Poster Menace

Four, five decades earlier `posters' meant primarily advertisements for films.  One of the famous heroes and his less famous leading lady (had to be that way, right) appeared on the poster, with minor details like the director's name and the date of the release of the movie.  The hero invariably had his arms spread out, as if to emphasize his mega-reach, striking a pose one would usually see in a song from the movie.  The objective of the poster was clear - an appeal to the viewing public to go see the movie.  In the pre-TV, enervating media blitz times, that kind of a poster made sense as a medium.  Or the poster would have a leading politician's face, either with an appeal to attend a forthcoming meeting, in which he would go into bombastic rhetoric, incessantly frothing at his mouth or showering shameless accolades on himself for some imaginary or assumed good deed in the interest of the masses.  Sure, these faces were not as palatable as the actors' but were still within the tolerance level of the populace. And, very importantly, the posters were all much smaller in size and non-threatening, not repulsive.

Down the line, as people started losing their sense of proportion, realism and normal values and general degradation in public life set in, the poster industry's growth sky-rocketed, because demand for the theatrical bordering on farcical increased in leaps and bounds.  With reality receding to the background with a massive push-back from 'appearance' and people readily and avidly embracing sheer form for form's sake, generally devoid of content, the size of the posters symbolically expanded to mammoth proportions.  The make-believe world of movies and politics attracted one more major homogeneous player, who would fit into the group like a glove fitting a hand, to make a triumvirate in the game of posters -- Advertisements.  All in fitness of things in that there is nothing significantly real about any of the three, all are given to mindless exaggeration and hyperbole and their shared objective was to constantly pull wool over the eyes of the common man.  Of course, they are succeeding in that till today and have concurrently also increased the size of the cutouts, while also spawning a widespread culture of posters at a much lower, grass-root level.  Now, one does not have to be a leader or great actor or anything worth the salt to be appearing on posters, as is evident from what you see.  Essentially because most posters are set up by one's own family or self, with black money supporting the production and erection of the unseemly projections.  Nothing but a blatantly self-serving attempt to thrust oneself into public consciousness, for no achievement or good deed, but just through large size images of oneself, in a clear attempt to encroach that space.

Recently, in our neighbourhood,  The Ugly Indians, that group which tries to clean up various blackspots around Bangalore,  organized an effort.  As part of that, some huge cutouts of the current MLA of the area were brought down from their offending positions.  One should have seen the alacrity with which some paid supplicants, the guardian angels of the politician's interests in the area, pounced on the group and vehemently protested the action in dethroning him, poster-wise.  When the current rule that no cutout can remain in place for more than a stipulated period was politely conveyed to them, guess what happened?  Within minutes, the earlier poster was replaced by another of similar proportions, which magically materialised from nowhere, depicting the revered leader greeting the constituency with folded hands for an upcoming religious festival!  Within five minutes the new poster was up and there was precious little anyone could do.  Surely this group of sycophants would have preened like peacocks and collected their rewards for their fantastic response.  While they were basking in the sun, having a tipple with pickle on the side, with their political bosses, there I was, getting my ears singed by the carping criticism of my dear wife, who justifiably just hates the fact that some ugly posters carrying sinister-looking faces, are sullying the space her group has been striving to keep clean and neat!

Such groups of hired goons, sycophants are omnipresent and have clear instructions from someone with some knowledge of the goings-on.  The other day, the fifth bail application of the son of another MLA was being taken up by a court.  This worthy son had almost killed a youngster in a restaurant, mercilessly beating him up and abandoning him for dead, of course, ably supported by a group of his own henchmen in the orgy of violence.  There was so much negative publicity and sentiment about the incident, all the efforts of the powerful father to extricate his son from jail, on bail, failed miserably for almost 4 months.  If the son thought he would beat the hell out of a fellow human being, dust his hands off and walk free using `influence', for a change it did not work out that way and he suffered the well deserved ignominy of incarceration for 4 months.  But, on the day of the bail hearing, within minutes of bail being granted, giant cutouts appeared, of the son (not the father), euologising him for his heroic acts (read, terrorising and physical violence on another person) and wonderful leadership (??).  To what depths can people blindly using and following money and power sink was evidenced by those posters!!

When one walks through a bazaar/road, one can see some store-fronts being covered by posters of multiple products, overlapping with each other, there being no indication of where one begins and another ends.  You are left wondering what is being advertised.  It is almost as if the number of posters clustered in the same location is the end-game, not the beginning of the attempt to sell.  Most of these posters serve to hide the unkempt, disorganized interiors of the stores which seem to subsist not from sales but from other dubious activities sponsored by political parties and leaders.

The one big change in the poster culture we have to day is that even for common men posters appear now and then.  You see a poster of a middle aged man and on enquiry you will find out that the man in question, aged 45 and father of four children, eloped with another woman who had 3 children of her own.  Retribution followed swiftly and the eloping man was killed by the woman's husband.  The poster was there as an exhibit to share the grief of the community at the fall of such a man.  Other similar cases involved a reckless auto-rickshaw driver who rode roughshod over everything and was living dangerously;  and a drunkard who had permanent residence in the local arrack shop and took breathers only to go home and beat up his wife and children as a pastime. Both appeared on posters posthumously, with the title `Tearful Homage'.

Why not?  There is no longer any qualification to be on a poster, right??  A poster is a mighty leveller.  If it is illegal to fix posters, cutouts etc why should that illegality be the domain of only the powerful and monied.  I am all for everyone sharing the space.  Just that one day I hope the governing authorities and judiciary would wake up and ban posters, period.  No posters for any reason!!