Originality is returning after long, watch out for the clues

I wrote my first newspaper column in the offline era of 1990, barely out of my teen years. Two decades later, in 2013, I started writing again, in the digital era — a period that appears to span many generations of political and literary points of view of authors, editors, critics and, perhaps, most importantly, readers. A lot has changed in these two decades. How we write and speak and what readers like to read influence our own thinking. My own writing style has undergone a sea change.

RD Burman’s lyrical Ek ladki ko dekha in the 1990s gave way to badnaam Munni and jawaan Sheila in the decade after the millennium. Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander — a super hit of 1990s morphed into super duper hits like Dabbangg and Rowdy Rathore in the 2010s.

Political speeches, liberally, interspersed with poetic metaphors in the 1990s have given way to ultra acerbic diatribes in 2013.

In the literaryscape as well, we are seeing changes. Amitav Ghosh and Upamanyu Chatterjee, in the 90s, drew inspiration from driftwood-like symbols of the colonial past caught in the undertow of the new wave of liberalism. The change in Indian intellectual tastes is best represented by Chetan Bhagat, who has captured the imagination of filmmakers and readers alike in the glorified portrayal of the common man who sometimes is the victor and sometimes the vanquished in the context of his ministrations to live the good life.

Are we passing through a phase of intellectual and creative deficit? It is evident not just in our creative oeuvres but also in the language we use. We seem to have lost the art of oration, dialogue and argument. Diplomacy means being direct today. The frills have been sacrificed at the altar of starkness. The poetry from life has been smothered. We live in very prosaic times.

In the Bollywood songs of the past, each word was pregnant with meaning. Each couplet was capable of tugging at your heart, effortlessly drawing you into the vortex of emotions, that it seemed only natural to believe that the song was especially penned for you. Not so any longer. Today, the words are so crude, unpolished, stark and in-your-face that you prefer to sit on the sidelines as a voyeur rather than imagine yourself in the song.

Our ideologies shape our interactions. Our creativity, be it a journalist’s report, an artist’s expression, an author’s oeuvre, a lyricist’s song, a writer’s dialogues or even a politician’s speech are all influenced by how we think.

So what and how are we thinking differently today as compared to a score years ago? A change in language of expression happens in all evolving cultures and societies. A changing society means a change in its thinking, its perceptions, its world view, its language and its expressions. While change is constant, it is also very context-driven.

The context today is superfast. Technology has made us great multi-taskers. We update, post, reply, like, forward, text and e-mail at the same time. That is a lot to do in too little a time. Hence, we are brief, terse and to the point. We shorten our expressions and truncate not just our language but our feelings too. Brevity is no longer the soul of wit, but the soul of speed in how we communicate these days.

We not only do many things at one time, we are also exposed to many things at the same time. We live in instant times. Instant news, instant updates of our lives, instant information, instant replays. Even our responses and reactions are instantaneous. We hit a ‘like’ button even before we have read the post. We form an opinion even before we have objectively evaluated the situation. We decide first and think of the reason why later.

We have a glut of information but we do not have the time to go through it all to make an informed choice. Today, any research we do is second-hand. We form opinions on the basis of other people’s opinions. Others think, therefore we are. Our thinking today is a reflection of the collective thinking of our society. The individual expression that found voice in the liberal nineties, is getting drowned in the cacophony of the prosaic. There is little passion for originality these days. Are we fast becoming a curated society?

Originality is intrinsic to the human race. We just need to be intelligent enough to not let the changing context redefine it. Today, my plaint is the source of my hope. If change is constant, so is its harbinger. We may well be on the verge of an originality renaissance. Look out for the signs.

(The writer is managing consultant of The Key Consumer Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based qualitative research company)