An unnatural order of things

So far the attention we have paid has been mostly in terms of external action. We have questioned the efficacy of our disaster management systems and demanded improvement. We have celebrated the surge of humanitarian initiatives and worked out how to organise them better. We have asked for inquiries, into corruption and mismanagement. We have even learnt something about social inequality and injustice.

And yet, deeper reflection on the issue of man’s fundamental relationship with nature still evades us. And one area that offers an explanation as to why this should be so is perhaps the influential medium shaping our consciousness these days, the advertising industry.

There is an awful lot of nature in advertising these days. So much, in fact, that it seems to have replaced sex as a marketing tool. Consider a product least compatible with nature, urban housing, for instance. Residential and commercial complexes rear their tall matchbox facades against computer generated blue skies and look down on leafy gardens. The Parmar Group in Pune claims the city is ‘‘growing’’, a word spelt out in the largest letters in green. Anjor apartments ask you to ‘‘get drenched in moonlight’’, Kamla Group’s Trade Towers are in ‘‘lush’’ Kamla city located incidentally, in the heart of Mumbai’s commercial center; while the Kohinoor and Siddhivinayak enterprises invite you to invest in their commercial and lifestyle premises with a picture of a sapling and a mound of earth.

Samsung’s video mp3 player asks you to imagine ‘‘natural’’ sound with a small visual of a DJ placed in a verdant field surrounded by fresh white flowers. The company’s digital camcorder rests in a bush recording the bright colours of a butterfly. KLM advertises itself with a flock of birds. Tibre trousers merge into the dark stripes of a zebra. The Corum watch takes you to the high seas while Omega adds a coral reef and a shoal of fish beneath an image of Michael Phelps battling the waves.

Feats of physical endurance, in fact, are a hot selling point. Internet banking from SBI gives you ‘‘total control that will make you feel like a Fourmula One Racer’’. Union Bank of India crosses 1,15000 crore with the picture of an athlete breasting a tape. IBM offers solutions to businesses set in serene lakes and cycling rinks. Classic Polo claims its shirts, like yoga, can keep you young. And Indica’s V2 Turbo sells diesel with a sweaty gymnast and open skies.

Nature figures most prominently in advertising related to the automobile and ancillary industries. Bosch, Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum sell wide vistas and golden hillocks. Santro suggests ‘‘you owe yourself some sunshine’’. Apparel manufacturers, too, seem to have taken to the trend. The man in Digjam stands tall against the sky, Lacoste offers ‘‘un peu d’air surterre’’. But the most striking is perhaps the Raymonds man who, traipsing a bamboo grove in a two button suit with high notched lapels and detailed stitch has that ‘‘close to nature feeling’’.

The trend is, of course, reflective of a growing desire among urbanites for wild, open spaces and physical exercise, both of which have led to the growth of the tourism and adventure sports industries. The subtle message that comes through, however, is one of appropriation. Man appropriates nature even while dressed in the height of urban fashion, driving an automobile and living in a skyscraper.

It is a fantasy of control which, according to Catherine M. Roach writing on a similar phenomenon regarding automobiles in the American context in the May-June 2002 issue of Sierra magazine, ‘‘encourage us to dismiss ecological knowledge of our dependence on a healthy environment’’. It is a fantasy that recent events seem to be urging we give up.