A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Of Plastic in breasts,
and WMDs in subzi-market
Raise a voice against lifafe-baazi

S P Singh

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.

Ben: Yes sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Ben: Yes I am.

Mr. McGuire: 'Plastics.'

Ben: Exactly what do you mean?

Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

Ben: Yes I will.

Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

Sixties, Beatles, flower generation and plastics, they all came together. Almost hand in hand. Barbie had already arrived in 1959, and it was plastic. And everyone said fantastic. And then came The Graduate. One of the key, ground-breaking films of the late 1960s, an influential biting satire about Ben, an alienated college grad adrift amid shifting social and sexual mores of the ’60s.

The single dialogue about ‘plastics’ became one of the most memorable lines from film history and anti-plasticism exploded onto the world stage.

But plastic spilled all over us. Even Beatles cut their records on the vinyl discs. Much later, a generation of young men was still being traumatised by the giant inflatable plastic breast in Woody Allen’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex. And too much plastic continuously kept creeping into sex all the time. At times the partner was only plastic. Inflatable.

Many were still not saying "No".

Hippies were almost a reaction to plasticism. Those who wanted to escape the plastic ideology, plastic smiles, plastic stance in life, plastic thoughts were becoming hippies. Then came the ultimate. The plastic Dum Maro Dum hippie.

The 'real' hippie had deeper illusions, had acquired his mystifications in their pure organic form. The ‘plastic’ one bought them packaged. Astrology in a poster, natural freedom in bellbottoms, Taoism from the Beatles. There was no escaping plastic.

Among those who pumped the plastic dream when Herr Hitler was trying to sell super race dream were Yarsley and Couzens, waxing lyrically about a future in which ‘Plastics Man’ would be born into ‘a world of colour and shining surfaces’. "As an adult, he would live in a house that is a 'universal plastic environment’ with an all-plastic bathroom, moulded plastic furniture and beautified with plastic lampshades and vases."

What they didn’t tell us was that after enjoying a retirement fitted with plastic dentures and playing with plastic chessmen, there would be so much non-biodegradable of the stuff left that he would have to sink into his grave, much sooner than required, hygienically enclosed in a plastic coffin.

By this time, I had deduced that the entire opposition to plastics was plastic, and I saw the Chandigarh babudom's stance on polybags through the same prism. "So bus drivers would stop at the Mohali-Chandigarh and Panchkula-Chandigarh borders and ask the hunchbacked old woman to throw the lifafa out of the window?" I was sure I was making sense.

But my editor went ballistic against plastic, deployed the SMS technology to widen the front and then came the final assault on my cynicism. Generation Real Next, not the plastic GenNext, came calling. Little kids, as young as three year olds, also cast their lot with the editor as they trooped into the office mouthing slogans against smelly plastic.

Pragmatically, I converted. And like any new convert, my fist against plastic is clenched tighter. Many a time in history, a step has been symbolic of a movement. So as the citizens shun the polybag, may be deep inside could a resolve solidify to say no to plastic. No to a plastic smile, no to a plastic nose, a plastic ideological position to suit the imminent moment.

During 2003 Christmas season, Bush W had sent a plastic turkey to the troops. Now we know why.

Now we are alive to the plastic threat.

Who knows our no to the plastic polybag may take us to dizzying heights, triggering a movement against inventing plastic WMD and then concocting plastic reasons for war? Many have often complained that while Chandigarh is so beautiful, the city sometimes seems too stifling because there are so many plastic people. A journalist friend even complained that while in his village in Mansa, the stray dog was called 'Kaalu' and was loved by everyone, Chandigarhians were giving plastic names to their pups.

I agree. I called out to Ginger last night, howling, "Kaalu!" She came in, wagging her tail. It seemed she liked it.

Fine, no plastic. No plastic names even. This time, unabashedly, say “Never Again.”

"I will not lug around a plastic bag. I will not teach my newborn a plastic smile." Okay fine, don't call your dog Kaalu. Movements against an empire can also begin from a lifafa. They don't have to wait till the third bloom of Dahlia.■  

December 22, 2005

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