Devdas, MMORPGs, Hentai and the Inter-generational Conversation

It was a Sunday spent in the hospital as Neo was down with a severe bacterial infection...Amongst the umpteen trips to Lilavati, two things caught my attention. A front page story in TOI on the gaming obsession amongst the young(The New Devdas is a Gamer) and the snatch of a conversation between a 6 year old girl and her grand-parents in the lift!

I know the world of gaming exists. I watch and wonder about it from a distance. Too old, too weary, too fascinated with it...

1. Had initiated a research few months back. With little supervision, didn't really get to the bottom of either gamers or gaming . Must do a ver 2.0 soon!

2. "Unable to face the realities of heart-break, outright rejection, and other humiliations of love, youngsters today are seeking refuge in addictive multi-user games, a whole parallel universe where life is boy-friendly." - Sunday TOI

3. Looks like these MMORPGs(Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) are filling in for real life relationships, sexual fantasies and other fetish. And the legion of obsessive admirers is growing by the day!

4. There there is something called the Hentai(Japanese term) - these are cartoon games which involve sadomasochism and paedophilia!!

5. Amidst all this general knowledge I gleaned, I heard an exasperated 6 year old girl explain the Gameboy to her grand parents. Who kept on asking why the boys play gameboy and not the 'gamegirl?!@' LOL

In another few months, I can envisage a similar conversation between Neo and my father or worse still between Neo and me!!

Jeetey Raho

Some of the better ads on TV never get the due attention because many of us are busy debating the craft and the cleverness in our business! I have the ICICI Jeetey Raho TVC in mind...Maybe it's a little late in the day but let me finally park the whirling thoughts in the head...

Saw it 1-2 times on TV. Loved it for the following reasons.

1. The interplay between a modern day husband and wife is very nicely captured...I am tired of the old cliches that are no longer true! Ever so quickly there is a gender role shift happening in our towns and our lives...Accelerating every year!

The bread-winner, the decision maker, the influencer, the soft task and the hard task master, the dreamer and the doer are all roles which are getting re-defined, re-negotiated and re-packaged. Most TVCs once again lag LIFE!

2. Just the other day, was watching an old Sanjeev Kumar flick, where the heroine in a song sequence is touching the feet of SK. Fast forward to this defining imagery and the line 'Jeetey Raho' with the wife giving the 'token ashirvaad' to the husband.

3. Again it's hearting to see a girl child in the TVC. Looks like a nuclear family with one kid. And this time it's not Rahul or Karan or Ravi bete...
There is an underlying code in TV advertising which is mostly respected. When it's one child, show a boy, if it's two show a boy and a girl...

We mirror our society's fondness for boys...It might be a small thing in a 30sec commercial, but most of us fall prey to it. This ad doesn't and that's why I loved it!

Like with everything around us, ads with 'Batti Gul Ho Gayi', 'Hawa Nikal Gayi', 'Pant Khul Gayi' often end up being the most debated commercials with ad gurus voicing hoarse their coarse opinions, while its commercials like these which make the mark both in terms of sales and sense! May their tribe increase...

(Read Ankur Jain's nice analysis)as well!

P.S The hoarding near reclamation shot through the window pane of a moving cab on my mobile camera. Am ignoring my Nikon these days:-)

Friemily : Friends Become Family

While the TRP obsessed saas-bahu serials still revolve primarily around the family, in urban India amongst the upper middle class, friends are the new hub of life! Well the phenomena is not entirely new.

Maybe Bollywood tapped it first in 'Dil Chahta Hai'. The cover story of Outlook(Jun 25th issue) is on this theme. Some highlights from the issue mashed up with few of my thoughts, in no particular order...

1. "With joint families being dispersed around the country, sibling and parental ties weaken and reliance on friends grows."
There is a limit to which family ties can be maintained even on the low cost mobile telephony available in the country!!

2. "Families many-a-time are judgemental and inhibiting. Friends largely respect your independence, individualistic mores."
In a time-pressured society, young couples do not have the patience to deal with relatively more constricting familial mores.

3. "Family relationships can be hierarchical, weighed down by baggage of old feuds and quarrels. Friendships offer more liberating, guilt-free relationships."
The rapid changes in lifestyles, work-patterns, adoption of new social behaviours are better accepted, accomodated and enjoyed with friends than family.

4. "With the pace of change all around, parents fail to keep up with the new life and experiences of their young children however hard they try or liberal they try to become. Friends fill the gap!"

5. "Traditionally, the family was the inner core, while even the closest of friendships still stood outside that sanctum. But now it's all mingled, with friends becoming a part of one's family, often standing in for the family itself."
I remember while I was growing up, my father would take pains to explain the difference between 'dost' and 'bhai' even though the 'bhai' in question would be the 'second cousin' and the 'dost' - the closest buddy!

On the flip side, one may argue that family is the new friend. Blood brothers, fathers, father-in-laws/ mom-in-laws act, behave and accommodate more and more like friends...

There is a casualisation of relationships not just at the work-place but also at home. Age and experience are no longer setting the rules of the family.

Technology, first distance and dispersion and then a death-of-distance and other frenetic changes all around are re-inventing most of our social institutions and mores...

P.S. A bit of factoid. Just discovered when I type 'Friemily' in Google sesrch, my post is the page 1, item 1 search back:-)