By Jaisurya Das
Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome back to a fresh edition of Dear MxM, India’s Only ‘Agony Uncle’ for our industry!
This week, I will briefly take you through a startling reality that is staring at us…
In another two decades, procreation of mankind will no longer require sexual intimacy!
Yes, this may sound absurd but more and more people across the world are looking at medico-tech interventions to make the process lab driven. People will actually be given an opportunity to screen the eggs before they are implanted. The complex (major congenital issues etc) ones screened out and so on. Holy hell! This sounds like a poultry farm doesn’t it?
On the one hand, all this is exciting and could mean a lot, consideringyou would probably have healthier babies with less risk of congenital abnormalities.. and yet on the other we are slowly turning to robots. Human life is known to be robotic with daily routines and the pressures of society, and to top that now, even sex will get relegated to timed precision. Get your stopwatches in place !!
May be it’s time we introspect and figure if this is what we actually want from life; Ours and the ones we give life to? What would all this mean to relationships? If procreation can be controlled in a lab, soon intimacy itself will be engineered with a special pair of remotes!
I wonder if it’s really the lack of time or our seemingly busy schedule that controls our lives to this extent? Honestly, all this may seem nice, easy and highly practical yet somewhere there is a huge void in this never-ending journey of scientific discovery…
I know not what the void isor will be, but I certainly know, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee !!!
Procreation or otherwise, Questions have to be answered with clockwork precision.
Read on…
Readers from Mumbai, Kolkata, Goa and Kochi…
Sir, you had written once that you receive several questions and you pick only four every week. What is it that you look for in a question while selecting ?
Did I bump your question off some week?? May be I did, and hence you were prompted to ask me this today. To be honest, there is no fixed criteria in deciding which ones I take that week.
However, yes, I do try and pick up the ones that are incisive, interesting, topical or downright hilarious! Some weeks this is a simple exercise yet, there are sometimes when I am tearing my hair out trying to sift through really boring questions!
Contrary to what many of you probably know, this column is read by a huge cross-section of people across cities, genders, ago cohorts etc, and hence its important to keep the interest levels high. If it’s a smart question or a tricky one, you can be sure that it will appear the following week!
And, yes, simple as it seems, it’s quite a task answering the complex ones and yet remain diplomatic in the public eye 🙂
Having said that, keep it coming my friend! Thanks for writing in.
I just turned 25 and I think I am a loser as I see people like the founder of OYO Rooms and In Shorts doing so well at such a young age. Please help me!
Sure I am going to help you friend!!!! You need to wake up and smell the coffee, tea… whatever !!! This is probably the most ridiculous problem I have seen in the past year.
What gives you the impression that winning and succeeding is all about business or a great startup ? Agreed, Ritesh Agarwal is a success and OYO is a houcsehold name today but that doesn’t make him the epitome of success. He’s worked hard for it and so have the founders of in shorts to get to where they are today.
How much of effort have you put in? You’re all of 25 and actually think your’e a loser! How in the world do you expect to be successful with an attitude such? Winning doesn’t come easy!
It takes huge effort, patience, understanding, respect for others and more importantly the die hard resilience of a winner.
You have to believe in yourself before you even get onto anything. How else will you make an impression on anyone irrespective of what brilliant idea you may have?
Get your house in order my friend, before resigning yourself to being a loser…
And if you don’t, don’t be surprised if you become a victim of depression and the like.
That is unfortunately natural progression when you harbour such negative thoughts about yourself.
So go ahead, moan and groan about what you don’t have in life but at your own peril!!
I rest my case. God bless you my friend. May the force be with you!!
I just finished a course in journalism, spent Rs 10 lakh over two years, but now I figure my real interest is in baking. What should I do?
Bake a cake obviously! No, am serious. If you are so keen about pursuing your passion for baking, then you must go for it. Finally it’s about satisfaction of what you are doing, and that is what translates into great talent being exhibited.
Baking is today a very creative science and with the flurry of gourmet baking outlets in the country, this will only get more and more popular.
Gourmet cooking and baking has today grown beyond the metros to mini-metros and towns across the country. Am sure you are already good at this, and hence making a mark shouldn’t be difficult.
As for the journalism training you went through, my suggestion is to use your academic training to publicise your bakery through social media, blogs and the like!
Today, the online content industry is always looking for quality talent, and you could become a great food writer with your skills in that domain.
Hence, this may be the big break for you with such an effective combo !
Now this what we call ‘ Have the Cake and Eat it too ‘.
All the very best to you….. and yes, your inaugural bakes may kindly be sent to our office 🙂
A colleague has been shown the pink slip. More than the girl, her parents are upset and think her daughter is a loser. Please help.
Is there any way I can meet the parents or speak with them?? I would love to talk to them and try and make them understand their enormous folly!
This is really unfortunate for more than one reason. For a start, they should leave the young girl alone and not run her life! She has been working and is obviously wise enough to take care of herself.
Yes, I am a parent too, but am aware that I can’t interfere in my children’s lives more than what is required.Justwhen they are ready to take flight and soar in the sky, I dare not cripple them with my views on how life is to be led. I believe as parents we have given them character, maturity and the ability to decide on whats good for them. In this we trust. Amen.
This poor colleague will get seriously affected by this psychological warfare (!!) that her parents are unleashing on her. My suggestion would be to have her find a job and relocate away from her parents for a while. This would be in her best interest.
More proximity would mean losing her self confidence, andfor no fault of hers!
And yesas for the parents, they ought to be seeing a good counsellor who can make them differentiate between winning and losing in life! Hopefully they will figure that this isn’t about jobs or the lack of them.
Parenting is about believing in your own. Everything else will follow.
And here’s another week gone by! Thanks once again for being with us each week.
Seriously means a lot. Dear MxM is about you and will always be so!
Do take great care of yourselves, be good, and walk head high And, yes, if there is even the slightest doubt on anything that really matters to you, write in to us at editor@mxmindia.com
superscribing the subject line with ‘Dear MxM’ and your ‘City’.. We will take care of the rest!
Till next week then, here’s JD saying Sayonara!
Jaisurya Das, the maverick media-evangelist eats, sleeps and romances brands !
His cerebral consulting interventions are aimed at making brands powerful and sustainable.
Incidentally he is also Contributing Editor of MxM India. The views expressed in this column are his own.