Years ago, I had written a blog post on how being out of work for so many years in the advertising industry in India felt like being in exile. In exile with my own thoughts and ideas on brands, besides all the other subjects I write about on my blog. From the Indian and global economy to the influence of technology and what I think of digital communications, as also about books that I have been reading and cultural changes taking place all around us. You could say that my blog has not only kept me in touch with my work in advertising and brand communications, it has given me a coping mechanism to deal with the long hiatus in my career.
It is the cultural aspect that I would now like to turn to, in this piece of mine. I believe it’s an extremely important aspect of one’s life – important for one’s sense of balance, well-being, creativity and most importantly for one’s sense of self and who one is. Here, I mean culture in the context of the arts and the sciences of course, quite separate and distinct from organizational or corporate culture, which also I write about on my blog.
All the years that I have been out of the advertising and brand communications industry in India – which is over 16 years now – I have been living in Goa with my aged parents who settled here at least 30 years ago. And I am so grateful for the fact that we have so many good books to read and great music to listen to, at home. I am thankful for the fact that much of my music collection is still with me here, though I lost most of my books to termites many years ago at my parents’ place. However, there are many occasions when I miss the cultural buzz of a city, especially at this time of the year. For it is at this time of the year, that Delhi – where I have spent more than half of my life and my entire professional career – comes to life. Between November and March, the city is alive with music concerts, plays, film screenings, book fairs, art festivals and so much more.
In Goa, I am mostly home-bound and with the exception of the Goa Arts and Literature Festival that I wrote about in two parts, and a talk by economist, Maitreesh Ghatak that I attended – both at the International Centre Goa – I haven’t partaken anything culturally speaking here. The IFFI just concluded in Goa, but I haven’t attended any of the film screenings in all the years that I have been here. Somehow, the fare is iffy – pun intended – and doesn’t interest me. If you ask me, the entire idea of trying to turn Goa into Cannes is not merely foolish, it is a waste of time and money.
At home, I usually read the books we have here and those that either I or my aged father buy from Amazon from time to time. And I listen to a lot of music on my computer, while working on my blog and writing on brands. When I tire of my music or am too lazy to attach the external drive and fetch CDs, I turn to YouTube to listen to a wide array of music. From western classical, to jazz, blues and old rock, a lot of which I also fancy and possess. I have also been listening to some wonderful music from western and north Africa, including on instruments such as the oud and kora, on YouTube.
I realise that when one is not working, cultural indulgence becomes a luxury. One can’t just buy books and music – as I once used to – whenever one feels like. I have had to be extremely careful and selective in the kind of books I buy, and I have been choosing those that I have always wanted to read and are also in some way related to my work and interests. Besides, I have come to realise that with unprofessional PR agency idiot bosses along with their cronies in RK Swamy/BBDO meddling in publishing, so much of what we buy and read is a complete waste of money and time. If you have been reading my blog regularly, you would know by now that they have not merely interfered with editors and publishers, they have also ruined good authors by getting them to write mischief-motivated nonsense, and are also meddling in printing. In fact, they got to my book collection before the termites in Goa did!
It’s the same story with publications that I read. I can’t afford to subscribe to the really good publications that I would like to read, but with PR agency idiot bosses meddling in each and every one of them, I have reached the stage where I have stopped reading many. The Economist is top on this list, where I have, of course, been reading the print edition that my aged father in Goa has been subscribing to for all the years that I have been here. I thought good publications guard their editorial independence zealously and reject attempts to coerce or influence what they write, but I am afraid the entire world has fallen prey to a set of completely unprofessional idiots who ought not to be in the corporate world at all. As I have written before on my blog, they seem to take a certain delight in picking on all the publications that they have guessed that I read for their meddling and manipulation.
There are no good films on television either, and I stopped checking the fare on movie channels on Tata Sky, sorry Tata Play, over a decade ago at least. And when I look at the kind of commercial cinema that is being made these days and even goes on to win Oscars and Baftas, it is baffling, to say the least!
But, let us now turn to the more important question. Why is cultural consumption – or immersion, the word that I prefer – so important to us? I can’t speak for everyone but for me it is because all forms of cultural and artistic expression offer us an alternative vision of how the world or life might be, different from the one we know and experience. They open our minds to consider new thoughts and ideas or even those that might have gone out of currency but are back again. They challenge us to contemplate the imponderable, to consider new possibilities and most of all they fuel our imagination. I think for people in creative professions such as mine in advertising and brand communications, it is even more important to engage with arts and culture regularly.
