“Tell me one thing,” Swami said while sipping his coffee, holding the cup in one hand, and checking his phone on the other. Jigneshbhai and I coughed discreetly, expecting another curious question from Swami.
“All these people who post on social media from exotic places, do they actually go there?” Swami asked. “And how are their photographs so good?” his innocent question continued.
Jigneshbhai continued munching into his muffin, while Swami continued his curious questions.
“I see some of those photos in online news too, of late,” he added. “News websites, I mean. Someone went somewhere. Is that news?” he asked. “Do they have to pay to get these things published? When I go somewhere, even you aren’t interested.”
Jigneshbhai and I couldn’t help but smile at Swami’s observations and questions. I think we should pay more attention to his chatter and ramblings in the future, especially when he is back from one of his vacations.
“No, they don’t pay. They get paid,” Jigneshbhai said. “For photos, for posts, for making news.” He stopped to see the surprise on Swami’s face. Getting paid to get photos and posts published from holidays was unheard of to him.
Jigneshbhai said, “They call it the attention economy, I think.”
“These are new ways of getting paid,” he added.
“Oh, so I shouldn’t trust these posts. And I shouldn’t trust online news. I never trusted salesmen and marketers, anyway,” Swami remarked in disappointed melancholy.
Jigneshbhai was a couple of steps ahead.
“Forget trusting them. Now we should suspect them. By default, we should reject them,” he said in characteristic confidence.
Swami and I looked at him and took notice.
“Reject them? I guess so. But what should we reject? They aren’t selling us anything, isn’t it?” he asked.
Jigneshbhai broke into a smile.
“They are selling us to someone. They are vying for our attention,” he said.
Swami raised his eyebrows in discomfort and surprise.
“Hmm.. So looks like we can’t trust anyone now,” he said.
“The other day I went to a hospital with a friend. He didn’t trust the doctor and the customer service people there,” he remarked. “Of course, he is a special nut case. He doesn’t trust his son’s school and teachers also anymore,” he continued. “They are all in business, he says,” Swami said, munching his muffin.
Jigneshbhai stayed silent. He did not react to what Swami said. “It’s an untrustworthy world, isn’t it?” he merely asked.
Swami continued munching his muffin, while I looked at him.
“The other day as I couldn’t go to the temple, I saw their YouTube channel and attended a sermon,” Swami said after a while. Jigneshbhai and I were surprised.
“Your temple has a YouTube channel?” Jigneshbhai asked.
“Yes,” Swami proudly replied with a wide grin. “They record sermons and special pujas and upload them there,” he said.
“Wow, great, in these times,” Jigneshbhai smiled, impressed.
“But that’s not the point,” Swami said. “When I was seeing the video, it stopped thrice in a space of twenty minutes for ads. Like a TV serial,” he added. “And those ads were for donations to poor widows, blind girl schools and stuff like that,” he said.
Jigneshbhai twitched his lips and said, “Smart.”
“Well, it is smart, alright. But can I trust my temple or these donation seekers?” he asked.
Jigneshbhai shrugged his shoulders. “No idea,” he replied.
“Even I had no idea,” Swami said sipping his coffee.
“So what did you do then?” Jigneshbhai enquired.
“Well, when in doubt, Google. So I googled,” Swami said, breaking into a smile.
“And then you checked if there were other people like you who didn’t trust that stuff, right?” Jigneshbhai asked with a grin.
“Yes,” Swami replied.
“Have they trusted this stuff? Has this thing earned other people’s trust? Are the other people who say they trust that thing themselves trustworthy? Checks, checks and more checks,” someone said but it wasn’t Jigneshbhai. We looked around to see the source of the voice. It was the wealthy old man who had walked across to our table.
Swami broke into a grin too and nodded his head.
“We evaluate. Till we suspect that maybe this too cannot be trusted,” the wealthy old man continued.
Jigneshbhai and I too nodded our heads this time, smiling.
That’s when the wealthy old man sat next to us. He left us pondering with what he said next.
“Trust is the rarest of attributes. There is a deficit of trust in today’s world. Trust can only be earned. If you can earn trust, you earn credibility.”
***