Friday, October 5, 2007


The LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLONG and SHORT of DiVeRS itY


Malls in India are becoming like the ubiquitous Mallus- they are beginning to rear their beautiful, aggressive heads all over the place and in your face (Sreesanth hovering in your head?). Stalling and shilly-shallying in malls and multiplexes over the weekend has become more like a routine drill one monotonously drags oneself through, without really being hit or bit by the monotony. Window-shopping and price-tag-ogling in those exquisite lifestyle stores, pre-booked movie-hogging in an OCS surround sound environment and caramel popcorn-popping in those perfectly plush pushback seats, birdie/birdo-gaping in the verandahs, alleys and free spaces, cappuccino-guzzling/ grenita-gulping/ panino-pelting in a milling café, assorted cuisine/furious fast food- dining or lunching in those exquisite fine dining restaurants/joints has become so much a part and punch of one’s weekend.

If you think I’m attempting to enter the mall maze right here and now, it suffices to say that I, a frequent mallee, am just giving you a blazing introduction to the mall culture; a mallee being my term for a mall addict. The introductions done away with, let’s now get to the core topic stinging my thinking equipment- DEALING with DIVERSITY.

Last week, at a very prominent mall in the city, I happened to cross paths with so many different people/mallees that I couldn’t really help getting all baffled at the striking differences in people- tall and short, fat and thin, short-haired and long-haired, calm and frenzied, haughty and humble, naughty and nice, composed and insecure, well-dressed and ummmm undressed;), svelte and crude, so on and so forth. I stood there observing all these people, never for once realizing that a lot of these people I was observing were doing the same thing as well.

It was then that I understood that jobless people doing the hopeless rounds for free in a public space do nothing but judge the other jobless people around. I repeat: JUDGE, and not observe. Hell, everyone knows that people are made differently, that variety is the spice of life and that some people are ‘differently-abled’, but that doesn’t really stop us from pointing out the differences in harsh, mean ways. When I was trying to observe the contrasting attributes in people, the first two analogies I pointed out were ‘tall and short’ and ‘fat and thin’- how much more judgmental could I get?

From a different perspective, I suddenly saw that people (including myself) are constantly and consistently judging the inconsistencies and incongruities in the people around. In retrospect, I know that judging people is ‘sucky’ (in my language) and yet, I’m such a sucker for passing funny comments about every peeping Tom’s peephole voyeurisms, Dick’s teeny-weeny and Harry’s hairy legs, to enliven the mood among a close-knit group. Cutting a long story short- where is that line between pulling someone’s legs for fun and ‘judging’ someone all wrong?


Is your line short or long, dotted or continuous, finite or infinite, dark or light, straight or crooked.. Oops, I guess i got all judgemental all over again. Some lines can never be straightened.. :)

6 comments:

Preeti said...

hey hey janie...

after our yestrday nitez 'escape'-ade (u knw, hehe) wat uv written abt seemz extremely relevant....!

we hv alwayz spoken abt hw we 'bitch' abt the 'women' and leave out the guyz...hw we crib abt her hair bein frizzy or greasy, when ourz is even worse...bein judgemental is an inborn trait tat requires effort to curb...mayyybbb it juz stems frm some complex deep within....i dno...

the society we live in is judgemental...may sound a lil too much bt itz true...classic eg: gettin outta a car in front of ur house at 1 in the nite is most often misconstrued as somethin else...it may hv been somethin as harmless as a 'nite show'...n when the next alternative is gettin dropped at the end of the road to avoid cnfrontation...???tingz get EVEN worse! man-oh-man...hw i hate it!

a girl n a guy talkin, 2 men holdin hands (women are generally spared), late nite outings, mismatched clothin- basically nethin attracts attention and thus ensues the process of bein judgemental...

i dno wat cn b done...bt...guess everythin is ok as long as there is a line somewhr...whr tat line shud b and itz dimensions (dotted etc as u mentioned!hehe) i really dno :)

luv ya alwayz...

The King Centaur... said...

Jane,

Its sure surprising that i was about to describe a visit to the mall and well, u have come out first... anyways..

Its great blog, but totally opposite if what you see in chennai.. do read mine when mine 's out.. because that wud be ma comments..

Cheers
TechnoManiac

JANE JEYAKUMAR said...

yooo peeto we gel on this one[:)] need 2 get marid 2 make people judge us lesser[;)]
:) more abt the judging people than abt the mallz satti[:)] awaityn ya blog[:)]

UnknownVirus said...

Comments.. Hmmmm....So, after reading the blog, wondering, whether it s right for me to judge u....LOL.. :)

UnknownVirus said...

and since i see that u have an acumen for circumspections, i might as well hire your services for a bit of detective work..(if u know wat i mean)...;-)

Anonymous said...

True jane!

Some lines can never be straightened:)

Truer: malls are becoming like Mallus... lol. Have plenty of Mallu friends about and I laughed my heart about.

I shall ignore the the more "gossamer" part of the blog - it was too nice to comment on or disagree with at any rate... lol - and let me take the area where you talk of judgements and pulling legs. I do concur with you when you say that the boundaries those ply in there are blurred and not clearly formed.

Either judgement happens in the name of judgement or in the name of advice or back-biting. I guess the psuedonyms differ indeed. Practical Jokes, extended versions of pranks perhaps, in so far as the person joked about is a "cool kid" can indeed be offensive. I guess all this has to do with both sides - the giver and the taker. When one of the sides is slightly more broad-minded, traffic jams could be avoided. When both sides lock their horns, just to test each other's egos, then, well, you have a Howrah bridge deadlock... lol. If both sides understand that such things do happen, but that human bonding (talking of judgements amongst friends and acquaintances and not strangers at all) transcends all these, I guess that is the most ideal scenario that can come about. And I am indeed proud of my generation in that the latter class of population is all the time augmenting!

Another Jane-ful post I guess... glittering, smooth, funny with a dignified lexis and at the end of the day hard-hitting too!

Will check the other two arrears as and when time does provide the next leeway... lol

Cheerio:)

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