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Lifestyle is the New Hip Word, With Everyone Flaunting their Own
A word that’s been used and overused so much in the recent years, ‘lifestyle’ has almost lost its meaning for me. I wonder what the fuss is all about. I mean, why should anybody make a big deal about how I live my life. What about you? How does it matter how you live your life. Who is to dictate what’s hip and what’s not. Who is to decide if working in Biotech is in and being an IT geek is passé. It confuses young minds. It confuses everybody, if you ask me. Lifestyle! Have you been to Lifestyle? I want a certain kind of lifestyle…I will marry the man whose lifestyle matches mine…so, what’s your lifestyle? You can bet they’ll soon be asking you that. Next thing you know matrimonial ads will be full of them. Something like- Wanted: smart good looking boy, earning well and all that, likes partying on weekend, pubbing on week nights. Swears by business lunches; must know how to select good wine and get the grill started on barbeque nights. Must have read at least one play by Shakespeare and own them all, along with other best sellers. CD collection must include Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the Beatles, Pink Floyd. Michael Jackson… Do you live in complete denial or do you go overboard with everything? Or do you, like a true Buddhist, follow the middle path? What’s your lifestyle?? And then there’s the spate of lifestyle stores that has started in this city, and every city in this country, I am sure. Nothing wrong with them, of course. And who can honestly say they have resisted entering one of these. They beckon you with their vintage / rustic / glass and chrome exteriors. Who can deny walking out of these stores without:
Unless you are like the NRI couple I met who bought two almost life-size statues, from a lifestyle store and having shipped it across the seas at great expense, insisted the statues adorn their main door. “We bought it in India,” they tell their guests who are in a state of shock on encountering two masked and armed soldiers at the door. No, I didn’t make that one up. The stores are harmless, my friend says. She’s also indignant, convinced that the so called keepers of society have ruined our coffee shops. Her lifestyle, and mine, entails hanging out at cafés while we discuss profundities such as the purpose of life and the hidden wisdom of Marquez. There is none of course, but its part of our, ahem... lifestyle. To ponder and reflect and stare at nothing for extended periods, over cups of coffee. It was all very well until suddenly coffee shops became cool. They have become the hangout of adolescents who stop here before graduating to the pubs. And a certain coffee shop has gone and changed its cozy, coffee brown, smoky interiors to pink and purple. The kids love it...it’s just like them - bright, transparent, synthetic. My friend’s indignant, like I said earlier. “Drinking coffee should be banned for 16 year olds. They ought to be at ice cream parlors instead. A coffee shop is a sacred space, where thoughts are supposed to rise above the haze of cigarette smoke, mingle and intermingle before settling back as grandiose plans for the world.” Another old-timer, cigarette in hand and coffee cup in another raises his head slowly towards us, nodding in agreement - “the scene of confluence, where art meets art.” “Please turn down the radio,” my friend yells. Coffee and FM don’t go well together. “I know why all these kids are here, they are emulating the west, emulating the characters from Friends. Everyone’s rushing to the lone comfortable couch. Damn, damn and double damn!” Maybe its Parisian origins has done the café in, turned it into a cool hangout. Or maybe it’s those people who travel across the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian, to find themselves in Starbucks and Hard Rock Café. I ponder and reflect and across the room, see my reflection in the large mirror. Behind me is the sketch of a man, hands cupping face that is tilted at 38 degrees, staring at the wall. Horror of horrors, that’s exactly what I’m doing. They’ve done it again. First, they told you what was done; now they are showing it. Making us clones of a non-existent fashion ideal. Making us non-existent. Imagine this…a coffee stall on the highway, sitting on a stone under a tree with big branches, in clothes defying fashion trends, drinking coffee (its actually café latte and I drink it froth first), reading Harry Potter and somewhere in the background, I swear, I can hear the Sultans of Swing. That’s where I am headed, until they usurp it, usurp my slice of paradise. Chillibreeze's disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article.
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