise to intelligent ads and ads driven by a pinch of humour. Cabury’s come up with ads that touch the human emotions, while fevicol tinkles the funnier side of life, they tried to create a name for itself in the advertising scenario. The recent Vodafone ads with the new character 'Zoozoo' made sure the viewers are glued to the television sets during those matches. Occasions like Diwali, certain important events like world cup, IPL, political rallies make sure the viewers are bombarded with enough content during the breaks and throughout the session. Almost 70% of the content on popular television channels are commanded by several ads. This calls for the importance advertisement is being given in the minds of the people and also by the companies.

The intrusion of various types of media has led to the variations in types of ads too. One product is marketed differently on television, on radio, on print, in newspapers, on hoardings and also on the minds of people. One can see a totally new vocabulary for marketing of one particular product according to the media variant. The newer concept of advertising is to stimulate and make the most of the senses of human beings to attract to the product. That’s were one can find a totally voiceless ad on television for a product, a visual treat on a hoarding, perceptible voice ads on radio. A recent ad by Volkswagen Vento in the newspaper with a small device, proclaiming about the product , which was fitted to one of the page of the newspaper was a superb attempt to grab attention of the populace. Such concepts not only boost the sales of the product but also creates an identity for the product and the company at large.

For some reason several companies always stick to non-sensical ads to grab people’s attention. Some innerwear brand comes up with ads inclining towards vulgarity while some other brands knowingly create utter rubbish ads, so that they are in public talks for their stupid ideas perhaps. This tact is used as a publicity stunt in a negative manner. Mobile services too are not far behind in the rat race of advertisements. These services are seen as personal or one on one way to reach the potential customers. The promotional ads on mobile services and the non subscribed messages for various ads are sheer nuisance to the mobile users.

The ads featured in the newspaper are being unnecessarily barraged on to the readers. Huge ads covering the entire page, pages, or even supplements together are becoming a routine for the everyday reader. As in case of television ad contents, the print ads too command more than 50% of the informative space. Every page of any newspaper is filled with some or the other ad making it a commercial newspaper rather than an informative one. These newspapers are also accompanied with pamphlets marketing some other business.

The attitude of advertising on every possible surface available is the trend of the hour. Webpages with pop ups, news channels with commercial breaks, gift items with ads etc are all gimmicks to seize the attention of the eyeballs.

Our cities are not left from these advertising trends. Hoardings, large and small adorn the city and these have now become an integral part of the cityscape. Real estate ventures, large and ugly faces of stupid politicians are some of the popular types of the hoardings imposing their presence. Hefty prices for the hoardings on judicious locations are marked in the city. Some buildings even sacrifice their building façade to gain the commercials from the hoardings. The need to gain more money by placing these hoarding right in front of the windows supercedes the need for good amount of light and ventilation. Retaining walls in the city, bridges, railings, street poles etc are the most vulnerable locations to bear the brunt of forced advertising.

Nonetheless, we are now living in a world where advertisement rules the roost and the rat race to grab ‘the look’.It is becoming a mad mad world full of advertisements – its an ‘ads'olute world

Patterns of Devotion

Most human beings are god fearing. They believe in the holy spirit and each religion has its own way of offering their prayers. Each religion, according to its beliefs, have set certain rules and modes of offering prayers. Like Christians have their own way of offering prayers, muslims do it by presenting a shawl to the holy tomb. Hindus, who believe in idol worship also have their own way of offering prayers – a symbol of showing that you are devoted.

               But as Hinduism boasts of crores of deities, the form of prayers too differ and are subjected to change depending on the local beliefs. It might be surprising to know that certain deities are offered ‘prasad’ (an offering of food) made of pure vegetables and pure ghee, some other deities who come under ‘hinduism’ need

sacrificies in the form of a lamb / chicken etc. All of this is guided by beliefs and so called traditions. 

