Micro Moisture Serum !

Once upon a time when the world was simpler, buying a product was a simple event, almost bordering on the boring. If you  wanted to buy a soap, you looked in the stores for different brands and they all said that they were soaps. Or if you wanted to buy a pair of blades, you did not have to bother if they were Teflon coated or if they had an “active edge”. One assumed that the blade was just that- a blade.

With passage of time, science and its various wonderful inventions and discoveries made its way to the products you buy, and suddenly you had to put on your thinking hat more often while buying , say, a toothpaste, or a shaving cream, or a pair of shoes, which suddenly started giving you options of going in for one with a “transition bridge” or otherwise.

 And then clever marketeers took over, and before you could say “what Ho!”, you are now suddenly faced with products which claimed to contain the most esoteric and desirable components one can wish for.

I was confronted with the complexity of making a simple trip to the neighborhood hyper market the other day, when I decided to look at the products on the shelves beyond the customary brand name or the manufacturer.

“Contains Micro Moisture Serum”-declared the bottle of Shampoo as it stared at me, urging me to try this, perhaps the latest panacea for my fast receding hairline. The text sounded technical enough to awaken the techie in me, and I decided to ignore the nagging question of “just what the hell is a micro moisture serum “ ? With a flourish, I picked up the shampoo and ceremoniously placed it in my shopping basket.

Feeling rather smug with my attainment of the micro moisture serum, I went on to the section selling toothpastes. I found one with “Denta X”. Another claimed it contained “Fluro Y”. And then there was “Active crystal W”, “Whitex Z”  and “Titanium T” .Now this is no longer that simple- I realized. I closed my eyes in silent meditation, and images of white haired, bespectacled and bearded  scientists started dancing around  ! I also saw professor calculus with his invention- he was the one who had seemingly invented Active Crystal W.I decided to settle for that one- the one with “Active Crystal W”.It promised that the revolutionary new crystals would effectively give me a new pair of bright shiny teeth. My eyes sparked at the prospect of Active Crystal W getting about its business of solving mankind’s problems with yellow teeth .

The washing powder then presented some of the most esoteric inventions hitherto unknown to mankind. There was "Stain busters", "grime busters", "Active Whitening Agents", "Passive Coloring Agents", "Xylo- X", "Formula White" and "Zeta Zones" as some of the marvelous inventions tucked away in the boxes and packets of washing powders. I was now extremely happy that the fruits of scientific research is indeed a pick away, and gratefully acknowledged the swirling images of beared professors in their explosive labs concocting up the goodies so that we mortals can live a life cleaner, whiter and  better !

I left the store wondering what the wonderful professor Calculus would come up with, next !

Bang for the Buck !

Things  seems to be plodding on uneventfully  for a long time, and I find  this disturbing . Uncle Sibal seems to be hibernating  somewhere and  blogger still seems to work. So he hasn’t banned it yet. Uncle Mani I suppose continues to froth in his mouth but is somehow unseen for a while and correspondingly un appreciated. Uncle Kalmadi oscillates between being an Alzheimer’s patient and being the head of the Indian Olympics association .And all other aunts and uncles seem to be busy going around their business of being aunts and uncles. Thus, in this rather placid and thereby grim scenario, the only  uncle who can now be looked forward to provide some entertainment in the near future is “Unkel Pronob” .

“Unkel Pronob” will be the man of the season very soon, as he goes about presenting the budget . Not being a student of economics myself, I will refrain from passing technically apt comments about the exercise and it’s outcome. But don’t you worry about not getting enough intellectual insights on this exercise, for there will be enough junta on the television , banging their hands on the table , bringing forth all the intricate feature of the budget. And while they bang their hands on the tables, we, the “mango people”( err.. the aam Janta ! ) , will be busy banging our heads against the wall.

Banging our heads in utter despair, again and again, to see our hard earned money going down the drain that passes as roads and infrastructure in this country. In despair against a rotten medical system where new born babies are rubbed with acid, (unless of course you earn well enough to afford a private medical system, where you get rubbed differently). In despair against a system where you are systematically conned, duped, abused ,swindled and ill treated, all with your own money !!

Notwithstanding the above mentioned acts of banging, do lookout for the annual ritual of “Unkel Pronob” declaring how he plans to tax us more. And then watch out for hilarious acts of defense and offence by the intellectuals on TV, moderated by  shrill ,hysterical and clueless anchors, all banging their hands on  the table with thingies flying around; well, almost !  And by the time the jamboree ends, most of us “mango people” would have got enough bang for our bucks !

And while all this banging goes around, it might be worthwhile to see the banging which our famed cricketers have received, off late. Have a heart for the poor sods ! You subject them to an abject torture of playing in a bouncy wicket  against some marauding speedsters. Then you ask them to play 50 over games and then, can you believe it, a 5 day, two innings test match ! In this age of instant nirvana, instant fame and instant money ? And then you expect the “boys” to win those matches ? Insane, I tell you !