Skip to main content

For Their Eyes Only





For Their Eyes Only

Spy cams are the other eyes. They are burgeoning around us at an alarming pace. More and more establishments are after the spy or other wise cams which will keep our movements recorded, peered at and evaluated. Some times leered at, voyeured and gossiped . The commercial establishments are increasingly turning to the use of them for, apparently, security reasons. The government is fitting the streets with cams so that there could be better security for the individuals. Railways is mulling the thought on cam aided surveillance in coaches as a security measure. Educational institutions are resorting to the same mode for managing the campus, even in women's college s these days . Spy cams are being fitted on any thing mobile from pen to fan or hat to cats! 

What does it mean to be watching others? How does it feel to be watched ? What does it feel to watch? The feeling of the eyes behind your back, how does it work on ones psyche? Are we not made aware often when some one is peering at you? When we are sure that those eyes are after you, and when we fail to make sense of those looks , we just let it pass, or let it be. Imagine a world where every where we are being peered at. Always eyes behind you. A situation in which you know that one is being observed wherever, whatever, whenever - will it make you feel that irked ? Or will it make you push it behind and live on? The universality of the other eyes will render your level open. As open as the lives of our leaders. Open books. If everything one always does is always observed by Someone or anyone, will that square it all? 



In such a situation all of us will be big brothers and all will be simultaneously watched and will be watchers too. That should be what we must refer to as a voyeuristic level playing field. So level that none is privileged. Wen the backyards are as open as the front and when the bathrooms vie with boardrooms for visibility, we will usher in voyeuristic socialism . When the ubiquity of the other eye dominate to perfection it will be equivalent to the visual omniscience of each one. It will take us to individual godliness at least in terms of the seen. 

In such a world, will the private become the public? Will the inner become the outer? Will it completely square off the distinctions to such a degree that one will ever be able to mark them apart? If all is always seen, then will we never be stringy in showing it all off? such a mammoth crowd of images, that would be equivalent to universes since all,the things in all their positions,pavements and activities will e shot , caught and canned. What does one do when one gets sick of the already hyper-visualised lives?  

The web-site-to-web-sight driven us will accept the destiny of the visuality of our lives. A future in which the lives are seeped with the mechanic eyes around will sure make the people aware of the multiple divinity around. The technological god added to the other one, will make the people being held multiple accountability. when the here and the hereafter compete to record our lives and recast it, how easy will the lives be? will the situation turn a different turn, making us completely turn a nelsons eye to the whole exercise, being sick and tired of the oglers and starers? will the population scream to hell with it all, and get on with their lives? 

When the cams wipe off the differentiator between the private the public, the watchable and otherwise, what will be left off? Will the socialism of the seen drag in a scene of sameness? A west-like coolness in declaring that his is what i am, take it or leave it? 

Be aware, our brethren are watching us.







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On Foregrounding the Backdrops

    On Foregrounding the Backdrops Much of my liking for large pictures has lot to do with the backdrops and the 'others' in the frames. By others I mean the also-rans, in a way! But this is more about the past when pictures were not so common, when not everything could be shot and framed, as we do now. Magazines with photos were a premium then and colour pics even harder to come by. Rather than the ones who were the focus, meant to be the focus, my eyes would involuntarily wander off to the rest of the things and people who have been caught by the camera. It is their looks, expressions, postures, feels, appearance, that my senses will work on. The man in the middle, or men, those on whom the story is supposed to zero in, will fade out and the backdrop will zoom in. Imagination tracking those to their illogical conclusions constituted my act of reading the pictures. It was such a delight as it helped one keep the trivial off and enjoy the core of the margins. When o...

Can Politics Empathise?

  E. M. Forster wrote about the need for ‘tolerance’ and argued that the real force which can help rebuild the world after the World Wars will be not love or forgiveness, but 'tolerance'. Though I read that essay long back during student days, as it was ‘taught’ as part of curricular requirement, it was 'studied' and then abandoned, in a way. But still the argument of the essay kept coming back, as it does now. I didn't grasp quickly the inherent link between empathy and tolerance, but there sure is a reason why Forster showed up. There are many ways the two, tolerance and empathy, complement each other and the presence of the former can surely help build the other. Empathy is the capacity to know and experience how others feel, putting yourself in another's position. But is there something like political empathy? Why is it not there, generally speaking? I would like to explain political empathy as the capacity of one politica...

The Profes'sorry'ate!

If what was reported in the social media sometime ago was true, an MLA once asked a Minister whether Professorship category existed in Colleges. The reply from the Education Minister was that it doesn't, even though, they say, the response was from the minister who designated himself as Professor! The tendency to brand oneself as professor among College faculty members is on the rise for while. Many of those who have even recently joined the educational service as faculty prefix a Prof. before their names. Or, that is what I feel when I go through some of the reports in the media regarding College activities. As a result almost all of the college faculty are entitled to be designated Professors that way! Some relate this with seniority. If you have been in service for a while, have been teaching long, then you can stick the label on you. Or you can allow others to stick it on you. It grows on you and you take a new feel about who you are! A Professor Babu enables you to be...