The heading is borrowed from a book by the same name about European reception of American Culture. The title I believe is self explanatory, you have seen one mall, it is as good as seeing all of them.
The reason for this latest post is self realization of how all of us are made fools. I had been to a DLF promenade mall in Delhi two days ago and before that to two malls in and around the same area. Some are big, some are moderately big, all of them are damn crowded and all of them have the same kind of people. But most importantly, all of them have the same shops. All of them have a Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Louis Phillipe, KFC, Mac Donalds, Pizza Hut...and name any of the international brands.
This I believe is the ultimate manifestation of Capitalism and Globalization.
It is nothing but packaging the same content in multiple avenues, as a first year mba graduate might tell you. But it is of concern and piety for me to think that I am also part of this gamble.
I remember siting for umpteen classes on globalization and hegemony, now when I sit in one of those malls and look around, I realise how much we've all complained about this hegemony, but how asinine are we to unwillingly or unwittingly support the culture that is!!!
Somebody thinks...therefore somebody is...
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Its a weekend!!!
How I used to hate weekends when I was a student in HCU!!! All my friends would sleep through the Sunday...if possible into Monday also, as for me..sleep for the past 2 years has been a very seldom visited territory. So Sunday morn, I would wake up and start with the news papers and any material I could lay hands on to while away time.
Alas!!! spoken too soon. I got a job and started working. How soon weekends started to wizz by...all I worked through the week was for the weekend. To laze around, to have a beer on a Saturday without having the thought tomorrow I need to drag myself to office. Oh..how I love my weekends now!!
This my friends is typical human nature...
To quote Shelley
"We humans look before and after
and pine for what is not
Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught
Our sweetest songs are those
which remind us of our saddest thoughts"
Alas!!! spoken too soon. I got a job and started working. How soon weekends started to wizz by...all I worked through the week was for the weekend. To laze around, to have a beer on a Saturday without having the thought tomorrow I need to drag myself to office. Oh..how I love my weekends now!!
This my friends is typical human nature...
To quote Shelley
"We humans look before and after
and pine for what is not
Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught
Our sweetest songs are those
which remind us of our saddest thoughts"
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Of engineering and arts and men...
Friends
Born and brought up in Trivandrum, I have seen the craze for engineering and medicine at its helm. I myself would've been a product of it, if not my sloppiness with numbers and logic and understanding parents. I have many friends, acquaintances who are now engineers, who are considered the most brilliant and the cream of the society. Over the past week, I happened to speak to a few of my friends who are the engineers of the country working for MNC's from outside the country. There was something common to all of them...all of them are in the complaining mode, why do I have to do this? Is engineering some societal norm? I am tired of this, yet I am helpless...!!!
Looking at the flip side, studying in a Central University, I have been in the midst of arts and humanities and social sciences. People pursing what they like, their talents and aptitudes used to the fullest extent. That did make me feel good. This paradigm shift in the outlook for a career gives me hope that someday we will be less of a mechanical society
I have a friend who is working in a radio station,earns half as much as an engineer in Bangalore or Pune does. The chances of she going to the US and A or to Europe on an official visit is close to zero. But I have never heard her complaining about her job, not once has she told me I am tired of this. This is believe is satisfaction.
We all studied to make money and be happy. I guess, now its all money in perspective, No Happiness. I don't want to sound like an art of living instructor nor is my present argument a result of the movie 3 idiots, but I believe in pursuing what you like and what can help you sustain.
What would it be to earn for nobody, just you? What would it be to spend all your life in the four walls of an office and not see the beautiful world outside? What would it be to work through the whole week to just booze on a Saturday night and and sleep trough the Sunday? This I believe is not happiness...you are bound to break through some day...the sooner the better.
I think my friend working in the radio station and myself is much happier than all of the engineers I know put together.
PS: To all those who don't know, I have changed 3 jobs in 8 months. Looking back, I am not complaining. I can speak about the media or the corporate sector more authentically than my peers. I know what I want to do and what I don't to do in life. As for the short term stints which screws up my chances of a great future...well, I am proud of my adventure spirits...not many at the age of 23 knows what it to be a rolling stone...direction unknown...
Born and brought up in Trivandrum, I have seen the craze for engineering and medicine at its helm. I myself would've been a product of it, if not my sloppiness with numbers and logic and understanding parents. I have many friends, acquaintances who are now engineers, who are considered the most brilliant and the cream of the society. Over the past week, I happened to speak to a few of my friends who are the engineers of the country working for MNC's from outside the country. There was something common to all of them...all of them are in the complaining mode, why do I have to do this? Is engineering some societal norm? I am tired of this, yet I am helpless...!!!
Looking at the flip side, studying in a Central University, I have been in the midst of arts and humanities and social sciences. People pursing what they like, their talents and aptitudes used to the fullest extent. That did make me feel good. This paradigm shift in the outlook for a career gives me hope that someday we will be less of a mechanical society
I have a friend who is working in a radio station,earns half as much as an engineer in Bangalore or Pune does. The chances of she going to the US and A or to Europe on an official visit is close to zero. But I have never heard her complaining about her job, not once has she told me I am tired of this. This is believe is satisfaction.