               Even though one religion has crores of deities, only a select few get the honor of being  ‘celebrity deity’. In India, holy places like ‘Tirupati’, ‘ Sai baba Shirdi’, ‘ ‘Vaishnodevi’, ‘ Lal Baug cha Raja , ‘ Dagdu Seth Ganapati , ‘Mahalaxmi from Kolhapur’ etc are the deities to name a few which can be mapped as the most popular deities amongst followers. There is an interesting pattern of devotion that exists in these popular holy places.  Lord Tirupati is the most sought after deity in terms of number of people visiting. People wait there for queue which can span to one or two days even, to get a glimpse of the god. A new trend is to ‘book’ the time of your prayer in advance and visit the temple. Several centres which offers such services are making a good business of it.

This trend of sorts is now spreading to other deities which are frequented by such a large number of populace. Whilst visiting these believers shower the god ( and the associated trusts) with huge amount of money and other valuable accessories. A gold crown for the ganapati, a golden traditional cap for Shri Sai Baba, interior of the temple made of silver and what not. These are the kind of offerings the ‘strong believers’ in the deity offer. There is a certain rat race to gift glamorous items to the lord just as a publicity gimmick. These attention seeking followers don’t do it with ‘heart’, but they do it with full ‘money and political power’. One who grants these heavy duty items to the idol and its trusts is a loyal believer –whereas one who goes with a pure feeling of devotion sans any costly accessory is a mundane visitor. One can clearly see commercialization of religion and religious values which are being exploited by the political will power.

               The other factor deciding the popularity of the deity is the amount of time a mundane visitor takes to get ‘darshan’ of the lord. Two days to see the lord means the deity is popular amongst the masses. To avoid such time consuming practices, a newer fashion is to set up a replica of a certain popular temple in other parts of the country and world – to decentralize the crowd??? Its like creating a chain of temples. Isn’t this another business of sorts?

               Another pattern of unusual devotion is the crazy loyalty of the people of South India towards the South Indian heroes. Names like Rajnikant, Chiranjeevi, MGR are equivalent to almighty and temples to worship them are built. It is indeed a ritual for the true south Indian movie fan to worship these ‘lords’ along with other regular gods. A procession carrying the movie reel of a Rajnikanth movie, to creating a larger than life statues of these stars is no new practice for the people down south. This epidemic spreads across all the places in the world where a true south Indian fan lives.

Few are the places where one can satisfy oneself with the whole hearted emotion of devotional offerings. With the kind of religious practices going around, one can certainly find himself lost into these ‘patterns of devotion’.

My smartphone's true connection

                    Smartphone is the new device which many of us aspire to possess some or the other day. Rather than being a pride, it is slowly becoming a status symbol too. I am still not amongst the league of smartphone populace, but I do desire to have one of my own, someday!

                    Smartphone as the name suggests is supposed to be chic. It should carry the features a ‘regular’ mobile device has, plus it should incorporate the features which can really astonish, surprise and create a sense of excitement for the user every time they use it. Even though I am not amongst the rather ‘elite’ club of smartphone users, but I often wonder what features can actually make me excite. One feature that can set my smartphone apart from mundane mobile devices according to me is the feature to read peoples mind and send across the emotions (in a true way).

                    The way I see mobile device, is a gadget meant to connect people to each other. Imagine if this gadget incorporated feelings of the user. What if these feelings are transmitted to each other in real time. The normal mobile device does the same feature in a rather boring manner in the form of text messages or photographs or voice calls. This doesn’t make the messages ‘really personal’ as one would like to be connected. An actual smile of the sender along with a ‘Hi’ cannot have ‘the real essence’ a message is meant to carry, rather than a mere smiley. Even voice over the phone can seem less personal than actually meeting or knowing what the person is feeling.

                    It can integrate other features like capturing the reaction of the receiver which the sender is unaware of. Making the smartphone extremely personal would be the feature. A sense of belonging towards the tool could really make it personal and special than other ordinary mobile device. Addition of a webcam or a facility to actually feel the expressions and reaction to a call or sms would set it apart for me. Meeting someone in person is no doubt an experience, but since this gadget is the bridge to connect them, one can imagine a near to real experience via such smartphone. Bridging the gap of human connect with the help of a tool can make my smartphone in a different race altogether.

For me, such an application can signify my smartphone’s ‘true connection’.