LUXURY HAS LOST ITS LUSTRE

Gone are the days when luxury was reserved for and accessible only to the select groups perched high up on society’s top branches. Hefty price tags no longer pose a threat to the average consumer. Even with the world’s economy being the quicksand pit that it is at the moment people are still scrambling to possess the latest luxury items and the pricier they are the better.

Not long ago people were taking out loans to fund a dream project or get a proper education. Today, people are using these loans to pay for diamond studded cell phones and designer handbags. Now I do understand the existence of 100,000AED handbags and I also understand that for people who can comfortably afford them it must be a great sport hunting them down like some kind of rare species. It is beyond me though how people who break their backs working day in and day out finding it logical to put their life’s blood into such items. Such people do not even know why they are buying this product or the reasons behind the ridiculous price tag and they don’t care to as long as it is rare. They have not even stopped to ask themselves if they like them or not, if they suite them or not because it really does not matter. And then it struck me, we are living in an age where luxury has become a necessity.

We are not judged by the words we utter or the thoughts circulating in our head but by the clothes we wear and the accessories we sport. Many people have said to me that when they walk into a function carrying a so and so handbag or wearing so and so shoes they gain respect. Yes my friends respect can be bought and off the rack, might I add. Has the void in one’s life become so huge that people are now chucking designer labels in to fill it up? If so, I wonder if this quick fix is actually working? Where does this race to own the most expensive product end and once you get to the finish line what is it that you win?

Intelligence, manners and class have become the luxuries while Hermes and Chanel are the absolute requirements. And so after this disease-like infestation has spread, slapping our priorities senseless and flooding the streets with these once rare items, it seems to have had an adverse effect on me and rendered this whole phenomenon obsolete in my eyes. To me luxury has somewhat lost its luster and I don’t know if it will ever get it back.

This article was published in The Gulf Today Newspaper on 17th October, 2009.

REALITY, GIVE ME A SUPERHERO

The times we live in are indeed tough. The economy is in shambles; wars seem to be sprouting across the world and never before seen viruses are spreading airborne fear among the masses. We live in a world where happiness and positivity are packaged and sold, where it is easier to nourish the land with blood than water, a world where even the children are suffering from exhaustion and depression.

Before you rush to label me a pessimist and a painter of bleak images allow me to clarify that I am neither. I belong to the group of people who still have faith in the world, who still seek the silver lining as hard as it might have become to glimpse. But the grim examples are overwhelmingly great and they are creeping ever so closer to home.

So what do we do when we feel that our worst fears have become tangible? Most of us will seek divine intervention, fall down on our knees and lift our hands up in prayer for what else are our feeble hands able to do? Nothing else. This state of helplessness has inseminated popular culture and allowed for the birth of the ‘superhero.’

The ‘superhero’ is a fictitious character developed to rescue humankind from their most devastating circumstances. A character made up of all that we feel is ideal and necessary. It is a hologram projected by our own aspirations. The first appearance of this superhero was through the character of Superman. Superman was born in 1938 amidst the raging fires of the Second World War. It was a hopeless time and so a character such as Superman was not only needed but essential for the world’s moral and spirit.

A superhero is forever mysterious, tirelessly concealing his secret identity. It is important to us that he remains as such because we realize that it is in our nature to admire and respect what we do not fully understand. We are surrounded by real-life ‘superheroes’ who endlessly sacrifice for the good of others. Yet, we do not acknowledge them, simply because we have the habit of taking what is right in front of us for granted.

Fiction is nothing but an extension of real life, through it we translate our inner most desires. Secure under its thin veil we summon up the courage to create a person, only one, who is able to rebuild all that we have come to destroy in life. A person who walks among us by day and soars above us by night, watching over us, keeping us safe. Fiction offered us Superman, but dare we ask reality for one? Say we did, that would be its cue to laugh in our desperate faces and think us mad.

Superman paved the way for hundreds of other ‘superheroes’ each responding to a need, each representing a missing thread in the fabric of society. In the 40s for example, DC Comic’s created Wonder Woman. Just like Superman she came to life responding to the necessity of women’s role in society that was simply non-existent beyond the house gates. Wonder Woman came to life in order to represent feminism and sexual equality, her role, to shatter the fence of these once confining societal norms.

Indeed superheroes are extreme role models yet they are role models nevertheless. And while we do realize that a single human being no matter how noble, honest and forthright, or maybe because of these qualities, could never eliminate injustices with a ZAP and a POW. We must recognise that saving the world does not rely on one person, but starts with one. The more we reach out to one another the more invincible we shall become.

Every superhero has a weakness. For Superman it was kryptonite, for us mortals the weaknesses are many. Ones that we must acknowledge before we can eradicate. It is the only way we can hope to survive. For only by facing our flaws and accepting our frailties shall we grow strong again. In a world such as ours, we do not need super powers, what we truly need are humane ones.

This article was published in The Gulf Today Newspaper on 11th October, 2009.