This is why your dream is like a teleshopping commercial
Once upon a time, in a totally random but intellectually satisfying dream, a director with rather bushy eyebrows is sitting behind the monitor. The first ad yells action. I am the actor on set who needs no pampering and I have special mutant powers, I am invisible till someone absolutely needs me for something. On action I start rattling “Fuck” as many times without a pause for breath, I go out of it as soon, the last breath of air went somewhat like “faaaaaaaaaaaak…”
I was in a Martin Scorsese film and I got to throw the F-BOMB more than any actor in that film. My biggest dream achievement and this was no day dreaming, pure subconscious state of bliss. Cussing myself to death in a Martin Scorsese film. What a day to die and what a dream to wake up to! FAAAAAAAAAK. What is this dream trying to sell me? I am not sure, but I sure felt a high.
I truly believe dreams are like teleshopping commercials. I am never sure if they are as artistically woven as some filmmakers depict. Bloody frauds, I am sure most of them are flat, with no depth, shot on old technology. I believe I dream in VHS format, I am sure with a very dirty head (pun intended). They are sure random, full of shit (sometimes literally), things of no consequence or order and I often wonder why I had it in the first place, much like the useless Made in China machines one would order by being totally convinced with a super bad teleshopping commercial hosted by an out of work ’80s would-have-been-superstar.
Advertising has lead us to believe that when you have gas, periods, blisters, bad breath or bad hair there is always a product that can let you solve that problem and achieve super success in life. Yes. Drink this, fart, then go buy Facebook for 100 Billion Dollars and you are sorted! TING!
Put this toothpaste with salt, lemon, H2SO4 and organic mucus and blow a kiss to Messi’s girlfriend, she will, for sure, leave him and come with you.
More importantly the promise to a second chance in life to be super successful — teleshopping is targeted at that individual sitting at home with access to television on a weekday in the afternoon. Very specific and super large database I guess. I am one of them too.
Though I have internet I do prefer some old fashioned teleshopping brainwashing. Interestingly “super success” is always sold to the guy who would most probably be “Bald Man at the Shop No.3” kind of a guy on any film’s end credit list. I always related to those guys. There is a science to create this breed of fringe cast in the society. They can commit suicide at any point but they are kept alive to watch teleshopping by very specific well devised methods.
The “Super Successful Me Dream” was first pitched to me when I got a consolation prize for arts and craft in the third year of primary school. I was not bad but others out there were fucking awesome. The more I wanted to applaud my peers whom I was a fan of, a mild nudge happened from within. “Chutiya, tu Bronze Medal bhi nahi jeeta”. The more comfortable I got with the idea of the magnanimous consolations that life gave the mild nudges became milder as time passed “Ek number ka Lund hai re tu, tere ko kuch bolke fayda nahi”.
The mild nudges took the shape of TED (the talking bear of course). TED Talks became more friendly, it had accepted me the way I was. He said far less than before “Chut!”. He stuck to one word descriptions of me.
Neither was I designing anything for NASA nor was I holding a candle at important cinematic tourist spots in Mumbai and Delhi. I thought Arnab G was a friendly guy on television mildly nudging the nation as TED was nudging me. The magnanimous consolation prize had sealed the deal long ago, they had given me hope that there was space even beneath Bronze. But I was far too satisfied. I reveled in being average.
Then they tried other intimidation tactics. Himesh Reshamiya tells a girl who very cutely says she has a hole in her heart (in a film of course) “you are special and hence you will die soon” (Crisp translation of a melodramatic Hindi dialogue). I felt too normal to be intimidated with any of this goodness.
But the hope is that one day you will be called the next Sachin Tendulkar and the next day you will be reprimanded by the friendly social media for girlfriend visits. You see Virat needs to be the only guy to remain celibate as the nation fucks everything up, every night and day and afternoon and twilight.
The rational in me quickly became comfortable of my space as I knew if I was super successful then I would have to be celibate all my life. They gave me the consolation prize early on to make me a teleshopping network consumer but I had become that tough customer who would find fault even in a TATA product, and these guys were selling me Reliance. Reliance then built the Metro. The persuasion and pressure was mounting, I had to call that toll-free number soon and buy something.
They would not stop.
Sometimes the optimist in me feels a do-or-die is the best space to be in, a promise for a “next time” is the true poison. How I wish the world was always at war and most of us got done with it like the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. Go for a stroll, some expensive bullet made somewhere is America with pin point precision is directed at you with advanced German technology and boom. Painless. Consolation prize, the bullet hit me on my head and not my dick.
This takes me back to my dream, the breathless “FUCK” scene that I did for Martin Scorsese. Isn’t it the most beautiful dream to have? Say FUCK, till you lose your breath and die as Martin Scorsese watches you.
INT. SHRINK’s OFFICE — DAY
Vasan lies on the couch. Shrink is texting. Smiles, we can also see a hint of a boner. We conclude it’s texting with a “s” and not “t”.
VASAN
So I think, I want to end my life like that
Dream, I won’t buy.
SHRINK
Hmmm…