Who’s the 'aam'-est of them all?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the aamest of them all? Time was when the ordinary man went to extraordinary lengths to conceal his ordinariness. No longer. Fuel prices may be going up, the rupee may be in free fall, and everyday pains may be becoming more painful. But there is no time like the present to be the everyday person, the aam admi.

This year, the aam admi spawned the Arab Spring. H/she took to the streets and raised his voice against his/her country’s political system and economy in the West. In India, we avoided the bloodshed but had our full share of the excitement and turbulence.
Tens of thousands of aam admi and aurat, with their kith and kin, have been flocking to listen to a septuagenarian from Maharashtra, Anna Hazare. The old man has stuck to his style, energising and exasperating his countrymen and women with his dogged resolve to have his way on how to deal with corruption. As the year draws to a close, no one knows where all this is heading.

But one thing is clear — Anna is still out there and shaking the system. Even those who heartily detest Anna and his team are forced to take note because, today, one cannot afford to fall foul of the aam admi, whether one is in politics, business, or the media. And Anna and his band of warriors seem to have the hotline to the aam admi.

Which brings me back to the catchword of 2011 — aam admi.
If to be merchandised is to have truly arrived, the aam admi has arrived, now that there is a T-shirt with his name emblazoned in golden letters, a pair of mangoes, instead of the ‘S’ inside the Superman insignia, in 100% bio-washed, super-combed cotton, in all sizes. It can be ordered online from inkfruit.com — a community of budding designers.

Mechanical engineer Anil Kumar, 27, came up with the idea after curiosity and peer pressure took him to one of Anna’s rallies at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan, his first big political rally. What moved him most was not so much what Anna was saying as the infectious energy of the assembled people. An idea was born — the aam admi-as-Superman T-shirt.

Now everybody wants to reach out to the aam admi, and the more aam, the more sought after. Kapil Sibal says the government is the most ardent suitor. He wants to make social media more aam admi-friendly. Sibal wants his babus to learn how to woo the aam admi not only in the time-tested ways but also online, through various social media sites. Google, Facebook, Yahoo and others have been reportedly asked to suggest strategies to get through to India’s aam admi.

The simple-minded may think that the aam admi would be easy enough to locate, but they do not grasp the diversity of the terrain. Like in everything else in this country, there is no consensus on who the aam admi is and where h/she might be hanging around. Since the aam admi comes in different sizes, shapes, and genres, the challenge is to zero in on the real one. Media reports in recent days suggest that the minister wants babus to explore how social media can be used to ‘ensure that the voice of the marginalised is heard by government, which otherwise sometimes is not heard.’

To those who may have been reading about Sibal in connection with a raging controversy over policing the internet, this may come as a surprise. But then, Sibal is a man who can spring a surprise. Some years ago, he wrote a book of poems (I Witness-Partial Observations) on themes as varied as POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) and nanotechnology. The poems were composed on the screen of his cell phone in off-line mode during a two-and-a-half-hour flight.

As babus step up to the plate to conquer the aam admi’s hearts and minds through social media, here are two pieces of advice, gratis. One, to give the aam admi a voice on social media, focus on improving literacy and connectivity. Two, mind the language. Words like ‘marginalised’ are old-school. The aam admi and aurat may not have got much this year but has not been in the margins. H/she has been at the centre of debates raging in this country and across the world. It may be useful to remember that.

The author is a Delhi-based writer