Hypocrites rule the roost

                     I often question myself- why we have to live in a world full of rules and regulations. A world full of do’s and don’ts, of haves and have not’s, a world guided by discipline seekers and law makers. A world where a ruling party decides the fate of the nation. The common man is at the receiving end of all and he has to abide to all the laws of the books. If one has to trace down the growth as a country, one must look into the ideologies of the particular ruling party.

As far as India’s progress goes- we have been steered into the new decade of the 21^st century mostly by one party who ruled for 58 years at the central level. Tracking India’s growth over all these years – there have been innumerous stalwart decisions and leaders, but equally menancing and fraudulent people at the decision level. But one question that can haunt many of us Indians is – are we heading towards the right direction inspite of being free for almost 64years. Where is our standing in terms of development towards the right path goes. Inspite of the growth trend on a upward curve, we are after expanding Indian land in horizontal direction. Grabbing parcels, mountains, hills, rivers, canals for so called development is the regular practice of the babus who sit and do almost nothing at the government offices. A look into any well positioned government officer can give a picture that he is more interested in amassing wealth from improper means and creating property pools. Diverting decisions, creating means of escape, not abiding to the law, procrastinating decisions have left us Indians bereft of the sense of pride we should have been enjoying.

               The recent news surrounding India creates a kind of panic situation and also the one of unrest. Impounding terror attacks, corruption creeping its head, malpractices all around, counter attacks of political parties on each other, mind games of the leaders for each other and many more. Much more disheartening is the fact that one comes to know that everything is staged – right from post of a chief minister to inflation, to common wealth games, scams, phone tappings, matches .Everything seems to be a part of a perfectly scripted reality show, where the audience keeps voting through smses, whilst the winner is pre decided.

               Most of the rulings by the court for national level cases are either deferred or are favoured by the person pumping more money. Be it IPL mess, Kalmadi’s histrionics, Raja’s notoriety, lobbying of the newsmakers for key decisions of national interest, everything happening around the country is well decided in advance and executed. Money rules. Even awards are not spared – there is a beeline to buy awards.

               The common man is nothing but left as a mere spectator to these dramatic events unfolding in front of him everyday. Decisions taken at very large scale percolate to the common man in manier smaller ways – price hikes, tax hikes, etc. The common man is merely party to these decision turners. With dirty politics and selfish grabbing the prime mottos, the genuineness of present time leaders is questionable.

               Often do we see many allegations, revelations, scandals, scams pointed at most of the politicians and leaders alike. These prove to be a good fodder for ‘breaking news’ for the aam janta. But these so called ‘breaking news’ turn into ‘broken down’ news after a while, with either public loosing interest in the matter or the case being suppressed. This has become the order of the day since history. The common man is being choreographed into this mode of life. Debate, discuss and 'carryon' is the modus operandi subscribed by most. These leaders take advantage of such an attitude and stage histrionics one after another.

We are nothing but living in environs where manipulation is the name of the game and ‘hypocrites rule the roost’. 

'Graph'ing Photo -4

Addition to the collection

Experiments with firecrackers during Diwali

Matheran - could capture nature at best during the wee hours of morning

'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