The year is 2147. It has happened. The country is now officially run by the Market, after a century of pretenses and denials the truth has been accepted by all and everyone. Gratitude is also due for a group that called itself “Common Truth to Common Man” for their incessant fight for a decade or so to bring the change. And so keeping in sync with the desire of the common people Parliamentarians in a rare camaraderie passed a resolution with overwhelming majority and standing ovation that filled the ancient building in thunderous rapture -some members were even seen hugging each other and hiding their faces in each other’s arms incapable to control their emotions in this momentous occasion. The resolution sought to change the name of the country with Market and people to Customers, something that has been accepted and applied for all practical purpose for over a century now is made official and enshrined in the constitution. Henceforth “We the people of the country...” will read “We the customers of the Market...” all other relevant changes on these matters were made by an executive order. Further keeping in with the desires of the Market, rationality was made illegal. It will affect the sensex was the argument, accepted without any question. The Ordinance pertaining to this already existed for years that too was passed by the members without any necessity for discussion. It is as if everyone has finally realised the futility of talking. In keeping with the mood of the occasion a school girl was asked to sing in the changes to the members. The girl sang and she sang with her heart out, such melodious voice that was rarely heard. The members later were found commenting on the texture and pitch of the tone as also about the confidence in her voice.
The values of freedom and liberty were being celebrated every weekend with get together and general hugging at retail shop discount fests. People were well fed, their wishes catered to and desires pandered. Still they always had a longing for something more, something that seem missing and only the new product that is yet to come in the market seem to have the capacity to fulfill this. That longing for no reason seems growing despite all effort. Technicians worked overtime to produce new products that would titillate senses for few weeks and left people asking for more. Competitive spirit was encouraged. There were impromptu dancing in meetings and values of working in team asserted through clumped formations. On the street people had forgotten to walk, they danced from place to place in magnetizing ecstasy, they sang, they sang about brands and installment payment on latest gadgets. Though air had become thick with dangerous gases, and many fell dead on the street every now and then (bodies collected and disposed off as immediately), people were generally happy “we have what our forefathers couldn’t even imagine to have” said one man on the street “we have our personal helicopters”. Years of watching market media and bombardment from every conceivable space on what to buy had turned people into happy accepting robots. They replicated what they saw, what their grandparents saw, what their children talked about all the time. Splurging was now a communal activity and elders relapsed into their days of splurging to give references to robust tradition that must be upheld. How product A made X happier than what product B done to Y, invariably the discussions in social gathering would veer into these subtleties.
Grading in schools was done on the ability to show various facial expressions at short notice as also the impact on other students were noted for final score. The teacher said “it is all right if the kid is not able to tell why does water evaporate or whether we breath oxygen or carbondioxide, it is all right. These are views. It is his choice not to answer. We don’t insist. At least he tried. That is what we want people who try”. She pointed to the class and told them not to worry about answers “worry about the expressions. Look at the expressions on his face”. All the students were asked to note their feelings. Each expression was meant for specific feeling and these were to be emulated. These were important steps that the school curriculum stipulated. It helped in transforming future citizens into friendly customers. At the level of higher studies care was taken to create conformers, sometimes these were packaged as ‘industrial requirement’.
The law against rationality also provided for confiscating material that asked people to question market, to apply logic in exercising one’s choice was seen as a major crime. For more than a century the method applied was to ridicule those who didn’t adhere to dictates of market various organizations were created like WB, IMF so on to carry out this work at the international level. Governments were asked to focus on GDP and Market’s well being, investor friendly society was a fundamental duty. Any other view was looked down as an attempt by loony left or bohemian utopia. A century later the fringe group is eliminated, there are no dissenters. Investor friendly society had given way to investor friendly parents and children. They have accepted market as the panacea for all ill happening, including children not doing well in school or things as mundane as a stomach ache (Doctor said “look at all the glittering and colour on the street. How could you have stomach ache watching such spectacular sights?). WB has replaced UN, and arbitrates on all issues. WB President is a regular on media asking for people to be more “tolerant and compassionate”. Advertisements are now seen as social work. Performers are not seen as performers but people genuinely interested in well being of people.
In the meantime a satellite named Free Market Enterprise circle the sky and scanned the population. It need be mentioned here before we go into operational aspects of the satellite that the decadal census has now given way to market survey. The government agreed that declining sex ratio has lesser significance than number of houses that has TV. In these market survey conducted all across the country skeptics as also those advocating rationality were noted and injected with a capsule that turned their skin pink. The capsule auto injected more of pink into the skin if the person showed aggravated signs of market skepticism. It was here that the role of satellite gains importance, it is used to spy on these pink skinned –their movements were cataloged and level of pinkness noted. Since market believed in freedom of choice (provided it is not rational) the pink skinned were given the choice to reform. Programs were shown that made actors and performers making emotional appeals, non pink skinned people that is market friendly people held hands and sang songs asking for compassion and tolerance. In extreme case as a last resort pink skinned were made to watch market sponsored discussions that left people with vacant mind and general feeling of goodness. Rarely did it fail but if it ever did then the pinks were declared as threat to society and incarcerated for life.
