Thursday, December 30, 2010

Kolkata converts: Kaleidoscope sleeps in a strange bed


Kaleidoscope cannot say that he sacrifices things for the city he likes. First, because kaleidoscope has never abandon anything to live for the city. Second, and more importantly, he never has something to abandon for the city. As a participant (Can he say? well make it clear, he resides about 15 km away from the heart of the city) he has stronger attachment with his city. "His city" means Kolkata in late 1990s and early 2000s.

The inevitable:

While, the market principles dominate Kaleidoscope's world's governance, some say the transformation is inevitable. The question is what is this transformation. Transformation which makes Kaleidoscope feel that he is sleeping in some strange bed.

Principal nodes:
With his dangerously biased eyes, Kaleidoscope finds several nodes speeding up the transformation. First, the software boom - eighty percent of Kaleidoscope's friends work in this sector. "A lot" is the most suitable adjective - they work (a lot), earn (a lot) and spend (a lot). Second, and ever-increasing - the not bengali businessmen - they earn a lot, they chew a lot and their sons and daughters spend a lot. Third, and finally the bengalis who invest so much of their brain in imitation. Therefore, they cannot earn as much as the first two, they try to spend as much as them, and they obviously chew a lot...!

Reflections:

Kaleidoscope finds both material and social/mental reflection of the inevitable.

The material part:
The material part represents monotony. Kaleidoscope finds worlds are becoming world.




Two shopping malls, the first one is from USA (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/online-shopping-vs-driving-mall-greener.php) and second one is Kolkata's south city mall.

The social/mental part:
This segment represents increasing love and faith on brand-names, increasing calculability in every sphere from dot pen refill to relationships. Kaleidoscope finds increasing use of electronic gadgets, a displacement of privacy of body by privacy of the mobile phone!

Come on - sleep on
Kaleidoscope continues to live in this world with increasingly small and yet large number of available alternatives and tries to win over his self which finds this city as a strange bed to sleep on. However, he is also getting a reminder that this rapid transformation makes it easier for Kaleidoscope to grow old!