What you see (repeatedly) is what you get
Ekam sat, viprah bahudha vadanti. An ancient code of life—meaning there is only one truth but there are several ways to reach it — from the Sanatana texts doesn’t hold water in today’s theatre of excessive information. What we’ve got for ourselves is a binary perspective. Our polls are divided between good or bad, great or lame, strong or weak, pro or con, so on and so forth. This technique leaves little to no space for nuances. And the most worrying part being it hijacks the truth by obstructing the ways that don’t favour what needs to be said or seen or heard.
Such a development instigates the resurgence of myth-building. Myths have always been a significant feature of our identity. There’s no culture in any of the civilizations bereft of the influence of myth-makers. They were everywhere. They still are. The genuine difference: nobody calls themselves myth-makers. That’d be embarrassing. In fact, they don’t mention the word ‘myth’ anymore. Some vocabularies are passé.
Nevertheless, myth machine continues to churn. From the times our ancestors were writing on papyrus to the current era where AI is a reality, improbable stories couldn’t be discarded. At least not prematurely. How much can a lie, wrapped in the latest fashion, cost? For the sake of myths, not much. Earlier, myths were rural in nature, restricted to the villages, seldom making their way to the refined ears of the urban pavements. Nowadays, they are everywhere. Pick up a newspaper and you’ll spot them in the headlines. Turn on the news and you’ll notice them in the sycophancy of newsreaders. We can’t escape myths. They exist for us. And vice versa.
Look around you. You don’t even have to be on the social media—quite easily the playground of myth-machines — 24/7 to realize it by now.
For instance, why exactly is the USA not seen for what it truly is? Why are the endless bloodsheds precipitating from her disastrous policies continue to delude us? Doesn’t that say a lot about Hollywood and ilk and their efficacy in keeping up the appearance? In other words, the myth of the American benevolence is too strong to be rattled by a few bare (ongoing) facts. Similarly, wasn’t it the myth-machine working overtime to ensure that the Americans would get sold on Trump’s promise of draining the swamp? Where we stand today, Trump is one of the reasons why they’ve got a swamp in the first place. Closer home, the myth of corruption-free, litter-free, poverty-free India was sold not very long ago. If that wasn’t beguiling enough, quite a lot of Indians would happily bury themselves in that 56 incher of a chest. The power of myth, if you may. Without a relentless promise to fail upon, would there be a tomorrow worth hoping for? Maybe that is why it’s easy to fool hoi polloi with dreams of achhe din. Something similar unfolded with demonetization recently. Although economists would prefer to take their own sweet time to assess the effects of this febrile move, what’s remarkable is the aam janta’s trust in the myth of corruption-free India. You repeat something aggressively for a while and before you realize it, something has acquired the miasma of truth. Take a moment to let THAT sink in. Also, how dangerous can the maneuvering of our minds get?
Myths don’t believe in borders and travel as far as they can go. In Pakistan, a popular myth about India not having enough toilets continue to do the rounds. It’s a recent myth emanating from a famous report on how desi telecom revolution spurred the mobile reach to such an extent that India has more mobile phones in the country compared to toilets. Those capable of thinking could see that there’s a difference between (A>B) and (B≠enough). But then, myths don’t believe in math either. Similarly, we’d gladly buy into the myth of a ₹3600 crore statue while conveniently forgetting that the city boasts of the richest municipal corporation in the continent. ₹3600 crore is mere change when you take into consideration the massive budget (₹66,000 crore) that BMC enjoys. No doubt the very idea of a statue is ridiculous in the 21st century but your arguments against it turn cold when you let myth-machine spoil your perspective. Two separate matters should be dealt separately especially when one of them is non-existent. The statue is as far from happening as Navi Mumbai’s proposed airport. By the way, it was proposed exactly 20 years ago and not a brick has been laid so far. But somehow, the myth-makers have convinced you that we’re extremely capable of accomplishing something that gigantic in the middle of the sea. Especially when our record on the pothole-ridden land continues to be abysmal.
Like the idea of gods, myths molest everything in its power. Even our food isn’t safe. Or should we say, we aren’t safe. Those at the helm, for years, pushed the myth about milk being the only reliable source of calcium and meat being the only source of protein. For profits and more profits, nothing else. And here we are blindly accepting such self-serving nuggets despite having so many reports proving the contrary. Once a myth is embedded in your head, how are we to perform the coding required to reset what we should say or see or hear?
Speaking of which, a rather funny myth of Trump pushing the nuclear codes refuses to take a break. As if this tangerine moron would actually slide into the warfare room with no opposition whatsoever—since guidance seems out of question at this stage — in his diaper and push the red button. Seriously? Fearmongering clearly was an art form during the Cold War. As of now, the system oozes too much myth quotient and too little scare value. Oh, but too high laugh score.
