Sunday, January 13, 2002		Article

When masks become men
Rooma Mehra

The Mask, an oil painting by the writer

IN the era of IT, when communication is expected to skyrocket the human being to the realms of last century’s science-fiction, I find myself wondering about the fate of grass-root level communication, about genuine, one-to-one human-to-human communication, and hope it will not be the natural corollary of technological advancement, and its final casualty.

Human beings have always hidden behind masks, ever since mankind achieved the status of being "civilised. But the dawning of the new age seems to be making masks a norm as one finds more and more average, and not-so-average people, hiding behind more and more masks..The anonymity of the Internet being the ultimate in the technological sophistication of the mask.

And one is not referring to the-sanctioned-and-even-glorified-PR-mask of a plastic, page 3 socialite — where the reality of the word "socialite" including artists of the "fine" variety does not raise a single eyebrow.

One is also not referring to the-also-sanctioned-and-not-glorified-but-easily-accepted-and-easily-forgiven
/forgotten-mask of the Indian/Pakistani "politician"..

However, one does wonder at the increasing thickness of one’s unrevolting skins-and-sensibilities.

I like communicating with animals and plants. I know the reaction that I am getting is the raw, undisguised-by-layers-of-pasted-on-more-plastic-or-less-plastic-smiles-reaction that my communication deserves..I hate to delve under layers of less-plastic or more-plastic for that grain-of-true-reaction that may or may not be there at the end of the search. It is easier and less heart-breaking to believe the mask and drop the person.

That is, if one sees the mask.

God forbid, if the mask has grown roots into the skin. The wearing-off of the undetected mask can be wearying at the end of a six/three/two year long association..when a "mask" surprises a taken-for-granted-true-blue-relationship into an unexpectedly untimely demise.

And all this, just because one found it too tiresome to delve into kinesics for reference all the time.. to sit sift the tones from the words. One decided to "what-the-heck-I-believe-you"..and now sits and ponders as one tries to retrieve one’s lost-in-space-words while trying to come to terms with having carried a one-way-communication with a mask for years, when the human being disappeared after the first "hello". And the mask, without even realising it, is coming to terms with itself and its coloured skin-base, with the passage of time..

It puzzles one that one has blown zillions of feeling-laden words into the polluted wide-open space of civilised cities..and lost them. It puzzles to have your feeling-laden-words stuck to somebody’s ingrown mask with a coloured skin-base. Some consolation that the mask was not disposable, because there is old unhappy Amma with her words probably thrown away with a disposable mask of a Pakistan President..

It hurts to see a previously content old amma in Old Delhi dying the routine old death of poor old people now carrying a new burden of a new mask-infested hope.. also heartache and depression added to a floral suit-length and some dollars to her stock of sorrows and minus the contentment of a previously life resigned to its inevitable sorrows and its inevitable end.

It hurts to see "An Ode" to the plastic smiles of artists on a plastic page 3.

It hurts to see expressions metamorphose into masks..