Arti: Okay this is the limit. I am one step away from going insane. Oh god! Where the hell are you?
God: hey waddup!
A: Who is it?
G: Its me God..
A: God? Where are you.. I cant really see you with all that bright light pointing towards me..
G: Oops. Sorry shifted to low watt environment friendly ones. Having trouble adjusting brightness. Just hold on will sms ya.Must be cheaper.Coverage at this time of the night should be good.
A: er.. I thought u created the universe and well isn’t light included in it??
G: Of course not, Woman have you forgotten elementary physics? Law of conservation of energy??
A: oho! Din know that. Then wats with the “Let there be light” propaganda?
G: That. I din come up with it.. The PR guys thought it would be good for my image.
A: oh okay. So why you here?
G: Didn’t you just summon me.
A: Okay that’s weird.. It was jus an expression. Sorry.
G: That’s cool np. I was bored anyway. Have been reading this. (points to a huge book)
A: Okay that’s huge. Is it a list of all that people want?
G: Not really.. Its Shashi Tharoor’s tweet updates. I wanted to know why he gets into trouble all the time. And one point of clarification, me being God and all am not allowed into hell.
A: Oh okay I kinda forgot.. it seems to be a verbal crutch these days.. By the way since ur here and all can I ask you something?
G: Fire away.
A: Who are you? Krishna? Buddha? Jesus? Allah?
G: The core of all religions is the same. And the core is me. Interpretations of me vary. But I am constant.
A: okay.. if that’s the case people go around fighting about you for what reason? Why don’t ya stop em?
G: That’s not how I roll.. I gave you all free will. I don’t have time to babysit each and everyone of you. And to be honest I get a lil bored up here. You guys are my tv you know..
A: that’s a little petty for god now isn’t it?
G: you shoulda seen how ive screwed over other planets?
A: other planets? Okay I don wana know. Is that why ur texting me instead of a vision?
G: How do you know this is not a vision?
A: Touché god.
G: Okay my balance is kinda out. So gtg. Ttyl.

stereotypes

My friend’s mother recently passes away. H didn’t take it very well. Did not want to work, talk to anyone. We begged, cajoled, threatened. After about a month, went off to work. Had a breakdown in front of the colleagues. But the whole thing was not looked upon kindly by the people at work. Why? As a man he is supposed to be stronger. He doesn’t fit the stereotype. From childhood, girls are allowed to cry and boys are forced not to cry. After a certain age the boy is told, “You are a big boy now. You shouldn’t cry.” Does it mean men aren’t allowed to express emotions? Everyone believes that he/she belongs to a stereotype and may be he/she should just follow that.

We as a species are all hypocrites. It’s just that our level of awareness about it differs from person to person. Not so long ago I made a harsh comment about men who cry and how unattractive it is. Now when I think about it I realize I was being as dumb as the people at H’s workplace.

Having said that, I am playing devil’s advocate. In today’s cognitive world, stereotypes are just generalizations, for better or worse, the product of everyone’s mind. For most people an essential feature of stereotypes is that they are negative and that is the one reason why they seem so offensive. People want to feel good about themselves and they would like to, more often than not, bolster their confidence by convincing themselves that they are doing much better than their cohorts.

Take gender stereotyping. Comments like “You throw like a girl” meant to insult a guy is looked on as a negative stereotype. It is well established that an average man would have better muscle power than an average woman. Does it mean guys who make comments like this are chauvinists? Not really. It’s a way for them to establish rapport.

Don’t you think we may have equal number of positive and negative generalizations about people? We tend to label those negative as stereotypes whereas the positive ones are labeled as mere generalizations. This is a reason why people seem to get offended when you tell them they belong to a stereotype. Isn’t it better to fit into a mold rather than not fit anywhere at all?

I think it is an innate tendency for the human mind to abstract. It’s easier to group people into different homogeneous segments, than to attempt understanding each one separately. These groups can be anything like "those who go for love marriages" , H1B category, north Indians calling all south Indians “madrasi”.. Yada. Yada. It is just one form of cognition according to me when you are trying to understand someone.. There are as always errors and but it still makes the effort easier for the mind right?

I don’t know if stereotyping is right/wrong, makes sense/doesn’t. I just hope people would have better perception of the concept. What do you think?