Shut up and Be Positive
“There is a deadly pandemic raging on.”
“I know. I am scared.”
“People are dying.”
“I know. It is breaking my heart.”
“I lost someone I know.”
“I am so sorry. You please take care of yourself and allow yourself to grieve.”
“What did you say?”
“I said please take care of yourself and take your time to grieve.”
“You are such an utterly despicable negative person.”
“I am what?”
“Yes of course you are. I can cook and make twenty types coffee and do yoga and give a positivity sermon and you are asking me to grieve?”
“I am sorry buddy. You do what floats your boat.”
“Exactly. Didn’t you lose a loved one too?”
“Yes. I am still struggling.”
“Well did you try making a watermelon out of cucumber by dipping it in honey?”
“Did I what?”
“Well you can either sit and let the negativity consume you or you can join in and spread cheer?”
“Well I am happy you’re spreading cheer and we need an escape once in a while, but you can’t dictate positivity to anyone.”
“You’re deluded if you think I dictated positivity to anyone. I only want positivity around me. I’ll cut you off if you’re negative. Insert sad emoticon.”
“Did you really just try to insert a sad emoticon in a real life conversation?”
“How else would you know I am sad?”
“All right man. I am done.”
“No you’re not done until you have tagged twenty friends under my post about how we need to remain positive and avoid crying or showing any basic human emotion and participated in my giveaway where you win a free ticket to my positivity sermon on Zoom where I shame you for being sad or fearful.”
I know social media is a competition. I know I log in every day to enter a place where everyone looks better than I do, everyone has a better life than I do, and where everyone is happier than I am. I log in because life is much easier to deal with when you’re getting validation in return. I log in because I need a free ticket to feel worse about myself than I already do. So ‘toxic positivity’ is just an escalation of ‘you must feel good 24*7’ because if you don’t, there will be no likes and no validation, which will convert to no dopamine which you have been trained to get and have it snatched in two minute intervals by the social media bosses.
I am going to say something rather revolutionary here. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to feel fear, pain and grief. What you’re feeling is valid. You don’t have to brush every single feeling under the carpet because you have to be cheerful for your friends and followers. It’s already difficult for so many of us. I know how it feels to not feel represented because you feel sad. Social media says depression should be pretty and anxiety should be a virtue. It’s not. It’s ugly as it gets and life is hard. If you’re frustrated, your feelings are valid. If you’re tired, you haven’t taken a bath for the last couple of days, you haven’t stepped out of the bed, your room is a mess, the utensils are piling up, give yourself a break. You don’t have to go live on Instagram and do a twenty second dance with the caption, ‘we’re in this together.’ Come on, it’s 2021, and with Covid-19, everyone, even the most sickening toxic positivity warrior is hoping they’re not positive when the test results come.
If you’re an artist, a singer, dancer, painter or just an amateur, you’re welcome to create content for anyone who wishes to consume them. If there’s someone who would like to rant and vent, create a space for them too. I mean if everyone’s going to make an Instagram reel about how they’re chuffed the glass is half full, who is going to point out that the glass is half empty too? Hashtag representation for the cynics and pessimists too. And when that is all done, go back and wash some utensils. It’s piling up, and you’ll get your dopamine hit in the morning when a clean kitchen stares back at you.
Big fat Indian weddings
A lot has happened this year. 2016 was ‘The International Year of Pulses’, 2017 was ‘The International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development,’ 2019 is the ‘International Year of Indigenous Languages.’ The United Nations did not declare 2018 as the International Year for any particular thing. Perhaps why our Indian media took on itself to brand 2018 as the ‘International Year of Big Fat Indian weddings.’ Just a minor distraction from the fact that India had urged the United Nations to declare 2018 the ‘International Year of Millets’ so that more awareness could be raised about millets.
But let us talk about what is important. Not millets. Weddings. Especially the ones our media relentlessly posts about. And why not? 5 famous people out of a nation of 1.3 billion got married. The paparazzi kept hounding them, ‘madam, madam, sir please here look madam sir please one photo’ as they tried to make their way out of their wedding venue. It wasn’t just the media trying to milk the weddings to bring exclusive news about who wore green Sabyasachi lehenga and who wore a pink Sabyasachi saree, it was also the celebrities themselves who milked their own weddings, tagging brands and essentially getting paid to get married.
A lot more people got married, but let’s face it, we don’t really care about them. But they care about these weddings. The headlines scream, ‘What this multi millionaire wore to this billionaire's wedding will stun you’, ‘This starlet’s designer handbag she carried to the reception costs more than your yearly salary.’ Wow Sherlock Holmes, anything should cost more than $0. But yeah ‘rich, good looking millionaire is husband goals,’ Priyanka-Nick honeymoon is goals.’ I agree.
We talk incessantly about the weddings. Win for the designers. Win for the celebrities who get free stuff for plugging brands. Win for the consumers who consume this news? An average middle class family who exhausts most of its savings trying to throw one extravagant wedding party for their kids, now faces the additional ‘decision to marry bash’, ‘pre-engagement bash’, ‘engagement bash’, ‘pre-wedding bash’, ‘wedding bash’ and hopefully 17 post wedding reception parties, just to keep up. Minus the Beyoncé of course. None of us can really afford her, but we could probably have kids in the family gyrate to catchy Hindi songs in her absence. Come on, let’s face it. Ours is a capitalist economy. There will always be inequality. Someone will always have more. Celebrities do what they have to do. Media reports on what people want to hear. The problem is with us, that we nod our heads and accept this as our ‘goals.’ And middle class families are the hardest hit.
Consumption of mass media has already led to a distorted version of how we are supposed to look, how much we are supposed to weigh, how our relations are supposed to be (like Brangelina or Nickyanka?), what our goals should be. And now it’s increasingly clear how our weddings have to look. A show ‘Band Baja Bride' on NDTV Good Times gives an opportunity to brides to have their dream wedding and to get dressed by Sabyasachi. Right now, he’s the sine qua non of any big fat Indian wedding. We watch as ‘ordinary’ brides gush about how it was their dream to be married in a Sabyasachi designer wear and how NDTV fulfilled their biggest dream.
Obviously Sabyasachi, or Manish Malhotra who designed napkins at the Ambani-Piramal wedding are greatly talented designers, and big fat weddings help tourism, boost employment, and bring bread on the table of the many people involved in it. However, it is important to not get swayed. It’s all right to have an imperfect wedding. It’s okay to buy napkins from the local store than get it designed. It’s fine to save money and not throw a big party that no one will remember after three days. It’s imperative to do what you want to do, not what the society or media is forcing you to do. On that note, now that the weddings are over, keep an eye on pregnancy news. Is the rich, good looking multi millionaire pregnant? Is Priyanka Chopra hiding her growing belly? Because my new 'goal' is a hotshot businessman throwing his daughter an extravagant pre-pregnancy bash.