Since people with awesome expressions and those who could affect the customers with their emotional dexterity were the benchmark of market society, what began as a nascent attempt to bring into serious debate people who could emote and raise the emotional quotient thus make the event appealing has a century later firmly established. Performers particularly actors or anyone remotely connected with movies or entertainment acquired saintly stature, apart from traditional occupations of guiding people on what face cream to use or which cola to quench thirst they were now looked upon as people who not only understood how a proper mix of market, politics and entertainment could create a contented life but insight into nirvana. They held talk shows, wrote books, hugged people on the street and invited to recipe contests. They had sentiments on subjects ranging from nuclear bombs, inflation, easy ways to relax pelvic muscles so on and were listened to with utmost interest. Their views were held in high esteem for the reason of awesome presence. People noted their changing expressions, their embodiment minutely dissected –all in immense humour- and commented with gushing realizations. Sometimes speculations on their brand choices affected the Sensex (yes even after a century it still is as sensitive).
It is in this market society of 2147 that Shuklam attained puberty in the month of July, and immediately decided he will not fall into the emotional trap of market. He avoided TV and other multimedia gadgets that were alternatives, meant to affect decision to buy. There were gadgets in the market that could auto order a product through the sensors gauging the user’s emotional response to an advertisement. So the emotion created was not wasted in waiting for the person to go to the shop and chance to stumble upon the product. It was too risky and the delay bred vacillation, an unwanted emotion. Shuklam had saved his mind from contamination, he was ably guided by his grandfather in his childhood thus he used ear plugs while in school and college. He was a member of clandestine chain of library that had bunkers under anthills. He read through the bluff of market, he had all the views collected from pre market period of 1990s. All these were in vain since in his pre teens his questioning methods had alerted the Free Market Enterprise within a day he was injected the capsule. Though he increasingly got pink but a cream from the market that promised to lighten the pink kept him away from trouble. He was tired of living this stealthy ways and so decided to come open. He therefore displayed on the busy street corner a large scribble “man is rational”. The incident captured by Free Market Enterprise and relayed to all station, within seconds he was surrounded by men in suit. They carried no weapons (market is against physical violence) nor looked angry. They patronized him with looks of someone gone astray. In the market society of future another important land mark event was that policemen were replaced by PR men. PR1 put his hand on Shuklam’s shoulder and said
“Is it necessary son?”
Shuklam shrugged and tried to get the hand off his shoulder. PR2, PR3, PR4 chatted among themselves at a distance, they kept an eye on him.
“Rebel is a waste of time” PR1 explained patiently “the earlier you understand market the more you realise that market is human beings second nature” he took a deep breath “all that is human emotion is what market is. It caters to your desires and needs. Market is here to make your life fulfilling. Embrace it”
“What makes you think being a rebel is not an emotion? It too is basic emotion” Shuklam countered
“Sure it is but a negative emotion. You are wasting your energy...see how much positive energy could be used to spread the word of market. Spread a new brand that could make someone happy somewhere. Isn’t that what we all want? Your emotion is disruptive, it doesn’t help the team, so in effect the society. Why not use your energy for market friendly issues, least threatening cause? You have a chance to playact rebel without any harm done” PR1 reasoned
“You think people are emotion driven dimwits. Your whole foundation takes common people for suckers. Is that ethical?”
“Nothing is ethical or unethical these are creations of human mind. Market at the end of the day unleashes entrepreneurship, the competition that fuels innovations”
“Market favours few at the expense of others. It is an erosional competition of few that aims at acquiring more. Also understand money making entrepreneur is not the only entrepreneurship that defines human society. What makes me human is the culture and values. And yes money too but that is secondary to my being, it may be primary to my basic needs. You cannot run a society on market needs. You cannot put utility on everything, to decide what is useful and what is not. You cannot create market friendly robots in schools and college”
“What is your problem? Why so much anger? Learn to enjoy more. You need to relax. Close your eyes and release your bad karma” PR1 seemed to use patronising demeanour to gain control over the situation “you need to learn and experience”
“I am always relaxed so don’t worry about that. I am angry because i want to know where is my garden, where are my trees, where is my sky? Where are the seasons? What happened to the climate? Why some islands have vanished? Why people keep dying on the street? You have more than fulfilled the desire of people and even created more desires. You have created a machine to feed the craving and you call it development. Your consumption has eaten into the resources of the land and eaten into the soul”
“So what’s wrong in that? We live to consume” PR1 was showing signs of irritation
“That is the problem here. You have taken primitive needs and emotions to build this edifice. The edifice is thriving on misery. Perception of opulence through overstuffed consumer goods in mall cannot fool people for long. Now you have usurped democracy. You are the new dictators”
Deep in the sky Free Market Enterprise eavesdrop the conversation, and a signal was send to PRs from the command center that the target is found to have lesser of emotion and more of rational in his mind therefore needs to be under constant surveillance, hence be taken into correctional custody.
