Changes we need to change: Part 1

Let me try to consolidate a list of commonplace 'changes' I am tired of. The reasoning or grounds used here may not be scientific, nor artistic either. But these are some of the most irritating things I really want a law enforcing agency to take note of. Last month I undertook a revision of the crash course I attended 1.5yrs back from George Carlin. Maybe I'm little pushed to make lists after refreshing the fond memories of this gentleman. He plays an important role to bring out some of the things from deep within me.

1. Beans over leaves: Was there a news paper report suggesting tea is carcinogenic and coffee is for regular usage to stay cool? Does a fat coffee mug look more fashionable than a cup? Is it more economic? Is it because south Indians are heavily into coffee? I don't think any of such considerations helped us (the rest of the nation who were happy with tea until last decade) take the big leap. It's not the beans which made us seek for a change. Sipping on a mug, held with 'loads of attitude'... like the Americans do... this visual pleasure did the trick. We migrated to 365 days of coffee drinking just because we got exposed to seeing others doing it. The media prompted us to think 'differently'. And we showed that we are real thinkers! I have always loved tea. Not even for a day I wanted it to change. Forget coffee, I don't understand the variations within tea family - like green tea, lemon tea, ice tea, ginger tea and all other types the society creme de la creme take active interest in. Coffee is not bad - occasionally I can take it, e.g. when I want to have a cup of tea but it's not available. Or when a host offers it to the guests including me. I am concerned that plain tea might slowly vanish from the shops around me in spite of India feeding tea to the whole world.
2. Cricket: Sports were never our forte. Let's admit it. We were hardly able to show our presence in any world meet. Cricket gave us, the colonial cousins of the Brits, an opportunity to shine. Just a handful of nations, we being one of them... we kind of learnt it well out of desperation. When I was a child, cricket used to be a seasonal fruit. It used to be a family get together when India played a match against another developing or decaying nation on a chilly holiday. I stuck to it till I reached ~25Y. One fine day I lost interest in it. My parents still love it. But they are not in a position to complain about my disloyalty - cricket has changed so much that it is difficult to even recognize it. Maybe the administrators tried to save it from its natural death or maybe they felt the game was doing fine, but the business was not growing much. I don't know which one was the case. Let's take it to the desert, invite Bermuda to send 11 volunteers to the World Cup, play it throughout the year, do all the commercials using cricketers, bring cheerleaders to keep the sleepy crowd awake, cut it so short that one can watch a whole match while taking dinner, play only at night so that the players don't sweat, change the rule of the game every 2.5M so that each player becomes an all-rounder, make them wear colored shirts on field, put zinc oxide, diet coke, use more scientific decision making to eradicate human error. My disillusionment may be just a coincidence. But it can't be denied that cricket has lost its soul. A timely death might have been more graceful.
3. Technology vs science: A PhD, human resources expert taught me "Anything that can be sold to a real client for real money is a technology". The need to churn out technologies has soared up exponentially. Every corporation is dying to make life simpler by introducing newer gadgets that make earlier versions look dated in a month's time. Science is a boring, laboratory thing; technology is for the mankind. Affordability is for the economists, health hazards are for the doctors - something went wrong somewhere in the evolution process. Communication was never my strength, I don't and can't communicate with others like they do. I do use some, life can't be without evils! I've given up any hope to compete with my contemporaries/juniors in the race to use gadgets and I feel blessed. Technology is creating new peers - just another new dimension to compete.
4. Shopping vs buying: George Carlin said "Spending money they don't have on things they don't need". That perfectly defines 'shopping' to me. That does just enough to isolate it from 'buying' too. We are big time 'consumers' now. I remember I used to use the word 'marketing' for 'shopping' - a senior friend corrected me saying "Shopping is what you do, and marketing is what a seller does". A decade has passed since and people have turned into obsessive shopping-lovers. I feel so sad to see the 'cherubic smile' (this is not mine, a good friend said it while describing someone's reaction during window shopping in a mall). I can't stop anyone but can't join the bandwagon even if I'm offered a truck load of money. Technology and shopping - in short, consumerism is our newest addiction. Once again, we have been one sided to pick something from the American kitty.

Continued...