13. WHO CONTROLS US

How many rooms are there in your house? Are there rooms which remain unoccupied even when all members of the family are present.
How many vessels are there in your show case, which have never been used even once in a year. Is there any costly vessel which cannot be used every day.
Do you prepare a list of items which are to be bought when you go shopping? Do you categorise them according to your needs - very essential, and not essential. Are you very much attracted by the utensils and other instruments used by your neighbours? Do you long for such attractive things and, wish to adopt a new life style?
We have to ask such questions ourselves. Today we have lost our control on our lives. We are not led by us. It is the market which controls us. Markets are structured by powerful capitalists who are interested in making profits. They don't mind values. They use advertisements as instruments to conquer and enslave us.
Advertisements have become the essential and indispensable part of such a life. They come to us in the forms of items in dailies, weeklies, monthlies, and other media such as radio, TV, films etc. They invade our daily lifestyles. They tempt us. They create responses in our subconscious mind. The products glorified by them gradually creep into us. 
Advertisements very often influence our emotions. They help develop new desires in our mind. We submit ourselves to those emotional responses without giving a chance for thought. Thus now we have become the slaves of our new desires. It seems to us that several things which are really unessential for us have become highly essential.
Advertisements play very important role in making our desires. They makes us aliens. The illusory advertisements weaken our thoughts, and isolate us from our traditions. They gradually creep into all walks of our life. What must we eat? How to eat? What should we drink? Which utensil must we use to eat and drink? What should we wear? How to brush our hair? What oil should we use? Which tooth paste should be used? Which cosmetics should we use? How should we fashion our smile, facial expressions, and looks. How to walk, how to sit, how to take bath - all personal matters, silly or important, are decided by the great manufacturers who have their own philosophy of selfishness. The personality of majority of the people, and their desires and fancies are determined and directed by advertisements. The behavioural pattern of the consumers is shaped by them.
The symbols of social status of our people is decided by the big capitalists and their advertisements. They make an impression that happy and satisfactory matrimonial life and safe family are things that are available in the market. It has given training in keeping the neighbours jealous of us. Therefore instead of love, compassion, sympathy, kindness and the emotions of revenge, envy, and competitions are rampant in the society. The commercial advertisements have now upset the rhythm of our life. They have turned our value concepts upside down. In the minds of the people are the images of the models appearing in the advertisements. Therefore we have lost the diversity in our concept of beauty, and personality structure. Everything has become now boringly uniform in shape.
Advertisements do not take into account the necessaries of human life. They consider only luxuries of an easy life. Thus we think that such luxuries should be acquired at any rate and failure in doing so will be a great loss. The advertisements therefore are engaged in a psychological war to make its followers spendthrifts.
Hence let us find answers to : How much do the advertisements attract you? Do you buy anything believing in them? Have you ever been swindled by the ads? Did the advertisements succeed in making you believe that unnecessary things are very essential for you? When you buy anything which appears in the advertisements in the TV, do you realize that lakhs of Rupees paid as advertisement tariff includes your money also. Or did you even realize that when you buy a product advertised in the TV which has less value (ie. which is a cheap thing) has been paid  high value by you?
Whatever be the answers to these questions, we must be able to make certain decisions. We must be so vigilant that we should not be swindled by the temptations of the commercial world which adopts marketing strategies for its existence. We must have will power; which should not be shaken by the advertisers. Then only we can exist without losing our personality. We must try to be the masters of the marketing world.