Witerati | Much ado about meetha & mush

Diwali stages a blitzkrieg of advertising narratives dripping too much sweetness. Sentimentality that is so sugar-coated; consumerist templates so high on saccharine quotient that they are hard to swallow

The post-Diwali weekend always seems like a ‘shaadi ka ghar’ after the Band Baja Baraat has pottered and petered off.

The post-Diwali hangover calls for detox, from sweets as much as sugar-coated sentimentality. (Shutterstock)

Ah, but since we live in times of smoke and smog, this shaadi wala ghar feels not only bereft of band baja baraat, but also seems as if it’s been sprayed with fogs and fogs of chemicals, as was done by over-industrious ‘malaria-maaro’ and pest-control personnel who used to go clanking and clattering down the street in days gone by.

Hangover mode sees one waking up post Diwali to double disorder. Disorder of the chaos kind. Disorder of the constitutional kind.

Detox is the call of the hour, post Diwali’s overdose of sweets and sugar-coated narratives.

Sugar-coated sentimentality

Now this is a sweetness overload that has to do with meetha, but not mithai.

Diwali stages a blitzkrieg of advertising narratives dripping too much sweetness. Sentimentality that is so sugar-coated. Consumerist templates so high on saccharine quotient that they are hard to swallow.

Sample this. There is an ad that kept popping up like Donald Trump’s poll promises, left right and centre. It shows a retired professor’s spouse taunting that his real ‘kamaayi’ would have been if he had his own ghar, own address to stamp upon letters, rather than just getting sentimental over letters landing from his students.

The retired parents arrive at their son’s new home on Diwali. What do they behold! A magical nameplate dangling and dancing at the door. The professor’s name leaps up from it, smacking of gilt-framed gush, mush and funds flush.

A Diwali narrative guaranteed to send the lachrymose glands of a million eyeballs leaking in sanskaar-soaked sentimentality.

Now, how many new-age sons, even the dutiful ‘sanskaari’ ones, would plaster a nameplate, solely with the father’s name etched on it, outside a house that the son has paid for from his pocket entirely?

Sons doing this in Satyug, yes. Sons doing this in Kalyug, doubtful. A joint nameplate would be a more likely Kalyug template.

An advertising narrative high on sweet sentimentality quotient, nonetheless.

Then, of course, there’s the sweetness overload from all those jewellery brand ads cashing in on Dhanteras.

There’s an ad starring Kajol & Co that looks like the script of a Sooraj Barjatya multi-starrer, showcasing the Big Fat Indian Joint Family.

Family members flaunting frills and finery are shown swiftly popping out jewellery gift boxes in every room, every nook and cranny of the glow lamps-mounted ghar sansaar, faster than Shashi Tharoor can dish out the dictionary.

A teeny-bopper popping a jewel box to his nubile crush, a bahu showering sonaa on her saasu maa, a silver-haired shohar dishing out solitaires to his better half, and so on. In a blinking, about a dozen box-fulls of gold get exchanged for the jewel jollifications of the joint pariwaar, bedecked in baubles and bling.

Leave aside the gilt-edged, solitaire-studded Ambani template of India Shining, how many middle-class households can afford to live up to this Diwali dream narrative of dripping and dropping diamonds into family gift boxes as if they were as paltry priced as motichoor laddoos and soan papdi?

All this aspirational advertising leaves one with a sweetness overdose hard to digest.

The curious case of Bling is Kingg.

Mithai with modern twists

The other obvious overload synonymous with Diwali season is of mithai.

Those with a sweet tooth in these times of social media blitzkrieg are spoilt for choice. Other than the traditional mithai, there is an assortment of new-age twists seducing Digital India’s taste buds. From kaju katli cheesecakes to besan laddoo chocolate tarts to gulab jamun churros.

With digitally driven India peddling and pedalling overtime to bring us meetha, courtesy Zepto to Zomato, it is no wonder that one wakes up post Diwali feeling on the brink of diabetes or disorders.

Time to detox, both from meetha and mushiness.

The curious case of ‘Kabhi Kulfi, Kabhi Kheer Kadam’.

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