Do Good, Do Well

Redemption sells. It sells like whores on a dock. Not the most fitting comparison to make, one might argue. But, come 2010, post dumping most of the earth , water, air , and even the proximal end of space with the debris of human incompetence, this is what most MNCs and conglomerates have come to realize.With carbon dioxide levels soaring at 390 ppm, the Tsunamis and the Katrinas, till recently existent only in Nostradamus' lore, ripping through the very real fabric of decayed civilizations, the most commonplace fauna adorning the illustrious list of endangered species everyday, and almost 7 billion famished bellies to account for, I guess its finally time to resurrect Gaia, or at least allow her some dying grace. Not that we're complaining. Everyone deserves a shot at redemption. Even whores on a dock.

"Cause Marketing" is the new corporate mantra, a brand new paradigm of strategic innovation, where most corporate big shots have already begun locking horns, and many more are infallibly following suit. Aircel is hellbent on saving tigers, Pantaloons wants to rescue the girl child from the clutches of a predominantly male biased culture, the Tata Tea ads wreak mockery at our comfortably ignorant bliss and implore us to take a stand against corruption, and of course, what an !dea it truly is Sirjee, to save paper by alternatively using electronic writing means. Attending to our immense back-log of environmental and civic duties has become so in, it's fast emerging as the moral fibre of the next decade.

Though, here in India, the notion has been suddenly inflicted upon us by almost the entire corporate sector rather recently, with an over-enthusiastic fuerza bruta reminiscent of an intrinsically Indian monologue made famous by Popeye, "I'll do anything that you do!!", the concept has humbly floated through the marketing world for almost ever, steadily gaining roar and stature, initially in the West, and now, even the Orient. The term 'Cause Related Marketing' was coined by American Express as way back as in 1983, the year they launched the Statue of Liberty Restoration Project, wherein 1 cent was donated for every card transaction, and a dollar for every new application, at the same time backing the initiative with a 4 million $ advertising campaign. During a short period of 3 months, the project not only raised funds in excess of US$ 1.7 million, but also increased American Express card usage by 27% and new card applications by an impressive 45%. That's 4 well spent millions!! Since then hordes of business houses have caught on to this revolutionary idea of integrating business strategies with a relevant cause to create a more socially aware entrepreneurial consciousness aimed at guiding their companies through a progressively dismal future, devoid of any resources and plagued by catastrophes we have only begun facing. Sinners of yore, saints of the morrow.

In India, though ravenous profiteering and sometimes even thievery have, more often than not, been alternated by huge donations at the Khatushyamji temple in Sikar, Rajasthan, and other such sanctums of the Lord where, presumably, a pious prayer can obliterate all sins of a wretch, these supposedly philanthropic gestures essentially come under trivial charity, and serve little purpose except elevating one's moral esteem and facilitating diminutive income tax benefits. Charity has always been a more individual effort in India, serving no corporate cause or gain to the benefactor's company. Given, small but appreciable efforts such as the Tata Salt-CRY association for children have existed for a while now, but they have never been so vociferously advertised nor been so blatantly pushed into our living rooms, up until now.

The reason behind this sudden outburst of social awareness is simple enough. The Indian market, yet again, finds itself saturated. All housing loans offer the same rates, the phone companies offer the same tariffs, and, even all the biscuits taste the same. So, change being the only constant, the market finds itself on the brink of yet another rediscovery. But what extra do you offer to a consumer, when all the products and services in the market, irrespective of brand, commit to the same level of his satisfaction, both utility wise and monetarily? The answer is simple. The common man loves to be self righteous. You cater to his moral quotient. The 90s was the decade of globalisation. We just passed the decade of privatisation. And now, we're at the brink of another monumental shift in business conduction. This, people, is the decade of moralisation.

As I said before, not that we're complaining. Its about time.

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The Ballad Of The Forlorn

"Dard Nasha hai is madira ka,

Vigat smritiyan saki hain,

Pida me anand jise ho,

Aye meri madhushala..."

