Selective Amnesia

As yet untitled

One of the lousiest things to tell a copywriter is ‘A picture is worth a 1000 words’. Lousy, for that line lost its significance after the first four uses, plus a writer can always get back, saying, ‘See, it took you 7 words to say that’. Pointless.

So, what I am going to attempt here is, paint a picture with my words. Paint a picture, with broad strokes and narrow ones. Paint a picture which adequately shows you, in words, how good my holiday was.
But, first
Disclaimer:I work for Interface Communications. It’s an advertising agency, with offices across India. One of our clients is Club Mahindra Holidays. My job is to write the Club Mahindra ads. This post is about my holiday in, and what I experienced at a Club Mahindra property. It might be construed as advertising. And it is. (Except, I am not being paid for it.) I advice you take the post with a pinch of salt. A rather largish pinch, I might add.

Warning: This promises to be rather long and rambling and meandering and pointless post. Just like my holiday was. Except the long part. Except the meandering part. Except the pointless part.

You work. And you go home, sleep a few hours. And get back to work. It’s not too bad an existence, for you do what you like to do. But, every so often, it gets so that you want a little time away. You decide that you want a few days away from the city, away from buses belching black goo and cycles cutting figure 8’s right in front of you and flashy cars belting rather inane songs in the hope it makes the inmates look cool.

So you sit down and plan a list of things to do, and a place to do them all in. One of the things you definitely want to do is read. And perhaps, take in a little bit of that precious commodity – pure air. That’s right, all that talk about unadulterated oxygen, up in the hills, untouched by human and other hands.

One of the things you also want to do is add to the list of places you can claim you’ve seen. You want to be able to tell friends that, yes, in-fact, you’ve actually travelled across this little piece of land called South India. And yes, you really have been to Kerala. Forget for a moment that Munnar is more Tamil than it is Kerala.

(Aside: Notice the rather subtle way I brought in the point of the post in the above paragraph? That’s why, I am the best darn writer in this world. And perhaps, even in other worlds.)

So, you finally have a place to go to, and a reason to justify it too. It’s complimentary. Somebody else is paying for it. In essence, while there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is a free holiday. You begin preparing for the holiday. You wind up all your free-hanging threads. You e-mail all your friends, gloating about the days of fun coming up. In short, you prepare to leave the world, albeit for very few days.

Thus far, referring back to my analogy of the painting, I have described the frame which holds the masterpiece we, I, will create. Let me roll up my sleeves, flex my arms a bit and get down to the actual job.

Imagine, if you will, a land that, at first gently, later rather steeply, rising up from the plains. Imagine, also, lumbering clouds, rolling mists and trees in a shade of green not seen ever.
Hang on to this picture, then, till tomorrow. For that is when we will resume the story.