Honour

My latest addiction is Grey's Anatomy. Nothing exceptional about it. Star World just airs it at a convenient time and like everyother drama series, it is addictive.

Last night's episode had something a character, Mama Burke, said. It goes like this:

Do you know when to walk away? Do you know when not to take less than you deserve, if you do, then you’re an honorable man
 

It stayed with me enought to blog about it. I don't think I qualify as honourable really most of the times according to this definition. But I also think it needs more to be added to what constitutes honourable.

So I asked a friend. He thinks you qualify as honorable if you stand tall to what you have decided or promised to achieve/do. And you achieve without compromising yourself or your values. At night wen you sleep without any guilt of having not put effort ..you're an honourable man. You sacrifice when needed and grab when desired ..honourable.

Touching really. But big holes for me to fall into. To me honour is simpler yet strikingly similar. Believe in something, stand for that, dodge the bullets, get shot, bleed a little, know something's protected, look in the mirror and be able to look yourself in your eyes.

But I like what the GA's character said about knowing what you deserve. About knowing your self-worth and knowing when to walk away. It's the hardest, this decision to live alone, to break away. But is it our upbringing that keeps us from not wanting isolation or living alone or is it something else?

Ironies that face you

Ironies often stand in front of you, facing you, taunting you. I am facing one right now. I love marketing. I love to do it. But a current marketing phenomenon is irking me to no end. Here are samples of why.

 

 

Karwa Chauth. A day that was special because mom dressed in her wedding finery and I got to play with her silks. A day that was like any other except we'd go moon hunting for ma. A day we'd get puris and kheer. Then came Karan Johar.

I hadn't seen half the fanfare shown in Bollywood happening anywhere around me. And to come to think of it, Karwa Chauth is a festival native to my homeland! It's an out and out north Indian festival holding religious significance in UP, Bihar and the ilk. Punjabis just did the pooja in a community like every other festival. Bollywood then made it a party.

Last few years I have seen this day being transformed into an Indian contribution to the gifting industry. I'd always read about what happened to Mother's Day from its humble beginnings, Valentine's Day from its clandestine marriages and creation of days left, right and centre. To see it happening to this somehow, somewhere touched an irritated nerve in me. I am supposed to marvel and learn how to create such amazing platforms for brands. I am supposed to understand consumer behaviour and how to best exploit it. But when I am a consumer, I find it intrusive, exploitive and damn right irritating. And this is irony.