-Dr Harivanshrai Bacchan

In the murky hours of a moonless night, have you ever heard that night blinded sparrow, trapped in your attic, let out a sleepless bone shattering tweet, an ominous sound with a razor like quality that cuts through your peaceful sense of being, and in a wide-awake trance, sends you plummeting down an abyss that grows narrower with every fleeting memory and pleads insanity with every glimpse of the past?

In a cloudy autumn twilight, when the night is as omnipresent as the day, and the occult strands of dying sun rays reflect back into you, have you ever noticed a crippled tree shed a dying leaf that flutters into oblivion with the distinct precision of a puppeteer's surgical touch?

This Valentine's, did all you notice were the eccentric heartbeats of plastic-doll couples suffering from dreamy eyed myopia and dilated breaths, and longed for the silken touch of a warm hand or the gentle brush of a supple lip against yours?

I'm an IITian, and i know that the above questions are so notoriously imminent for my desperately lonely brethren, that most of you reading would answer in the affirmative. Don't worry guys; just a professional hazard!!

Actually, what i'm trying to get at is that if your answer is a yes (which it is, else you wouldn't have read this far!!), then you're in love already. Congrats guys!!

On face value, this seems like a bizarrely inaccurate and ridiculous theory to propose, and i should be apologising to the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal for this morally criminal act of falsely convicting India's best, and famously celibate kind of this four letter sin. But i won't. Instead, to satiate any irked feathers, and prove my innocence, let me endeavour to pose an argument in my favour.

Life was never created without purpose. When Earth had after billions of years of incubation, finally gained radioactive and thermal stability, it was time to reverse the process. Destruction was a necessary chapter in the completion of this inevitably just co(s)mic cycle. But, the forces soon realised that this was taking more time than expected. So, the course of history was changed and soon, organic bulldozers, in the garb of life forms came into being. After a few million years of natural selection, nature finally picked the tool that could rape it best: Man. The advantage he had over other contenders was that he could desire more than he would ever need, and could go to infinite lengths in fear of failing to achieve his bidding. Thus, we were created in the spitting image of the devil himself, and since then, we've embarked on a vandalising journey fuelled by desires and fears.

Man's life is not defined by what he has, but what he does not. It's the voids that fill the gaps in our existence. When a child is born, his life is a velvety nothingness of his mother's womb. It's the fear of the unknown that drives him towards knowledge. From this perspective, its not surprising to note that a child learns the most in the first couple of years of his life. That's when he is scared the most. Fear of falling behind makes him run. Fear of a growling stomach gives him teeth. Fear of failure manifests itself in his first competitive wrath during hide-n-seek. The acidic desire for recognition burns through his veins during school. Life is based on a predefined sequential matrix of fears brooding in the oblivions of our voids, and the desire to fill those voids with whatever trash that comes our way first.

Even the first complex the human mind faces, between ages 3-5, is born out of a void: the phallic void. The Oedipus complex and its female counterpart, the Electra complex, are derived from an insecurity where the child desires to "possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex". Surprisingly, this is also the age most people believe that a conscious mind conceptualises the seeds of love and hatred. Love and hatred, ladies and gentlemen, in their most infantile and blatant forms!

Love: the fear of being lonely. As he grows older, the adolescent soon discovers that, being a social entity, his biggest fear is solitude. In his frantic want for company, ignited by the ripping hormonal reactions in his body, two new desires blossom: love and lust, two not very different concepts, except that the former caters to his psychological needs and the latter to physical needs. However, from an absolute perspective, they are both voids. Two plunging voids that, more often than not, determine the course of our lives, and on which the very sustainabilty of the human race finds its foundation.

If you ask me, the phrase "fallen in love" is quite accurate, though repeatedly used fallaciously. Falling in love is a hopeless romantic's term for succumbing to your most poignant desire, and getting sucked into that void of lonliness where dwell the demons of seclusion and desertion, feasting on your masochistic revelry of the obnoxiously sweet pain of longing that you suffer. You dont fall in love after you find someone, but way before. Actually, as soon as you find someone, that's when the break-up starts!!

Happy Valentine's day!!

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