john and jane

in ‘john and jane’, ashim’s film about call centers in mumbai at the ncpa little theater yesterday, a screening that haunted my entire night. stories of young people living in artifical light, a world neither here nor there- an artificial construct that bends their minds into imagining artificial desires and wants. it controls not only their time but also their space- and their minds. a necessary indoctrination into the american dream to be a good employee in a new form of imperialism- but one that seems more insidious.

and all this through comparisons of the paucity of choices with regards to potato chips in indian markets compared to the variety in an american mall; or through the incessant rehearsal of the ‘american values’- “pursuit of happiness”, “individualism”, “freedom”… as images of john f kennedy, las vegas casinos, shopping malls, bloomingdales shopping catalogues (have you ever seen towels like these?”) are bombarded at you- and you don a new name ‘nikki cooper’, ‘naomi’- namrata is not good enough.

the disconnection is also orchestrated architecturally in muteness. no window is allowed to look out at the city- making an emptiness of everything but the ones that assist in aiding the illusion. the spaces in between the work floors buzzing with american accents are hollow ceramic tiled halls that are cleaned by sweepers at regular intervals, white fluorescent light reflecting of polished surfaces and a ghostly silence.

the desperate loneliness was unbearable. there was sydney who lived in a slum, wanted to be dancer but now sold something called ‘emergency’ medical insurance to irate americans; glen who bitched about all the people he spoke to as he smoked a joint with his friend at a beer joint; nikki who found herself in her new persona and the spirituality of born again new age group worship; oaref who believed escape was possible from his dreary apartment to a spanish villa on a motorcycle if he was able to believe in the capitalist ideal really hard; the couple who got married after falling in love at a call center and now only spend time together in the surreal spaces of hiranandani powai in between shifts; and then there was naomi the cyborg of the new age- whose blonde hair, she believed made her more special. the indoctrination there was complete.

it was scary watching the film - the schisms and the mutations that we are going through-a mad rush hurtling towards a hollowness that seems out of control, where history and identity are erased and reconstructed leaving nothing behind but a shrill scream urging us to buy, buy, buy.

At the party at busaba, where glen and Sydney were also there, it was good to see that there was life after that form of death.