So many bugs

What are the advertisements on TV trying to convey?

If you were a visiting Martian, belonging moreover to an obscure, insular tribe, who was somehow deposited in front of a television screen in India, what do you suppose you would make of this country's predominant preoccupations — going by its advertising images?

Within a couple of days you would be convinced that Earth was infested by these rabid, lethal creatures known as ‘keetanu’. You would note with trepidation that these lurk everywhere on the human person — in their teeth, on their skin, clothes and everything they touch. By and by you would realise that these are impossible to destroy, but you would understand also that this was one entity Earthlings must combat at all costs, or die. If you were a suggestible sort of Martian, you would soon find yourself avoiding contact with anything — doorknobs, newspapers, currency notes — for fear that you too could die from such deadly infection. You would have growing regard for a range of products: soap, toothpaste, deodorant, and a range of domestic cleaning liquid. You would see again and again the image of a magnifying glass that would show you precisely how well these products were working: a circle full of germs magically wiped clean leaving only one or two insignificant crawlies, one perhaps skulking so close to the edge as to appear practically invisible.

I, of course, am an Earthling. As children, we held these ‘keetanu’ in contempt. During a growing up phase when I fancied myself particularly hardy, I remember telling my sister that the best way to deal with a bleeding scraped knee was to rub a little mud on it to stem the flow. She did, and she lives, I assure you, to tell the tale to any sympathetic audience likely to cast dark looks at her heartless older sister. But the point is: Indians didn’t use to be this afraid of germs and bacteria. We knew that resistance was superior to non-contamination. That bacteria aren’t vile creatures that need to be warded off with vats of antiseptic. We learnt that the human body is an assemblage of microbiota in numbers that outstrip human cells ten times over. And this, we must now remind ourselves, is normal. Normal.

A few years ago, during the annual year-end NRI season, we had a few kids over. They went out to explore the garden and the adults sat down to conversation — only to have the kids rush in again in a flurry of alarm and disgust. Eeeks and ewwws were uttered and we heard complaints of “so many bugs”. An investigation revealed ants, grasshoppers and other innocuous fauna. First-world kids! We shook our heads then, but is the attitude so different from ours now? By and large, this fear of old-fashioned dirt has percolated to us. Children even two decades ago roamed more than they do now, played more robustly than they tend to do today. Parents are more protective — leashes are tighter and yes, there’s a keener eye kept on fingernails. Do children these days still collect ladybugs in matchboxes or examine frogs?

And all these arguments against the contaminants of the world would all be a little more sympathy inducing if the concern were motivated by pure love. A parent’s job is by necessity prone to anxiety and mothers are notoriously easy to guilt-trip. But you have to think — because soon after an advertisement has told you your child could fall ill if he didn’t wash his hands obsessively, it’ll usually let drop a more deadly fear: perhaps he will have to miss school. Oh the horror! Fall behind on lessons, slip down the ranks and be less of a success in standard four? Unthinkable. And so it comes about that your average mother is stepping out this minute to stock up on antiseptics, handwashes and bacteria-repelling toothpastes. While she’s at it, she should pick up a consignment of energy drinks that aid memory, keep up energy for school, athletics, violin lessons as well as keep the lad peppy through the extra tuition. n

[Sheetal Vyas is a Delhi-based freelance writer]