feels like you are being watched, and yes watched you are constantly if you are under the microscope of judgments of others that surround you! When you are being scrutinized and looked at, studied, cataloged, and tagged you feel transparent. It seems as though your very innards are lighted up to be exhibited and displayed, and your feelings, inner most thoughts, lurid fantasies, and well-kept secrets are there in the open for everyone to see, to comment on, and worst of all to criticize!
And, God help you! if under this state of vigilance you make a mistake, tell a lie, or do something that you ought not to have done! no matter how trivial torrents of reprimand, avalanches of condemnation, volleys of abuses, and a lot of head-shaking at your 'outrageous' behavior will fall upon you! smothering you alive!
If you think and believe that you are being watched and monitored, that is if you are the regular run of the mill, typical paranoid Pakistani, like me, then be ready for getting on and permanently staying glued to a roller coaster of emotional upheaval! Every snide comment on you, every sarcastic remark ( whether actually mean isn't the point here) will make your life a living, breathing, and feeling hell. You will, like the rest of the neurotic people of this most crazed country be only interested in wanting to know what others think of you, and if at all they give the seal and stamp of approval!! the penultimate NOC to be a part of the acceptable elite, the 'in'crowd! If I am OK with the Big Brother I am fine and life is good.
Now the twist, to be under the microscopic scrutiny you must earn the privilege to be so watched and observed. To be the subject under study you must be an 'object' and an 'item' as they say in Bollywood lingo. You must do some wrong that qualifies you to be on the watch list of BB. In a city of 15 million, hello!!! not everyone is under the microscope though they'd like to be or think that they are!
So commit a felony, a crime and you are an instant nominee, be a victim of hate, violence, abuse, abandonment ( preferably at the hands of a loved one) you're on the hit list. Do something outrageous like leave your husband and four kids and you are an instant success. Be reckless by getting wasted in public and you've arrived! And better still have an extra-marital affair and provoke the most shocked hai! and hai Allah!!!!
We are a depraved lot, and we love to hate the worst among us and at times the very good too. We love mauling others for things we'd secretly would love to do but lack the very nerve to indulge in. We are hypocrites par excellence - loving the idea of being talked about but pretending otherwise. And we all walk around carrying our personal microscope to pick up specimens to look at and deride! We love to malign others, hate others and yes enjoy every bit of the whole sordid deal!!!
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