At some desperate and despairing point in late 2012 I was attempoting to write a torterous third year essay on a subject I didn't understand and would do anything to distract myself from. Thus on this particilarly unproductive day I proscatinated in a productive way by sifting through my university email inbox. A delay of discussing theories of the novel - yes, definitely - browsing monotomous stories of strangers on facebook? Nope, ergo productive! At least university emails had something to do with univeristy I figured. ANYWAY, this little chore proved to be one of the most positive decisions I have made so far in my little life. An email I would have usually overlooked stuck out like a sore thumb on this particularly threachorous day of study - 'Spend 3 weeks in India with the International Volunteering team!' - on a complete and utter whim I applied. I have always had a penchant for ethnic paisley print, loose leaf tea and dusky sunshine. Just kidding; I studied post-colonial texts at university and gradually learnt the about the history of India and how England intertwines with the sub-continent. The facts and figures and casualties and crimes still leave me feeling horribly guilty about being English. Less than 100 years ago the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (also known as the Amritsar Massacre) occured, whereby an English General ordered his army to open fire on a crowd of people - at least 379 people were killed. There are many other (far cheerier) reasons why I have a strong fascination with India - the food, architecture, wildlife and the beautiful saris being a few, so I whiled away a few precious hours of essay writing and completed an application form that I never really thought would get anywhere.
Getting jabbed up
Skip forward a few weeks and I found myself confirmed as a volunteer for the 2013 trip to Bhopal! Didn't see that coming did you? :) It was only when I heard my place was secure I realised how much I really did care about being a part of the trip; I wanted to see the place I'd learnt about through literature for myself. The next few months were a haze of meetings, essay and dissertation deadlines, sleepless nights and lots of googling India images - it was the beaming light at the end of my dark university tunnel.
I travel light and that's the life for me..
I will never be able to articulate how much visiting Bhopal changed my life; I'm frequently finding new angles on the time spent there but it never comes close to justice for what the team and I experienced in the place that is dubbed the 'Heart of India.' The phenomenal atmosphere, the heartwrenching poverty and the monkeys that roam the streets culminate for a truly spellbinding experience. Above all, it's the people who live there that matters most. Arun, the little cutie in the photo below stole my heart from day one. My friends and I though it would be a good idea for the kids to write name badges on our first day - there are no Harry's and Sarah's in India, but lots of Inderjit and Rahul! I'll never forget the look on Arun's face when he couldn't spell his own name; he threw down his glitter pen in such a strop. After some gentle cajoling and LOTS of mimicks and pointing we spelt his name together - A, R, U and N. I'll never forget his name or how much I had taken my education for granted.
He was happy really - it's an Indian thing to not smile in photos!
I'm back to India to help a new team of people through the fun of international volunteering in children's orphanages and mental health projects. I say 'fun' because it is, but it's also incredibly tiring and very upsetting. It makes me a bit mad when people say it's a glorified holiday, or question why we're buying saris while working with people who are considered so low in caste they're not even allowed in the shop that sells the saris. The easy way I can explain why I personally love the trip is with a passage from my favourite book, 'And the Mountains Echoed' whereby a man is trying to explain why he has travelled to war-torn Afghanistan from affluent America...
Timur has embarrassed him. He has behaved like the quintessential ugly Afghan-American, Idris thinks. Tearing through the war-torn city like he belongs here, backslapping locals with great bonhomie and calling them brother, sister, uncle, making a show of handing money to the beggars [...] joking with old women he calls mother and talking them into telling their story into his camcorder as he strikes a woe-begone expression, pretending he is one of them, like he's been here all along, like he wasn't lifting at Gold's in San Jose, working on his pecs and abs, when these people were getting shelled, murdered, raped. It is hypocritical, and distasteful. [...] 'I just think these people, everything they've been through, we should respect them. By 'we' I mean the lucky ones, the ones who weren't here when the place was getting bombed to hell. We're not like these people. We shouldn't pretend we are. The stories these people have to tell, we're not entitled to them... (Hosseini, 2013, pp.147-148)
Scaling high buildings in the aim of fundraising.. SO proud of the team that day!
Oh yeah, I have no hair anymore... Please donate to the cause!
It's a month today that I'll be catching a flight to Bhopal; it can't come quick enough! I'll be staying in an Ashram and working for two weeks with some incredible children's charities. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and if you have any spare pennies please please pleeease donate to the cause - £3 is a life-changing amount in the Indian world! Here is the link - or I'll accept dollah straight to me if that's your preference! Thank you!
I was having a conversation with my dad recently about
advertising and I joked to him that adverts are so gross and overbearing that I
occasionally felt that I was a star of my very own Truman show. My dad laughed
then put his serious face on and said ‘you know that’s not true right?’ His reaction tells me two things; firstly, he
thinks I’m ridiculous. Secondly, how much worse it is to be a twenty something
girl than a 50 year old man. Adverts do crash into my brain, invade my space and
constantly tell me I’m not pretty, skinny or intelligent enough. My dad is a
huge fan of Banksy, so maybe I’ll share his own personal opinions on
advertising and my dad will listen because a celebrated celebrity says
advertisers are making a mockery of us – a shame that he doesn’t believe it when I say it, but
that’s become the world we live in and accept. Celebrities are tied hand in
hand with advertisements; celebrity endorsements being a way for huge companies
to yet again tell us mere civilians that we can achieve by buying into a
fraction of celebrity culture (Banksy obviously being a refreshing exception to this general rule) .
