Individuality in the modern world
One of my pet peeves!
When I first started living in London, one of the things that struck me was how everything came sorted in sizes.
Not just the neatly arranged screwdrivers, cutting pliers and drills in the toolbox, but almost everything! Pots, pans, saucepans and lids had sizes. Windows and doors had sizes. Even photo frames! Everything had a size.
In India, even shoes, I would first gauge by eye and then try and I would get there.
But this was a different. Even bed spreads, duvet covers, pillow-cases had sizes.
And yes, I made a lot of store exchanges in London before I finally got the size right or rather began remembering them.
I eventually got used to it. And the store runs have almost stopped though sometimes during the heat of the Sale season, I still get carried away.
But there is another kind of standardisation that bothers me much more.
Look around us. The same clothes. The same hairstyles. The same makeup. The same brands. The same language. Similar homes, similar cars, similar lifestyles.
With stores and social media reaching every corner of the world, the same fashion, trends and ideas reach millions. Young people in completely different countries look remarkably alike.
Perhaps I notice it more because I grew up in an 90s India, in a world that was much less standardised and had so much diversity.
Things didn’t necessarily match. People certainly didn’t! And not everything had to be corrected, enhanced, filtered or made to fit an ideal. We lived with the squints, uneven teeth, bushy eyebrows and unruly hair. We accepted ageing and human fallibility with grace.
We were comfortable with what we had inherited — our mother-tongue, our customs, our clothing, our traditions - a pottu, tied hair, modest clothing. Whatever was ours was simply ours. We didn’t necessarily have to reject our traditions to fit in. We were happy being who we were. There was gentle teasing at the most but it was usually offset by subtle appreciation.
And there was more room, I feel, for *live and let live*. We could disagree and still respect each other. Political differences didn't necessarily mean personal bitterness. People from different religious backgrounds could live alongside one another with mutual respect.
Today, there are more slogans, more causes and more declarations of support online than ever before. And yet, sometimes I wonder if the quieter things are disappearing — kindness, compassion, cooperation, teamwork and simple human consideration.
I notice it especially in the way we treat older people, street vendors, domestic workers and others who don't quite fit into our increasingly standardised world.
And perhaps also in the way we treat our mother tongue, our particular traditions, customs and cultures.
We seem so eager to embrace what is new that sometimes we forget to value what is already ours. Perhaps that is the real danger of standardisation.
Not that we all wear the same clothes, speak English, use the same technology or shop in the same stores.
But that, slowly, we stop making room for people who are different from us, stop making room for the cultures, languages, weaves and other traditions that have been passed painstakingly from generation to generation. Akin to the extinction of certain species!