Are You Off Guard?

On the local train, while on my way from work, I was standing behind a man at the doorway. He was fiddling around with his mobile phone and I found myself, repeatedly, staring at his mobile screen. There wasn't any salacious SMS to be read or anything else that might interest me. It just seems that any screen in my field of vision, with its hundreds of thousands of flickering pixels, has the ability to hold my gaze, even if it is for a little while. I guess it is time to start defining screen time by the hour and make a conscious effort to cut down the time I spend washed in the warm white glow of one. I could also restrict the number of screens I expose myself to and also the hours I will spend looking into one. Maybe I'll go with a policy of three screens on a weekday (the work computer, my mobile, and the home computer or television or a cinema screen), not exceeding 12 hours a day, and two screens on weekends, for less than 6 hours a day. Let us see how this goes.

While we debate our 'constitutional rights and freedom', which always exist within 'reasonable restrictions', in the light of the latest attempt by the government to 'screen' and 'take down' material generated and published by users and groups on the Internet (social publishing platforms, to be precise), it is interesting to read the following passage.

"Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labor as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers' organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance. Even in those countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination, and the like have long existed, governments are constantly trying to restrict those rights or to reinterpret them by juridical hair-splitting. Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace . Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution." — Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory & Practice, 1947

. You don't feeling like talking to me nowadays, do you?

- No

. Y U NO FEEL LIKE TALKING TO ME??

- because of that

. Ok

[silence for a w     h     i     l     e]

- Will you stop asking me that question again and again

. Yes, but I feel insignificant, I feel the need to know why you stopped

- Insignificant? You are a dot

. There is more to me

- Then let everyone see that more instead of you venting your angst

Something should gnaw at this ugly, rigid edifice and break it down with a big, nasty crash and when the dust settles you will see the pasture from where ideas and stories and other such forgotten things will sprout. They could be blue, square, irreverent, incorrect, baroque, transformative, factual. They will all be tedious in parts, especially the middle. The end, however, shall always be a rousing triumph, inspiring even. They will be 'tweeted', 'liked', shared and 'plussed', at least once, but they must not be 'tweets', 'likes', 'shares' and 'pluses'. Brevity is great when time is running out (or when you run out of analogies) but not here.

Inspite of all it machinations, 'The It' spews out character limited ideas and thoughts. The something that must gnaw at it has been summoned. If you listen carefully you can hear the sound of a chisel tapping away, or maybe they are just muffled keystrokes from a rather rigid keyboard; either way the end of inertia is near. A pity that it can't save itself by running away.

When someone else can say it better, I cede ground.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Bob Dylan

If You See Her, Say Hello

"If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier

She left here last early Spring, is livin' there, I hear

Say for me that I’m all right though things get kind of slow

She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so....."

- She tried it, she didn't like it so she discarded it. Fair?

. Of course

- Can I do the same to you?

. Of course

- Woah, are you attempting to flex some muscles there?

. Go ahead, try me. I dare you, I double dare you

I like going off to sleep nowadays, it's when no one can trouble me anymore, not even me. The pit in the stomach is not felt, the pangs neither. Best of all your life moves towards its end and you lie there unaware of the fires that rage around, limp for a few hours, to wake up and resume fighting again but with the knowledge that soon sleep will come visiting and all that troubles will be lost for a few moments. I wish I could sleep all through. I wish I had Soma.

If I could weave stories that sound as good as what I am about to tell you then I could be a racounter who could earn his keep. I do not, ergo, these are not stories. Of course, you can choose to believe otherwise. However, if you take my word, then I would like to bind you to a diktat, that when you do, you will pass on these narratives as you have heard them and not with any embellishments, additions or omissions. If you refuse to abide by that then I'd beseech you to ensure that your identity is hidden, for if you are found out the consequences of your action will scar your legacy. Some of the narratives sound too bizzare to be true, but it is their peculiar nature that should convince you that neither I nor anybody, who isn't a lore-master, could have imagined them into existence. To those who have embarked on this journey with the belief that these are just tales and nothing more, all I would say is that I sincerely hope that from now on you would live in interesting times. 

This is exactly how it happened...

While exhorting people to 'Like' the India Against Corruption page on Facebook I'm aware that merely 'liking' or 'following' a digital presence does not make a big difference. The hope that I hold out is that it could be the start of a bigger change, one that makes each person even more mindful about herself and the world that she creates. When I 'like' a page or perform any such synonymous action I allow for a deluge of data and opinion to be pushed my way; for eg. last night the IAC guys put up a very interesting document online, via Facebook, one on the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Getting access to material of such a nature will allow us to go beyond spouting rhetoric and jargon. This direct channel is the reason why many people have actually read the Lok Pal bill, as proposed by GOI and the one put forth by IAC. Few may have undertsood the legalese but the 'page' on Facebook and the Twitter account gave them a forum to ask their questions. Social media is an effective tool to generate many layers of conversation and dialogue, which is what we need to start with today.  

Some months ago I had written a rather impassioned piece on why Digital Advertising in India was in a rather sorry state. It was as much an observation as it was start of a philosophy for me. Don't accuse me of 'intellectualizing' as yet, you'll have your chance to do that later.

The notion that digital/online/internet advertising can be considered an adjunct, or even a parallel to traditional forms of advertising has been dealt with, and put to rest, quite effectively by a host of far more qualified and informed professionals than me, so, I shall steer clear of that. What I have here is a simple suggestion. Digital advertising allows brands and people to communicate with each other, in three out of the four possible permutations, unless you call the Mac vs PC ads a from of brand-to-brand communication, but it doesn't stop there. This medium also allows you to track and analyse this chatter. So, here's my question. Shouldn't communication agencies create more interesting ways to facilitate, grow and listen to this conversation for the brands they represent, this rather than hopping on to Facebook and Twitter as a quick fix every single time?

Maybe they could do that by creating new platforms or by undertaking activities that will make sure that the consumer/audience/user talks. This maybe the time, in the Indian context, more so, to embrace the complexities that come with creating new platforms or communication models. Maybe they ought to think like a startup garage where small micro-apps, that allow for the talk to go on, are created. As I had said earlier, brands, in India, have a sandbox of less than a 100 million users to engage as of now, now is the time to experiment with ideas rather than follow a set standard.