Japan Life

A couple of years back, in my last year at Fine Art College, a friend of mine from the Commercial Art Section dragged me to see a 'project' that he and some of his friends were currently involved in and wanted me to get involved in as well. They refused to say what it was 'until we get there', but kept saying it was something 'totally great' and 'so fulfilling'. So I assumed that perhaps these guys had pooled together and set up an Advertising Agency - and of course they wanted an undoubted genius like me in their midst. When we reached 'The Place', I thought, wow, these guys really have something going here. It was a very impressive office in a very impressive building, all glass and marble and bright lighting and uniformed guards. There was a crowd of very well-dressed people standing around and talking. This is where we work, the guys told me, but wouldn't say any more. First, they said, you'll be shown a film and then we'll talk. Okay, I said, what sort of film? But that too, it seemed, was a State Secret. Wait and see, they said mysteriously. So, with bated breath, I let myself be ushered with the crowd into a long hall and a large screen was unrolled before us. The lights dimmed. Everyone hushed. The screen came alive. With an advertisement for a magnetic mattress that was supposed to enhance your health - in this day and age of Sky-scrapers, went the byline, the earth's magnetic properties can't reach up to your body and so you NEED this special mattress to maintain the essential magnetic balance. I chuckled and thought, what stupid ideas are people going to come up with next, who's going to believe this crap? And I waited - and waited - for the main feature. It never came on. An hour later I emerged out, flummoxed, not knowing whether to laugh or be mad.

"That was it?" I asked the guys, and amazingly received incredible looks from them.

"Of course, that's it!" they said. "Didn't you understand anything at all?"

"What's there to understand?" I said. "They're trying to fob off that idiotic mattress."

They exchanged snooty glances. It was more than a mattress, I was informed. They took me to where it was displayed. A crowd was gathered around, gazing at it with a reverence I found really amusing. A pretty girl, her hands clasped to her breasts, was telling them fervently about how her life had changed since she began using the Japan Life Mattress - "I never used to go out anywhere, everything was dark and hopeless..."

"Enlightened by a mattress," I commented to my companions. "Wow, that's some religious experience!"

There's no need to scoff, they said, wait, let Rekha talk to you. She'll tell you all about it.

"Oh, I have a pretty good idea already," I said, but they insisted until I got a bit curious about Rekha.

I was led to another long, crowded hall, and introduced to Rekha, a power-dressed, power-made up, powerfully shrill personality. Being a powerfully low-key personality myself, I disliked her on sight. I disliked the way she said, "Come!" and took my arm without asking. I disliked the way she tossed her hair as she sat down in front of me and too close, the way she produced a pad and tapped it forcefully with a felt-tipped pen. SO SONAL, she said, and wrote my name on the pad in large bold red characters. I glanced around and noticed that a whole host of similarly dressed, similarly mannered people each had a similar victim in their clutches. And at this particular moment they were ALL inscribing their names with red felt-tipped pens.

"SO SONAL!" said Rekha, making a large dot at the end of my name.

"Actually," I said, "it's just Sonal."

"What?"

"My name," I said. "It's Sonal, not SO Sonal."

She raised her eyebrows. Like, a-hey, what do we have here, a dim wit? The prospect appeared to please her.

"Of course," she said briskly. "So, Sonal, you just saw the film about Japan Life, didn't you? What did you think of it?"

"I haven't had time to philosophize about it yet."

"I mean," she said, one word at a time, "did you get an idea of what we are doing here?"

"A pretty clear picture actually."

"GOOD!" She beamed at me. "Because it's exactly people like you that we're looking for!"

"Oh, really?"

"Absolutely!" She jumped up and grabbed my arm again. "Come!"

This time I was led to a large wall-map of Maharashtra that had all the major and some minor cities marked by small red lights.

"Do you see this?" said Rekha enthusiastically. "Do you see this?"

"The map?"

"The cities! These are the places where we have our branches. Wouldn't you like to be part of our vast company?"

