The wordiness of it all!

Yes we’ve heard that sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words…..SOMETIMES being the operative word.  Please don’t post a picture of toast with scrambled eggs when you can write, ‘My lazy arsed, miserly, husband made me this breakfast at 11 am after I nagged him all night for not buying flowers on our anniversary while I slogged and made a fabulous dinner, wore my best dress and he decided to watch a game of darts on telly without so much as a thank-you.’

If you want a reaction out of me, don’t swallow a camera and then post pics of your insides. “I’m pregnant” is a perfectly acceptable way to elicit Congratulations from me and your other gazillion followers! I’ll be happy for you minus the vomit in my mouth. There’s a reason why consultations with a doctor happen in private. Because they’re private. They should remain that way. Share your ultrasound pic with whoever else cares, don’t assume that I’m THAT interested in your child that I’d want to meet him BEFORE he’s born. There’s a reason you’re my virtual friend. I’m not even interested in YOU that much. 

You’d think we have the Kardashians to blame for this. Nah. Methinks it’s the Oprahfication of the world ; sharing minutiae of your daily existence. I use this hand cream, and I feature my favorite things on my page and ooooh I save my bread in aluminum foil, and this is the tree under which I sit with my book, is  endearing when she’s a billionaire on T.V.  But when your next door neighbor starts tweeting and instagramming her ‘painless ways to tweeze out chin hairs’ or when you have to endure 5000 pictures of  dogs, cats and lizards staring into space or doing nothing as they are wont to not do, you want to go back in time and smash the phone camera prototype.

The Small Things of God!

‘Uparwala sab such dekh raha hai’ is not only the basis of almost every film in India, no matter the region, language or subject matter but it is also a corrupted corollary of the whole karmic cycle. God sees everything, all the time so I should always be well behaved and not sin, nor harm anyone and only do good. Mmmmm okay. Now the corrupted part; people forget about not sinning and harming others coz, well they’re human but unique to the subcontinent is this culture of God is watching  every time we do good thus we will be rewarded. So each time we want a reward : Want a job? Feed the blind. Want your son to pass his kindergarten with good grades? Offer a coconut/incense/light a candle to the Gods. Want your daughter to marry? Give up coffee.  

 It’s fantastic that most temples are one stop shops! There is the Lingam for fertility, right across from Hanuman the purveyor of abstinence, And there’s Lakshmi for the cashola, of course!! And Krishna and the Ayodhya trio.  Oh let’s not ignore the Sai baba devotees, all it takes is a statue right? The more the merrier. So it’s basically like going to a mall you know. If you have to return your jeans at Levi’s, and buy new shoes at Nike it’s a done thing. Exactly like that. You can make an offering  of 101 Rupees to Ganeshji because you got the job and you can also put in a request for better vibes in your home to the Vastu God! Cool ain’t it? Everyone gets to shop for their wishes and desires and wants and needs.  Now if they could just add a few more counters altars to incorporate the Buddhists and Christians and Sikhs and whoever else is out there - we’d attain world peace! Alas! there’s this whole thing about copyright infringement. Disney and Mattel are sold separately they’re competitors.  Disney will sell Mickey and Donald and Elsa and Rapunzel but no way a Barbie is getting shelf space next to Winnie the Pooh. The blasphemy of it all. And it goes both ways!

You’re not one of us Barbie. You’re different!

I’m the real deal! My followers know that. 

Since  uniting various devotees is a profitable strategy, why don’t other religions and faiths get onto the bandwagon? Why isn’t there a Buddhist altar in a Church or vice versa? You know there’s been that thing about inter faith marriages  - it’d be so convenient for the children! If I could pray for wisdom to Saraswati on one altar and still be able to send the kids to Sunday school in the adjoining room, wouldn’t it be fantastic? It makes commercial sense. Just a big win-win for everyone. What? What did you say? Religion is not about money alone? Who knew?

The wrong to happiness!

News readers used to be good looking people, who could read, be easy on our eyes and yet be someone whom we could all relate to, because they were in our homes everyday and we discussed things they told us. That’s gone out of the windows, no one cares what a newsreader says anymore, because we get the news before them so they stay relevant in our lives by looking like movie stars instead.  We’ve all worshipped beauty and youth forever, so there’s nothing new there, but add this one to the mix - News readers are happier than ever. Why? Why The botoxed face, the tummy tuck?  I can really do without the vocal fry (try saying OMG like you’ve been raised by bears) and blindingly white teeth. Just to tell us that another city was carpet bombed, another species is now extinct, Trump said yet another asinine phrase, and that children continue to be slaves, sold, illiterate and hungry. Why are they so exuberant? It seems like a pretty drab job to me.

 And then I stop watching T.V. and come back to reality and I look around. Everyone is happy. All the bloody time. How? Why? Well, thing is, I’m not looking at the people around me, I’m looking at their social media. In social media reality (pun intended), everyone is happy, smiling, having adventures, eating the best foods, having their nails done, cooking fabulousness, cataloguing their meals, cataloguing their pet’s meals, cataloguing their cats, climbing mountains, surfing seas, and flying overseas. It’s not enough that they are traveling to Romania, they have to do that airplane dotted thing just in case we assume they’re taking the steam engine and/or to tell us where Europe is. 

What really gets me though is this one thing. Okay let’s make it two. Two sides of the same coin. People telling me to post, share, comment on PSA’s. No I’m not sharing a ‘post if you know anyone with cancer and support them’ BS. No. That’s generic.  It doesn’t do anything except make people feel good that they did something for cancer or mental illness. It’s not doing, it’s just making people feel that they did something. That includes Tigers, stray dogs, cleaning up the streets and even a shoutout to craftsmen. The other thing is sharing religious memes. Please please please I don’t come to Facebook for religion. I come to strut about how perfect my life is and enviously glean other people’s successes. I want to be the shallow snowflake here. I don’t want your moral superiority of how you take God’s name 60 times a day and how by sharing and typing Amen or Jai Mata Di, my life would be better.

I live a charmed life. And I make sure, everyone knows that. My pleasures are the indulgences on Pinterest, my friendships on whatsapp provide me with much needed approvals, my self esteem gets a boost on FB and Twitter is therapeutic. The internet completes me, just keep religion and activism at bay.