We all studied to make money and be happy. I guess, now its all money in perspective, No Happiness. I don't want to sound like an art of living instructor nor is my present argument a result of the movie 3 idiots, but I believe in pursuing what you like and what can help you sustain.
What would it be to earn for nobody, just you? What would it be to spend all your life in the four walls of an office and not see the beautiful world outside? What would it be to work through the whole week to just booze on a Saturday night and and sleep trough the Sunday? This I believe is not happiness...you are bound to break through some day...the sooner the better.
I think my friend working in the radio station and myself is much happier than all of the engineers I know put together.
PS: To all those who don't know, I have changed 3 jobs in 8 months. Looking back, I am not complaining. I can speak about the media or the corporate sector more authentically than my peers. I know what I want to do and what I don't to do in life. As for the short term stints which screws up my chances of a great future...well, I am proud of my adventure spirits...not many at the age of 23 knows what it to be a rolling stone...direction unknown...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Oops...I'm forgetting to write
Hello
Yesterday I went to buy a pen. I was filled with a sense of pathos...now buying a pen is not all that big of deal. But what use you put the pen to...writing is. I realized how little I had written with a pen in the past 8 or 9 months. I can't remember using the pen to write an article for a long time now, to take down a quote I now prefer saving it as a draft in my mobile. My hand writing has become close to incorrigible.
The very existence of the blog is because people prefer to type and not write. Can typing substitute writing? In a wider sense, can technology substitute everything? I remember the debates about the television substituting the news papers, the internet becoming a threat to news papers...but writing with a pen is fading out.
I use technology as much as anyone else or maybe more...but somewhere down the lane knowingly or unknowingly we have all become very mechanical...
I remember the times when I used to fight with my dad for an ink pen worth 50 bucks when I was in my 5th or 6th standard; Hero pen was the fad then. I clearly cherish the Reynolds 045 with which I wrote my Matriculation and my Plus Two exams. While writing for the Hindu I used to write down the article first and then type it on to a computer, how I used to fight with dad who yelled at me saying I am wasting time doing it that way. Post that all I know is..I used a pen to write my post graduation, by that time a pen had become something to just write exams and to very few. taking lecture notes.
The duty of a pen is now limited to scribbling e-mail addresses, phone numbers and if lucky to have a taste of two lines of literature. Once we are out of studenthood rarely do we use a pen for anything else. Just like we Indians find that food is much more tasty when consumed with our bare hands and not by the spoon...I feel the article when I write it with a pen...be it of any make. To see the article or literary piece how good or bad it is...to see it taking shape in front of me gives me a childish impishness or excitement when I see it finished and ready to go to bed...
Yesterday I went to buy a pen. I was filled with a sense of pathos...now buying a pen is not all that big of deal. But what use you put the pen to...writing is. I realized how little I had written with a pen in the past 8 or 9 months. I can't remember using the pen to write an article for a long time now, to take down a quote I now prefer saving it as a draft in my mobile. My hand writing has become close to incorrigible.
The very existence of the blog is because people prefer to type and not write. Can typing substitute writing? In a wider sense, can technology substitute everything? I remember the debates about the television substituting the news papers, the internet becoming a threat to news papers...but writing with a pen is fading out.
I use technology as much as anyone else or maybe more...but somewhere down the lane knowingly or unknowingly we have all become very mechanical...
I remember the times when I used to fight with my dad for an ink pen worth 50 bucks when I was in my 5th or 6th standard; Hero pen was the fad then. I clearly cherish the Reynolds 045 with which I wrote my Matriculation and my Plus Two exams. While writing for the Hindu I used to write down the article first and then type it on to a computer, how I used to fight with dad who yelled at me saying I am wasting time doing it that way. Post that all I know is..I used a pen to write my post graduation, by that time a pen had become something to just write exams and to very few. taking lecture notes.
The duty of a pen is now limited to scribbling e-mail addresses, phone numbers and if lucky to have a taste of two lines of literature. Once we are out of studenthood rarely do we use a pen for anything else. Just like we Indians find that food is much more tasty when consumed with our bare hands and not by the spoon...I feel the article when I write it with a pen...be it of any make. To see the article or literary piece how good or bad it is...to see it taking shape in front of me gives me a childish impishness or excitement when I see it finished and ready to go to bed...
Monday, January 4, 2010
Hey all
Hey all
I used to blog and I had a few posts to my name, but alas...the pangs of technology, my previous account was hacked. Maybe for good...There was little in the old blog to read. This blog, Hey You (christened after Pink Floyd's Hey you) is excited about all of you. More than what I write I would like YOU all to comment and give regular feed backs. Please visit this link and check out the lyrics of Hey You...it might inspire you...
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/hey+you_20108696.html
Arun John
I used to blog and I had a few posts to my name, but alas...the pangs of technology, my previous account was hacked. Maybe for good...There was little in the old blog to read. This blog, Hey You (christened after Pink Floyd's Hey you) is excited about all of you. More than what I write I would like YOU all to comment and give regular feed backs. Please visit this link and check out the lyrics of Hey You...it might inspire you...
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/hey+you_20108696.html
Arun John
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