I LOVE this little rant. We're frequently bullied by adverts on television, pop-ups online and cheery jingles on the radio and it's more often that not for shit you don't need. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm an advocate of charity work, and not the kind that starts at home. However, all the appeals to help Africa get clean water and give a child in India a cow come across as grotesque to me - who are we to present ourselves as saviors for these people? They don't make me donate, they make me change the channel. Companies follow you around the internet; what you just browsed innocently on Topshop's website will stalk you for weeks while you're browsing your social media sites. Like Banksy says, the advertisers have upped their game with technology and will hound you with images of that pretty little dress until you cave into the relentless adverts and guiltily purchase it one night as Philip Green laughs in his sleep.
One of the reasons I started my blog was because I was opposed
to the other blogs I was reading. I follow a few fashion blogs; one was heavily
the inspiration for me starting my own. I was in awe of the discipline this
girl had, how frequently she posted and how beautiful she looked in all her
photos. She had made herself a celebrity
of the online world; her blog often features sponsorship and promotes various other
blogs. And then I realised how inferior I felt. There
was never a bad day, or a low day or a day where she didn’t love what she was
wearing. I talked about starting a blog years before I finally got the
motivation/time to do it, and one of the reasons I struggled to start was because
I didn’t know how to market myself. I was afraid people wouldn’t like what I
said or agree with me, or I’d be the victim of some cyber-bullying (no trolls
yet,huzzah!). The worry of the blog was a burden to me long before I’d started
one – how often would I post, what would I post about, would it matter what I
said?! How ridiculous. I was so aware of being vulnerable and exposed on the
internet that I felt I had already lost control of it - because that’s what I’m
conditioned to believe. I have a wonderful friend from university who blogs;
her articles are guides to Barcelona or why Peaches Geldof’s family should be
able to grieve in peace. That’s the kind of blog I aspire to now, it was so
nice to hear someone else was struggling with accepting the media, adverts and celebrity
culture that appears to be dominating our lives.
I don't think people are supposed to become products, yet it feels we are slowly becoming that way. Brands set up camp all over our bodies when we choose our daily outfit; logos and symbols emblazoned upon you as you parade around the world. The video below is a prime example of how certain
companies know that their clothing isn’t accessible to everyone and that they willingly
want it that way. Therefore, the people who can afford brand status and are
slim enough to wear a certain logo are doing the hard work for that company –
you’ve bought into that lifestyle and are promoting a brand every single time
you pop that tee-shit on, free of charge to said company. We’re not only made
to feel inferior and insignificant by the company itself, but also by the
people who the clothes are sold to. I mentioned before the girl whose blog I was in awe of; she markets herself flawlessly. My blog very rarely features photographs of myself not because I don't like how I look but because it doesn't matter how I look. The principle aim of this blog was to have a space where I felt comfortable in what I was saying - not in what I was wearing.
Drawing back to Banksy's interpretation of adverts and the almighty advertisers, I think it's important to remember we have a choice in what we consume. Not always, but we don't have to digest what is offered to us. How do you feel when you flick through a magazine that’s full of articles about celebrities’ bodies, Kim and Kanye’s weird relationship issues and how Jordan is fighting with her current partner? I’m against these magazines as much as Liverpool disowns The Sun. They bring no joy into my life, I don’t like seeing photos of ex-big brother contestants struggling with their weight and I definitely don’t enjoy seeing celebrities who seemingly don’t struggle with their weight. Magazines that gravitate around the theme of scorning or celebrating weight issues seem such an alien concept to me that I point blank refuse to invest my money in them. Instead I buy magazines that are filled to the brim with adverts for things I most probably will never be able to afford. I know companies have to promote their products but it seems bizarre to me that I can buy a magazine for £2.60 (bargain) but it will be promoting clothes that cost upwards of £500. Maybe I’m still in cheapskate student mode but I feel something has gone amiss here.
So
what happens to the joyous things in life that aren't advertised? Smiles,
nature and time? David Bond of 'Project Wild Thing' fame endeavored to market
the outdoors to a generation of young people who loved the television more than
walks in the park; he was worried that technology and modernity were having a negative
impact of his children’s well-being. There are people alongside Banksy who
recognise that adverts rearrange the world and tell us how our lives should be
led, what new thing we need next and what we should invest our hard earned
money in. Mr Bond challenged these ideals spectacularly by promoting the outdoors;
‘Children's lives are taken up with so much
stuff these days. They - or their parents - are sold everything under the sun.
So we decided to sell them something they really needed: the sun itself. If
'nature' was a business, its sales figures would be plummeting and its
shareholders baying for blood. We thought it would be interesting to see if we
could run a marketing campaign to encourage kids to go outdoors.’ (Bond)
Project
Wild Thing is a lovely reminder of the power of one – almost 8000 people have pledged to explore nature due to David Bond's initiative. He believed that advertisements, television and modern media were detrimental to his children's life and he sought to change that. By challenging the way his children saw the world he has changed their world. Don't let adverts boss you around and make you feel less than your worth. You have everything you need already.
.jpg)
