THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE...

...and it’s not coming here again!

“Give me a lie and I’ll glorify it. Give me some deceit and I’ll sanctify it.”
This is something my profession makes me blurt out everyday. That’s something I know I’m doing all the time but pretend, or rather try to pretend, to not know it. I am constantly employing adjectives, good adjectives, better adjectives and sometimes even the best adjectives to things I am not even sure if they deserve it. Some things I have a vague idea about or some things that I may not even ever come across again. But I glorify them. I make them sound convincing. Because I’m good with words, so some say. But I’m always wondering whether my talent is a blessing or a curse. But whatever it is, I am, and I can’t deny, a copywriter in an ad agency.

Till now, I have worked for the ‘best’ soap, the ‘best’ shampoo, the ‘best’ bike, the ‘best’ fabric, the ‘best’ building and, of course, the ‘best’ companies. Sometimes I wonder that since I’ve already put all my efforts in proving that all of these are the ‘best’, if I happen to work with their competitors then how will I define other soaps or bikes! Well, not to worry. Since, we have creative freedom in our field, and I also happen to have a good dictionary, I am sure I’ll manage to find another synonym for ‘best’ for the competitors’ products as well. J

But leaving aside advertising for a moment, just think about this, ‘Why is a better-told lie better than a non-glorified truth?’ Is truth important or the way a tale is told? Is life all about gloss? Why do I need my shoes to be spic and span, when all they should be doing is protect my feet? And the better a shoe protects the feet, the better it should be perceived as. I mean, I am not against beauty (or rather, cleanliness in this case) but all I intend to ask is that aren’t we giving importance to everything else but the truth. Aren’t we giving more and more importance to staged quarrels between judges in a singing contest show on TV rather than the contestants or how good they sing?

I guess our outlook towards things and our perceptions are getting shallow and shallow day by day. Shakespeare said years ago that ‘all the world’s a stage’. But I bet he never would have imagined that people in future would take him too literally. Because all I see is that the ‘actors’ in us are growing too sharp and the world has already turned into a real-life drama where every act or gesture is, in some way or the other, fake. Be it a chat between two friends, a politician’s speech to a crowd or an advertisers’ official communication to the public in general, isn’t the ‘lie quotient’ taking a beating on the truth more than ever. If ten years ago a boy confessed to his father that he cheated in exams, he might have had to sleep in the veranda that day. But today if such an incident occurs, any wise dad is instead sure to give him some tips on how to avoid being caught by a supervisor. An income tax raid may have been a taboo in society a decade ago, but today it is a status symbol. Today, we’ve taken corruption as granted for any political party and hence, our reason to vote for or against a party is anything else but corruption. We know all the lies and pretences that good-for-nothing Rakhi Sawant makes, but we love to see her on TV. We love to see her lie, don’t we? We love to see her fake praises for other, her bogus jokes her extra-glossy mannerisms and her phony fights.

Reasons for this, I don’t know. Maybe as the world is getting closer and closer with technology, we are dealing with more and more people, and hence, lying to more and more people. Just like a virtual reality game, we are finding more comfort in a ‘staged’ world around us. Just like an artificial plant in a vase, everything about us is turning artificial - our smiles, our talks, our acts, and maybe, even our desires.

And while all this is happening, silly writers like me who are attempting to think and not just ‘go by the flow’, are getting jittery and jittery day after day. We are wondering what’s behind this ‘bury the truth’ revolution. Why are we getting so cynical, extremely practical and truth-averse today? Are the lies growing in number or is it because more of them are being revealed? Or are we simply coming to terms with reality?