escape velocity

Okay! that statement was exaggerated. But I have a point to make.

Way back in the summer of 1608, a chap called William Hawkins, commanded a British East India Company Naval Expedition to India. He was followed by another chap called Sir Thomas Roe, who persuaded the Moghul emperor Jahangir to allow the Brits set up shop on our shores. And, with them, they brought English. First as the Bible (surprise, surprise), then as official documents. It kinda’ musta’ elped’ em’ make it sound cool to the natives. What happened after that…we all know

Fast forward a few hundred years, and we’re still there. Globalisation put ‘z’ in place of ’s’. That is all.

Now, typical urban ‘English speaking’ folks think most Indians who do not speak the language are illiterate (dumb!?), hence, plain stupid easily conned. Movies endorse this stereotype. You see the gullible bloke from the village coming to city, and getting duped, in almost every movie with a rural setting. Let’s put this aside for a moment.

Recently, Lodestar Universal (a company formed by merging the operations of Lodestar, media division of FCB Ulka, and Universal McCann) published a report that said ‘People who speak English at home had higher shopping potential compared to those speaking vernacular languages’.
The Hindu Business Line has the whole story.

And, I am tempted to be the devil for a moment. So, let’s remove the sugar-coating and interpret it in a different way. It could also mean that if you are an English speaker, you are low on thrift, rational and control, and high on impulse, gullibility and can be sold anything and everything. I realise I am being plain stupid in making such a statement. I chose to edit this part as my friend Leena pointed to me that my reasoning was quite shallow there.

But let’s look at the forest for a moment. Plainly speaking, consumerism is primarily urban phenomena. Urban landscapes are primarily business districts, and mostly cosmopolitan. Today, people in urban spaces are re-defining their wardrobes, cosmetics, shoes, and lifestyles in a manner disproportionate to their rural counterparts. My friend, Brian pointed me to an interesting quote of Thoreau: “Beware any enterprise which requires you to buy new clothes.â€? Truth spoken ‘enterprise’ is changing ‘people’ and their lives. It so happens that these families tend to speak in English at home as they are cosmopolitan couples or simply speaking disconnected with their culture in practice.

So, It also means, on an average, an English speaking desi is easily coaxed (lifestyle) in to spending more than his fellow native speakers. Now, is it because most advertisements are in English. Well, no! There are more in vernacular languages. The lifestyle factors that triggered shopping mania were linked to `visits to coffee shops and cinema halls’

The research report also says that English speakers purchase more colour cosmetics compared to their native speaker cousins. Now, is there a study that says ‘English’ makes people insecure and self-conscious. That could be a good thesis topic eh.

Here’s where it gets interesting and revealing. The reports says that ‘Visakhapatnam had 224 per cent higher shopping potential than Jalandar.’ Now think about this conspiracy theory. Southies have always had the colour complex. You can see them waddling in buckets of Fair and Lovely. Now add a pinch of English language to their lives. Damn, that must be it. That is it. The formula!!! OMG, I am a genius!!!

Mapping out potential of the retail sector in India must be a fun job after all. Imagine counting the number of insecure, English speaking chu…err..consumers across the sub-continent. I am sure they’d need a IIM grad to do their study.

Simply put, this just proves that learning English can be an expensive affair for the rest of your life. It’s a language with a high annual lifestyle maintenance contract, in India atleast.

. Where do they find such twats!?

Well, that is what Cosmopolitan says. And, I could not have put it better. Frankly speaking, for a city starved for good gigs and gig-worthy joints, having a good musician drop by once in a while, is as good as it gets in this part of the world.

While, performing live isn’t a joke, captivating one’s audiences is a different ball game all together, and a feat that few artistes excel in. She sang in French to a packed house of real and fake Francophiles. And, she pulled it off. Now that takes a lot more than plain talent eh . Do check her out at www.emilyloizeau.net. Her voice had character and soul!

I wish I could say the same about the venue (ITC Kakatiya) where she performed. Then again, despite being a pathetic place to have a good gig, they are one of the co-sponsors. And, bitching about them is like complaining to a lone Bedouin who serves you water in a desert, that it (the water) is just not cold enough.

And oh…continuing it’s showers of praise on Emily, Cosmopolitan adds ‘Une révélation venue de < Autre Bout du Monde >. I couldn’t agree more, literally and metaphorically.

But having such a great evening sounds too good to be true eh! Well, it wasn’t, or it wasn’t so for long. After Emily’s ‘veni, vidi, vici’ act, the evening went on a downward spiral, like it usually happens, after a crescendo. The organisers put a bunch of dead pan frizzy haired wannabe amateur rockstars cum weekend gospel band performers on stage. It was almost like watching a B grade Malayalam movie after sitting through a three hour reel classic like Benhur! They call themselves ‘Word of Mouth’. Not only did they excel at fucking up the whole evening with a characterless performance that seemed like hangover headache, they preposterously claimed….it was Jazz! And top (or bottom) it all, their lead bushman made a few pathetic attempts at conversing with the audience. All he could do was, put together a bunch of sloppy statements as to how his Hindi was so-so, and therefore French being a far cry, or what a tight spot he finds his band in, as ‘Elmily’ (Yes, he didn’t know the name of the artist he was supposed to open for) raised the bar for them (well…she’s a real artiste…duh!). These sadhus should be banished from Hyderabad, or relegated to the dingy pubs and clubs.

All said and done, they did manage to trigger a ‘word of mouth’ rapping of their act last night.