Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The Self-publicity Bug

Self-publicity seems to be creeping into every part of the system today. Celebrities, especially, jaded ones, whose better times are behind them, seem to crave the limelight. Be it a wedding or a funeral, the couple's relatives or the bereaved family seem to think their love for the couple or the departed respectively, is not completed till they have defaced a few walls with posters eulogizing the couple or the departed soul. Why this mania for publicity? And new politicians and leaders of organizations that are going to vanish from the face of this earth the next day, ask their followers to spend all their energy erecting cutouts or pasting posters. Money that could be well spent on alleviating the distress of at least a few of the millions of poverty stricken Indians is poured down the drain of self-publicity. And the titles they give themselves are sickening. One leader of an organization has been called 'volcano'. Going by his girth, that looks like he is going to explode, one can say he has been aptly named or nicknamed.

We can at least accept these publicity seekers among politicians and wannabe politicians. But what about the antics of the common public bitten by the publicity bug. They invite big leaders for weddings and hold up the entire proceedings till the grate.. er.. sorry, great leader arrives. It is utter nonsense of course. A wedding demands the presence of the families of the couple, their friends, the registering authority or the religious leader . What is the need for these fools to create a ruckus about it. Likewise a funeral ceremony is going to end in a graveyard, why the need for posters and cutouts? Is the dead person going to wake up, look around and appreciate all the paraphernalia? The people who do this are not doing it out of love for the departed, but for self-glorification.

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