from bling jewellery to reality TV

'The wheels of change'... ever wondered why we use that particular phrase? Is it because, with ‘change’, we associate a rapid, uncontrollable movement...an inevitable fluidity of principles, economies, traditions, ideologies, of beliefs, policies, relations, borders, of rivers, glaciers, mountains and volcanoes, of love and of war... I mean, what doesn’t change?? They say the only constant in man’s phenomenal evolutionary history has been CHANGE. Well, if its motion that we wanted to signify, why not say, the 'trains of change'.... and if it’s the incessant influx of new ideas, why not, 'the rivers of change'? Maybe it’s got something to do with the way wheels move.... up-down, up-down, up-down...cyclically...up-down, up-down, up-down... We see this, let’s call it ‘cyclicity’, everywhere... in every new dawn, in every drop of thawing snow heralding the arrival of spring..in religious theories of reincarnation and in the most fundamental law of science ‘matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Only changed from one form to another’.
The old cliché 'what goes, comes around' is exemplified in the world of fashion...by what’s hot and what’s not. Boot-cuts and bell-bottoms made a comeback a few years ago, and so did block and floral prints. What was considered criminally ghastly last year is a must-have this season. Your mom may not understand the aesthetics or the logic behind carrying a mobile phone and a tiny purse in a gargantuan bag but 'Bling is THE thing!'. All this said, bling jewellery is a completely innocuous indulgence and retro fashion isn’t killing anybody. However, not all things ancient have harmless modern avatars. For example, gladiatorial combat – the epitome of the decadence of the ancient romans, is back with a vengeance in a new, glossy, revamped form – Reality TV...and it’s turning every drawing room into the colosseum and every viewer into a sadistic, blood-thirsty roman..
The barbaric romans, in all their depravity, enjoyed as a spectacle, the brutal murder of helpless prisoners by Caesar’s legions, the savage conflicts among the enslaved gladiators, the inhuman scenes of torture and the blood curdling slaughter of slaves by animals... What is called reality TV is inherently based on and thrives upon the same thing- human sadism and the perverseness of what we consider entertaining... Here however, there are no victimised slaves and no inflictors of cruelty... the viewers are gratified, true... but they’re also victimised unknowingly...
When we see our basest instincts, our meanest thoughts, our numbing mediocrity reflected on screen by the rich and the famous, it probably smothers even the tiny scruples that we may still have about being bitchy and mean and well, mediocre...it gives us the confidence that, if we choose to, we could also become rich and famous by just being our vile, below-average, lazy, mundane selves.... We see celebrity participants snapping at each other and watch in rapt attention as they make mean, below-the-belt, racist comments... we enjoy it when wannabe performers are verbally assaulted and utterly humiliated by so-called judges and we also revel in the sniping and the bitching and the tantrums of the judges themselves...We have sunk to such macabre depths of perversion that we are now telecasting wars and executions... Whats more terrible, is that it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop here.... as we smell more blood, we get hungrier, greedier and keep asking for more..more..MORE...
In today’s world of faster cars, bigger paycheques, looser morals, ephemeral passion and instant gratification, it does indeed seem like we will remain, for quite some time atleast, in the hypnotic hold of a monster that we created ourselves, a satanic beast that feeds on greed and boredom and dissolved morals, a poison that is nurturing human vice so subtly that we aren’t even noticing anymore... the hypnotic hold, of the Big Boss...