The values of freedom and liberty were being celebrated every weekend with get together and general hugging at retail shop discount fests. People were well fed, their wishes catered to and desires pandered. Still they always had a longing for something more, something that seem missing and only the new product that is yet to come in the market seem to have the capacity to fulfill this. That longing for no reason seems growing despite all effort. Technicians worked overtime to produce new products that would titillate senses for few weeks and left people asking for more. Competitive spirit was encouraged. There were impromptu dancing in meetings and values of working in team asserted through clumped formations. On the street people had forgotten to walk, they danced from place to place in magnetizing ecstasy, they sang, they sang about brands and installment payment on latest gadgets. Though air had become thick with dangerous gases, and many fell dead on the street every now and then (bodies collected and disposed off as immediately), people were generally happy “we have what our forefathers couldn’t even imagine to have” said one man on the street “we have our personal helicopters”. Years of watching market media and bombardment from every conceivable space on what to buy had turned people into happy accepting robots. They replicated what they saw, what their grandparents saw, what their children talked about all the time. Splurging was now a communal activity and elders relapsed into their days of splurging to give references to robust tradition that must be upheld. How product A made X happier than what product B done to Y, invariably the discussions in social gathering would veer into these subtleties.
Grading in schools was done on the ability to show various facial expressions at short notice as also the impact on other students were noted for final score. The teacher said “it is all right if the kid is not able to tell why does water evaporate or whether we breath oxygen or carbondioxide, it is all right. These are views. It is his choice not to answer. We don’t insist. At least he tried. That is what we want people who try”. She pointed to the class and told them not to worry about answers “worry about the expressions. Look at the expressions on his face”. All the students were asked to note their feelings. Each expression was meant for specific feeling and these were to be emulated. These were important steps that the school curriculum stipulated. It helped in transforming future citizens into friendly customers. At the level of higher studies care was taken to create conformers, sometimes these were packaged as ‘industrial requirement’.
The law against rationality also provided for confiscating material that asked people to question market, to apply logic in exercising one’s choice was seen as a major crime. For more than a century the method applied was to ridicule those who didn’t adhere to dictates of market various organizations were created like WB, IMF so on to carry out this work at the international level. Governments were asked to focus on GDP and Market’s well being, investor friendly society was a fundamental duty. Any other view was looked down as an attempt by loony left or bohemian utopia. A century later the fringe group is eliminated, there are no dissenters. Investor friendly society had given way to investor friendly parents and children. They have accepted market as the panacea for all ill happening, including children not doing well in school or things as mundane as a stomach ache (Doctor said “look at all the glittering and colour on the street. How could you have stomach ache watching such spectacular sights?). WB has replaced UN, and arbitrates on all issues. WB President is a regular on media asking for people to be more “tolerant and compassionate”. Advertisements are now seen as social work. Performers are not seen as performers but people genuinely interested in well being of people.
In the meantime a satellite named Free Market Enterprise circle the sky and scanned the population. It need be mentioned here before we go into operational aspects of the satellite that the decadal census has now given way to market survey. The government agreed that declining sex ratio has lesser significance than number of houses that has TV. In these market survey conducted all across the country skeptics as also those advocating rationality were noted and injected with a capsule that turned their skin pink. The capsule auto injected more of pink into the skin if the person showed aggravated signs of market skepticism. It was here that the role of satellite gains importance, it is used to spy on these pink skinned –their movements were cataloged and level of pinkness noted. Since market believed in freedom of choice (provided it is not rational) the pink skinned were given the choice to reform. Programs were shown that made actors and performers making emotional appeals, non pink skinned people that is market friendly people held hands and sang songs asking for compassion and tolerance. In extreme case as a last resort pink skinned were made to watch market sponsored discussions that left people with vacant mind and general feeling of goodness. Rarely did it fail but if it ever did then the pinks were declared as threat to society and incarcerated for life.
