Review of..
Article by : Sagarika Ghose
Published on : TOI
Dated : 25th may 2015.
Article by : Sagarika Ghose
Published on : TOI
Dated : 25th may 2015.
This is a review of Sagarika Ghose’s article “P.S I love me”.
If you haven’t yet read the original article, in the interest of context I suggest
you to have read that first. Its posted “here”.
These interests of Sagarika, such
as brand of Modi’s shawls and talk about selfies etc, reminds of the stereotypical
women that we hear & read about in jokes & whatsapp forwards. Are all
women really so obsessed with clothing, style, brands and selfies?
Anyway, talking
about the article, this time it isn’t completely just a puke of words with
dictionary thrown at face. Although however there are thoughts have wandered
off a little bit and does have some big new words from the dictionary. To start
with she calls taking selfies as Narcissism! Wasn’t that the thing always about
taking photos of people? The second camera on phones have only reduced the
dependency of another person only.
The first
paragraph simply summarizes the whole purpose of her article. The Modi-Li
selfie became the most viewed with some 32 million views. One of the other stereotypical
features of women that we come across is ‘Jealousy’. Is that the driver for the
article? Probably none of her selfies got that kind of views? Nevertheless there
is certainly some show of knowledge in this paragraph, of other popular selfies
taken.
She goes
on to say Great wall, Sphinx etc are only a backdrop purpose to project
oneself. Ofcourse Saggu, like you have already called selfies as an act of narcissism,
its only purpose is to say I was here at this place, travelled here, afforded a
travel to here, was privileged to get here etc. The next paragraph was a good
flashback story, atleast to me, walking thru the journey of types of photos we
used to have and the technologies used at different times. Interesting though
is that she calls us third worlders! What on earth?! What kind of a person
& that too a journo and especially a
one who talks so often about secularism call oneself & fellow citizen as third
worlders! That’s unpalatable.
The next
paragraph, I am compelled to believe, is just a filler. Makes no sense what so
ever. How is a wedding photograph a shrine for our grand children? And what
call to duty? Calling for the duty of making dozens of children & grand
children? He he. The further part I think something that makes complete sense.
For once I might agree to give credit to her. Why bother about mainstream
media, who only focuses on biased views, selective messaging and even so
focuses on the PM’s suit n shawl? Instead connect with the young guns yourself?
The last
paragraph is the most debatable one. A selfie is relating to end of privacy?
Taking a posting a selfie is end of privacy? Really? A picture & the
backdrop is all there is to privacy? I don’t know what to say about it. The
second line is just an attempt to portray some kind of linking. And a massive
failure at that! ‘Like Upanishads talk about connecting Atma to Brahma, selfie
connects to the world’? brahma is the world? What analogy? If anything is
connecting individuals to the world, I would first give credit to the internet
as whole and then comes FB, twitter and then Instagram. The selfie is only a
way of show off a.k.a narcissism in Saggu’s dictionary. If really have to
relate the selfies to atma & Brahma in that sense, it is more like ‘Aham brahmasmi’
interpreted in the wrong way. Justifying Narcissism.
Conclusion : An article intended out of the fact that Modi’s
selfie got 32M views and added with a lot of senseless fillers.