India is a nation that is now well accustomed to random politicians making stupid statements. Or stupid politicians making random statements, whatever. You can actually use any derogatory adjective in that string and still make sense out of it. If I wrote a blog on the detailed deconstruction of each and every stupid thing our beloved politicians would have said or done, I’d have more content in this free domain than the entirety of Arindam Chaudhuri’s IIPM scam database. Hence, I decided to highlight just this one issue which really disturbed me. Funnily though, it isn’t an Indian who’s saying funny things and being a jerk now.
My facebook feed off late has been concentrating on one common topic- Water. From the ALS Ice bucket challenge, to the seemingly righteous posts about how it’s a waste of water, I have been getting regular updates. This stands to prove a few things about the basic nature of humans on social networks. Mainly, it illustrates the fact that people can get annoyed for basically anything. Be it a funny photo or an awareness program for a life threatening disease. Suddenly, everyone is concerned about the water shortages in Africa. To get one thing clear, EVERYTHING is scarce in Africa. Except for widespread diseases and vegetation maybe. I could probably take a photo of a shattered bulb in my living room and get responses like –
YOU UNGRATEFUL PRICK! HOW CAN YOU JUST TAKE PHOTOS OF BROKEN BULBS? YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST DONATED THAT TO AFRICA INSTEAD OF WASTING A PERFECTLY GOOD BULB. THEY DON’T HAVE ELECTRICITY AND USE TRAPPED FIREFLIES AS LIGHTS OVER THERE. UGH.
I love how everyone is against the challenge but is completely okay with the concept of Holi and La Tomatina. But that’s how bandwagons function. You cannot have a bandwagon without equal support at both ends. Brushing that aside now, I should probably get to the actual topic I wanted to write about. For the 3 of you who follow the news, Nestle recently just made the biggest dick move in the history of dick moves since the mandatory set top box installation notice. Nestle wants to privatize all the water resources in the world. Suddenly, ALS seems like something fancier doesn’t it?
What may sound like some evil plan from a James Bond movie, is actually something your 23rd favorite chocolate brand has been up to for quite some time. Similar to James Bond villain plans, Nestle has been trying to continually piss off people in the world in order to gain some money and attention. Peter Brabeck, the chairman of the board of Nestle has gone on record to say the following- “The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.”
That’s right. Peter here thinks that water being openly available to everyone is somewhat of an extreme and unnecessary solution. This whole fiasco is doubly shocking for us to hear now because we had gotten used to words like free water and Aam Aadmi during the reign of a Mr. Arvind Kejriwal. While he is probably holding rallies in Chandini Chowk elaborating how Nestle is actually a conspiracy started by Reliance, the normal population are just distraught over the level of ignorance shown by this multinational conglomerate. This isn’t even the entire villainous story of this company. Apart from telling people that they don’t really need water like they need rights, Nestle has a record of going pretty dirty in their marketing strategies by manipulating women in lesser economically developed countries into using their baby nutrient powder over natural breast milk. That’s a new low even for these bureaucratic knobs.
There are two kinds of marketing bullies in the industry. One are the actual geniuses; the Don Drapers and the Steve Jobs of the marketing world. They will use sly mind games to get you to buy their product, but once you see through the plot, you will applaud their method. The other type of bully you will usually come across are the C.I.A fellows who will barge into your face and use brute force to make you buy their item. Nestle is basically the douche head of the C.I.A. They actually took the time from their busy schedule involving meetings and cocaine to cram in a flight to some village in Africa whose name sounds like a frog choking on a boulder, just to convince a bunch of pregnant ladies to not feed their children natural nutrients. This is the maximum level a salesman can aspire to go to. This is basically what you would get if you crossed Suresh Kalmadi with some the owner of a textiles shop from Gujarat. Basically, Narendra Modi on steroids.
The fact that more than several lakhs of infants have died because of improper nutrition doesn’t seem to pose a concern as big as a downward profit graph for these people. We’re talking about Africa here, by the way. Everything in Africa is continually trying to end you. In the midst of these real life Hunger Games (No pun intended..not intentionally at least) , for an organization to gain the upper hand and indirectly kill hundreds of thousands of infants seems like something that should have come up in the news. Instead, we see Arnab Goswami shouting at inanimate objects like Sanjay Jha and that autistic son of the president.
EDIT: Abhijit Mukherjee is apparently not autistic, but actually that dumb. Sorry, Autistic people. I’m sure you found that offensive. If you found that at all..but okay.
Unless you can create a space-time portal that enables you to magically transport yourself to Africa within 10 minutes, it may seem like you can’t do anything about this. Fortunately for us, the internet intervenes and makes life a tad bit easier. Since you’ve reached the end of this article, it is safe to assume that you weren’t doing anything productive anyway. Go ahead and sign the petition to join the many people who thought this was wrong. The Nestle Boycott is also a movement that was started way before any of us were born. Evidently, people have been taking a shit on this company for quite a long time. Join the boycott movement too, it’s not like you’re losing out on any great nestle products anyways.
While I’m dishing out orders to you anyways here, also Like, Comment and Share so that I can get up every morning and not hate myself. Come on guys. Be grateful that you can read these articles at the comfort of your home while kids in Africa have to kick rocks at deer for fun while trying to not get kidnapped by Joseph Kony. Or Branjelina.
Petition form link : http://action.storyofstuff.org/sign/nestle_water_privatization_push
The Daily Offensive 