Since people with awesome expressions and those who could affect the customers with their emotional dexterity were the benchmark of market society, what began as a nascent attempt to bring into serious debate people who could emote and raise the emotional quotient thus make the event appealing has a century later firmly established. Performers particularly actors or anyone remotely connected with movies or entertainment acquired saintly stature, apart from traditional occupations of guiding people on what face cream to use or which cola to quench thirst they were now looked upon as people who not only understood how a proper mix of market, politics and entertainment could create a contented life but insight into nirvana. They held talk shows, wrote books, hugged people on the street and invited to recipe contests. They had sentiments on subjects ranging from nuclear bombs, inflation, easy ways to relax pelvic muscles so on and were listened to with utmost interest. Their views were held in high esteem for the reason of awesome presence. People noted their changing expressions, their embodiment minutely dissected –all in immense humour- and commented with gushing realizations. Sometimes speculations on their brand choices affected the Sensex (yes even after a century it still is as sensitive).
It is in this market society of 2147 that Shuklam attained puberty in the month of July, and immediately decided he will not fall into the emotional trap of market. He avoided TV and other multimedia gadgets that were alternatives, meant to affect decision to buy. There were gadgets in the market that could auto order a product through the sensors gauging the user’s emotional response to an advertisement. So the emotion created was not wasted in waiting for the person to go to the shop and chance to stumble upon the product. It was too risky and the delay bred vacillation, an unwanted emotion. Shuklam had saved his mind from contamination, he was ably guided by his grandfather in his childhood thus he used ear plugs while in school and college. He was a member of clandestine chain of library that had bunkers under anthills. He read through the bluff of market, he had all the views collected from pre market period of 1990s. All these were in vain since in his pre teens his questioning methods had alerted the Free Market Enterprise within a day he was injected the capsule. Though he increasingly got pink but a cream from the market that promised to lighten the pink kept him away from trouble. He was tired of living this stealthy ways and so decided to come open. He therefore displayed on the busy street corner a large scribble “man is rational”. The incident captured by Free Market Enterprise and relayed to all station, within seconds he was surrounded by men in suit. They carried no weapons (market is against physical violence) nor looked angry. They patronized him with looks of someone gone astray. In the market society of future another important land mark event was that policemen were replaced by PR men. PR1 put his hand on Shuklam’s shoulder and said
“Is it necessary son?”
Shuklam shrugged and tried to get the hand off his shoulder. PR2, PR3, PR4 chatted among themselves at a distance, they kept an eye on him.
“Rebel is a waste of time” PR1 explained patiently “the earlier you understand market the more you realise that market is human beings second nature” he took a deep breath “all that is human emotion is what market is. It caters to your desires and needs. Market is here to make your life fulfilling. Embrace it”
“What makes you think being a rebel is not an emotion? It too is basic emotion” Shuklam countered
“Sure it is but a negative emotion. You are wasting your energy...see how much positive energy could be used to spread the word of market. Spread a new brand that could make someone happy somewhere. Isn’t that what we all want? Your emotion is disruptive, it doesn’t help the team, so in effect the society. Why not use your energy for market friendly issues, least threatening cause? You have a chance to playact rebel without any harm done” PR1 reasoned
“You think people are emotion driven dimwits. Your whole foundation takes common people for suckers. Is that ethical?”
“Nothing is ethical or unethical these are creations of human mind. Market at the end of the day unleashes entrepreneurship, the competition that fuels innovations”
“Market favours few at the expense of others. It is an erosional competition of few that aims at acquiring more. Also understand money making entrepreneur is not the only entrepreneurship that defines human society. What makes me human is the culture and values. And yes money too but that is secondary to my being, it may be primary to my basic needs. You cannot run a society on market needs. You cannot put utility on everything, to decide what is useful and what is not. You cannot create market friendly robots in schools and college”
“What is your problem? Why so much anger? Learn to enjoy more. You need to relax. Close your eyes and release your bad karma” PR1 seemed to use patronising demeanour to gain control over the situation “you need to learn and experience”
“I am always relaxed so don’t worry about that. I am angry because i want to know where is my garden, where are my trees, where is my sky? Where are the seasons? What happened to the climate? Why some islands have vanished? Why people keep dying on the street? You have more than fulfilled the desire of people and even created more desires. You have created a machine to feed the craving and you call it development. Your consumption has eaten into the resources of the land and eaten into the soul”
“So what’s wrong in that? We live to consume” PR1 was showing signs of irritation
“That is the problem here. You have taken primitive needs and emotions to build this edifice. The edifice is thriving on misery. Perception of opulence through overstuffed consumer goods in mall cannot fool people for long. Now you have usurped democracy. You are the new dictators”
Deep in the sky Free Market Enterprise eavesdrop the conversation, and a signal was send to PRs from the command center that the target is found to have lesser of emotion and more of rational in his mind therefore needs to be under constant surveillance, hence be taken into correctional custody.
