Skip to main content

Purge of Shame

Faced with the dearth of religiousness, the 21 century has a new guidebook to the purpose of life. A complex interplay of identity and oppression, and revaluation of self as the saviour. From the speaker's perspective, it is a brilliant story of liberation and may have some benign outgrowths like the cancel culture. The first step is identifying the oppression. 

The first context in which oppression came into my vocabulary was the freedom struggle from colonisation. Thus a scary picture of pressure is etched into my memory. But, the oppression, like everything else, could be subjective. When I learnt of the hardship of my parent's childhood, I was to believe that I had successfully leapt out of oppression. However, it's clear now that I was a victim of an oppressive third-world system, where my counterparts in more prosperous economies lavishly spent their young years. There is a subjective truth in this. And perhaps masked envy. But what is distinct is that it combines discontent and jealousy to redefine our past. This is necessary to convince ourselves that we have been brave and successful in fighting oppression. We are the hero we read off.

I celebrate seeing the past as oppression and applauding ourselves for braving it. However, this hero is complete with an antagonist. And now, it must be a character from our past retrospectively taxed the burden of our evolution. In many contexts, the oppressors have been parents, teachers or, as I did in the above paragraph, our environment. Sometimes, we make unsuspecting, and perhaps well-wishers, villains, but they need not be. This demonisation of Samaritans leads to an explosive social structure. One where involving yourself with someone could be well misread.

What makes this alarming today is the rise of influencers. With many trying to be heroes, the search for villains is fiercer than usual. Most of them don't understand where they faulted to deserve the infamy. 
Does this uphold the real stories which beg for light? Much worse is that it makes people with a relatable past believe that they are being oppressed, a realisation which has been socially forced upon them. Past is a complicated burden; one must strive to get better, at the same time, reverse the learnings. We may one day learn that we are both heroes and villains, and our stories are a little true.

Popular posts from this blog

Birth of a flood

The sky is almost dark, saving for those last golden tinges that would fade in no time. As palm trees mark the oblivion, a muddy reflection forms the ground. Last few days were mostly rainy. So profound is our love for rain. And why would not we? Unlike most other seasons, rain are so tender. A drop of patience which is about to reach its final destiny. Every time I look at rain drops they remind me of a struggle. A journey that begins with summer in an aura of dry and burning heat. And in no time the drop loses its sources. The long carried identity of its mother. With the loss of identity a awakening awaits. The pleasure to reach out and bond. As our drop moves up and up the end less skies, it realises the futility of pride and the necessity to bond. This comes with age. Not until it is near to earth it agrees to meet with other wanderers of the new world. And finally all our drops reach the cold atmosphere. The coldness makes life dreary and lonely. As the youthfulness dies out,...

Election afterthoughts

The unfolding of the Indian election might have come as a surprise to many, for one is the BJP who steamrolled the campaign seasons with slogans of "400 par". While it remains 240 seats popular in a house of 520 members, a few stories should not go unnoticed. First, the BJP's popularity and the win for a third term is no ordinary feat. Only a few leaders of the past have managed such an elusive feat. This, indeed, is the trust that the brand Modi has built over the years. In politics, we often get acclimatized to the situations, in certain aspects too critical of it. When the young generation looked at Indira Gandhi's cabinet, they vowed never to again let such a solid mandate to a single party that its chief could declare an emergency, and no structures would be able to prevent that. This, however, ended up in fragmented colours in the Lok Sabha, the era of coalitions and surprise prime ministers. Needless to say, the horse-trading of MPs and the mindless corruption ...

Turning back from pull to push

Two recent campaigns deserve attention from marketing enthusiasts, one of Campa Cola (reenergised by the Reliance Group) and of Tata Sampann's species. The challenges these two brands face are too distinct from one another. Campa, on the one hand, aims to fight the global brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola, whereas Sampann looks to create a market in indian spices that has been dominated by local players like MDH and Everest. However, their strategies have something in common: getting the distributors to stock more of their products on the shelves. Campa is offering the distributors twice the margins, while Sampann is leveraging its vast portfolio to make stocking only Tata products a win for the distributors. Image credit: Economic Times To understand why this is happening, and what makes this interesting, one has to look back on the history of marketing, more specifically the shift from a push to a pull-based marketing, where the focus of the brands shifted from pushing their produc...