Images

For last few days a lot may have happened around us among which the most popular ones –Tiger Wood’s return to the Masters, the IPL controversy, Earthquake in China, the failure of the GSLV launch and the IPL matches. Others would add some more or less to this list which is understandable. The events of our daily lives make us form opinions and actions and all this collective opinion and action is the dynamics of our lives. There is research into the tweeter phenomenon- celebrity gossips, what is the dynamics of that? A bunch of friends meet and a lot get discussed about the latest happenings a lot in our heads is a result of how we come across them, through interaction, communication. Between long distance friends there used to be letters exchanged that would take weeks to find the reader apparently if the imagination can be stretched as Aparna Sen would have us believe in the Japanese Wife, a very intimate relationship could be shared through mere exchange of words. Well I wouldn’t say it as a stretch because you see words do provoke a reaction within us. The IPL concocto-versy for instance, people are curious, that is a reaction. We react to words. What is with Shashi Tharoor? What is with Lalit Modi? Questions- reaction that drives us to find more words and more questions.

J.Krishnamurty would say that all we know about the world are only images in the memory. All the conditioning, habits, fears, pleasure we acquire in memory determines our personality. How we perceive about things. In this dynamic world we acquire opinions faster than ever before thanks to the words and images that fly very fast through all the optical fibers criss-crossing the high seas and all the innovators and entrepreneurs who evangelized Web and their application the Phenom- Social Networking. The blog I am writing to is a result of that and you reading it. What does a person go through with all this image building exercise? Swami Nithyanand had quite a successful following. I was surprised some very talented and educated people were following him. Until Swami Nithyanand “seemed” to do something “un-Swami” like. Quite a few went bonkers taking to the streets. Arrest warrants issued and now there are court cases for Nithyanand to fight. So in addition to “Image building” there is also destruction of images leading to anger, rage, depression, increased heart rate, man vs man. Well apparently images are not permanent there are the Bull and Bear runs spoiling the party and that’s what a person seems to go through.

Everything is a function of the prevailing images; sentiments that take the stock market to rallies and crashes. Take the case of the conflict between the government and the Maoists- images hating images. Religions around the world would want us to BELIEVE. What Images? Notions? Biases? Bigotry? Image of what is righteous, virtuous? And when those are contradicted by others we blow each other up? Images. It is like the fiendish character in Batman Series- the Two Face, images- of pleasure or fear. Well with all this I better handle this image thingy with care, be careful with them, they seem to come in different sizes and shapes and these days in Bytes- K, M and G Bytes. They are thieves out to get to your peace of mind. Watch out even from the Morpheus who would give you the Red or Blue Pill.