"No," I said.

She stopped being enthusiastic and turned her head and looked at me.

"I'm not interested in selling mattresses," I said.

"Selling mattresses?" She repeated, outraged. "I look like a salesperson to you? Your friends back there, they look like salespeople to you? Japan Life isn't about selling a mattress, it's about offering a life-style, all right? We're offering you a life-style, do you understand? The mattress is just incidental."

"At Rs. 84000? That seems pretty substantial to me - steeply substantial actually."

"It's not," she snapped. "Besides it's an investment!"

"In a mattress?"

"In our company! The mattress is just one of the perks you're getting for becoming a part of Japan Life. Do you know how it helped me personally? I got to go to Hong Kong!"

"On the mattress?"

"Because of the mattress!" She paused to give me a suspicious look and repeated, "Because of the mattress - because I got over sixty people to invest in Japan Life the same way I had - so the company flew me to Hong Kong to meet with the Directors - think about that! - I was an ordinary copywriter before, making a measly Rs. 6000 per month - thanks to Japan Life, I've now made lakhs of rupees, and I got to see the world too! - think about that!" This time she leaned very close and gazed right into my eyes.

"Are you trying to mesmerize me?" I inquired after a moment. "Or put me to sleep?"

She jerked back sharply.

"I'm getting sleepy looking at you!" she retorted. "Tell me, Sonal, what is it exactly you want?"

"Right now? Well, a coffee would be nice."

She gave up and handed me back, with a frown, to my friends. She's not interested, she told them, but that, of course, is her problem. If someone can't pick up money that is thrown at them, what is it to us?

With this, she stalked off, nose high in the air.

My own out of joint, I turned on my friends.

"You brought me all the way here to listen to this drivel?" I demanded. "And this is the great thing you guys are doing? You stand around all day, talking about a mattress?"

"Hey!" they said, "It's called networking!"

"Hey!" I said, "Seems more like notworking to me!"

That made them mad. What was the matter with me? Why was I being so close-minded? This mattress was really something special. They had got it both as an investment and to help their family members health-wise - and it had made a great difference - why, they knew this fellow, who had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor, well, he had stopped going to the doctor and was instead sleeping on this mattress...

My mouth fell open. You're not serious, I said, and received very annoyed looks.

Of course, we're very serious, they said, we each took out loans to purchase this mattress and we're going to be involved only in Japan Life from now on - we're giving up the Art thing.

Are you all stupid, I inquired.

Hey, they snapped, looked around you, look at this crowd, talk to some of them if you want, there are Doctors and Engineers and Architects here, people like that, they've given up their careers to be with Japan Life.

I shook my head. I always knew it wasn't any particular profession that made you smart if you were stupid to begin with.

I looked around at the sophisticated crowd and saw the overbrightness in their eyes, the overeager smiles as they lapped up the sales talk - it's so easy, all you have to do is...

Suddenly I didn't want to be there anymore. With any of these people. There was such an overwhelming greed in the whole place, you could almost reach out and touch it. It sickened me.

I'm going home, I said.

But, Sonal..., cried my friends, who were, in fact, no friends of mine. Fleeced themselves, they were trying to fleece me in turn.

It's not that I don't care about money, I told them coldly, just the manner in which I make it.

They followed me to the door, informing me that I was one obdurate person, so set in my thinking that I wasn't even willing to look at new avenues, why wouldn't I even listen?

I listened for four hours, I said, and that puts me high up on the stupidity stakes too, if you want to know.

But Sonal...

And that, I said in a parting shot, isn't my name either.

A couple of years later I ran into one of the guys again. We hadn't spoken since that day, but this time there was no chance of avoiding one another.

"So," I said brightly, "Still not working on the mattress?"

He gave me a jaundiced look.

"I'm working in the Animation Industry now," he informed me, with dignity.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why not?"

Why not indeed. There is life after Japan Life it seems.