The great advertising legend and writer, Bill Bernbach, famously said “To keep your ads fresh, you’ve got to keep yourself fresh. Live in the current idiom and you will create in it.” It’s true that advertising requires one to be culturally alive and aware, because that’s what our customers and consumers are breathing and living, or aspiring for, every day of their lives. Of course, here I must draw a distinction between popular culture and what is regarded as high culture. Popular culture is anything that is the current favourite locally and increasingly for many years, what is popular in the US. This too can be attributed to brands, in a sense. Think about it: culture that is connected to, and created by the great consumer brands in the US travels the globe almost as instantaneously as the products do. In many ways, it is also the soft power that America projects – however occasional – through its popular culture in the form of music, fashion, fast food, sports, movies and the like. Books and literature tend to lag behind the others.
High culture, on the other hand, is that which has taken time to evolve and grow. It isn’t as fickle as the fashion of the season. Nor is it based on commercial success. High culture is what we enjoy, treasure and pass on for future generations to enjoy in the same way we do. In a sense, therefore, high culture is about culture that is timeless and transcends geographical cultural boundaries. It is what we would instantly recognize as a classic, and it firmly belongs to this category, however elitist that might be.
Both have their merits, though I prefer to engage with culture that I feel a deep affinity for, and one that I can respond to at many levels – intellectually and spiritually as much as with one’s senses. And since I am old, my cultural reference points are not those of Gen-Z or a millennial, though I think it is still important to be aware of their cultural pursuits. I try and attempt to understand their cultural underpinnings, even though I must admit one is hampered by geographical and language boundaries sometimes. Only recently, I tried listening to Taylor Swift, the female singer who has taken the US and the world by storm for many years, to try and understand what it is about her music that captivated millions. I don’t know if it was the particular albums I listened to, but I thought that Taylor Swift’s magic is in the songs she writes, not so much the way she sings. Her songs’ lyrics seem to resonate with the youth. Though when I watched a couple of her live concerts on YouTube, I could see that she is a great stage performer too and this also helps draw in the crowds.
Then, there is also culture that is not an alternative vision of the world, but squarely what it, in fact, is. This type of cultural endeavour documents, informs and mirrors the world back to us so we become more aware of our responsibilities, actions and sometimes, even complicity and negligence. Journalism would be its most widely practiced form, as are documentaries, photography and multi-media art exhibits, etc. This is the culture that Susan Sontag often wrote about, especially in her criticism of the way photography and even photo-journalism could create a narrative that exploits the situation in the aftermath of an event. That even while documenting something, we need to be aware of its unintended consequences. This type of culture performs a different role and it is mainly for us to understand the world in all its complex dimensions, and to resolve differences and come to terms with it.
There is yet another kind of culture that is alternative vision, lived experience and documentation. Travel. To travel is nothing but to engage with new cultures and lands and also to explore what’s possible in the realm of human existence. It can also be a documented account of one’s experience in an alien land, at least initially, until you discover it in greater detail. And when you do return to a place years after having first visited it, you might be surprised at how much you and the place have changed in the intervening time.
To be in a position where one is not able to fully participate, appreciate and enjoy cultural pursuits for a variety of reasons – be it access, financial considerations, or even interference as I have mentioned – is, for me, to suspend living. It is life-breath for someone like me as I am sure it is for many others in the advertising industry. I am no culture vulture, I prefer to be a wise owl. But, because I grew up in a home infused with it and have lived and worked surrounded by it all my life, to suddenly not be able to access it freely feels like deprivation. I know I should not complain and think about the less privileged and all that, but my point is, why should I damn well not complain?!
Then again, I am grateful for what little I have and can savour. And thanks to technology, I can tune in to YouTube or tele, or read online and feel connected even in culturally distant Goa. I haven’t had the chance to watch any streaming shows, or concerts yet, even though I recommend many to my blog’s subscribers.
With such a long professional hiatus and an equally long cultural hibernation, I just don’t know what kind of person I will be when I do emerge from the depths of the long isolation, and come up for air.
Peripatetic Perch 