Do you really need to take a nude selfie to be 'liked'?

Social media has brought forth suppressed, narcissistic emotions in people.

That we are speaking constantly is not enough, sharing every lame thought that pops up between our ears, but now I hear that putting up a nude selfie is an act of true empowerment.

Really? Tell me more.

I would love to put this out to every woman I know, notwithstanding our inherent Indian prudishness and the fact that we get fat shamed or just that women are never happy with their bodies.

I have to get this. My faux-hippie life has missed the opportunity of a lifetime, it seems.

Wouldn’t it be more empowering that we accept ourselves first as we are, jiggly inner thighs notwithstanding?

It was Maya Angelou who once said that though her breasts were headed south... she was herself in the best state as long as she was writing or something to that effect.

She was someone we read and listened to. She dazzled on Oprah's show but did she take topless pictures from all angles as she chewed over her pen?

So would anyone like to know the direction of my unmentionables? Do you even care?

And why should you when you have Kate Moss dewy as a bride in her glory for all to see. And we all want to see her don’t we. She is a muse, a beauty, a classic.

Just look at those eyes and those lips and I swear, you will get your nudie fix in every which way possible.

Is it our anonymity, our nobodyness that makes us crave attention? It started with those damned blogs. So many words out there in the ether, just swirling around without anybody to read them.

Everybody was self publishing. Only a nugget or two got through and it had the same dynamics that traditional stuff has to be successful: timeliness, edgy, novelty or just plain shocking.

Of course, good writing helped. But there was really so much of it that, though we cling to our mobile browsers like limpet mines, for everything that was read and noticed, there were zillions words more that were not!

Which has always made wonder why Twitter isn’t making a profit? The character limit alone should have been it money spinning wheel.

But I forget, when people talk about themselves, expostulate their oh-so-very-important views, tell the whole world what they think of the Kale and Quinoa, brevity is certainly not welcome.

I really do think Twitter has a future in the world of breaking news. But with so much of everything out there and the search function using tonnes of optic fibre to give us 3.1 million results in .03 seconds, no wonder they are struggling to turn into the black side of the ledger.

I always noticed in my dealings with famous people – artists, writers, filmmakers and others — that when they were face to face, they were the most humble and the most talented people I ever met.

I saw Anish Kapoor explaining his ideas with childlike enthusiasm in his sprawling studio in London.

The famous Mr Naipaul known for his acerbic wit, allowed me to quietly lead him around a room full of hacks with nary a refusal. I was humbled by their humility.

Not even once did they use the word "I" or "me" and looked a bit perplexed at all the brouhaha around them.

They wanted to be heard through their words and their works and rest was spent in silent thought and repose. But their handlers, they were like rottweilers... Sir doesn’t like this, Sir hates that.

One world renowned shoe designer’s tiny assistant had me running around Khan Market looking for Mangosteen because "Oh Sir does not eat any fruit which cannot be peeled.”

The said gentleman when he was chatting with me, noticed my open toes (I always wear heels) and drew a black outline of the perfect shoe for me... just like that, and signed it.

The mangosteen stayed untouched and unpeeled. The truly brilliant hardly ever tom-tom about themselves, because they don’t need to.

So what’s with the unknown nudies... Are we all dying to stand naked and have I missed some key part of the discourse? Should I step out of my Triple-X T-shirt, strike a WWF pose and call myself empowered?

How does it work really? So we come to the key issue: we wallow in our obscurity. Us anonymous nobodies!

So we want, just our 382 friends to like us once more on Facebook and we check and recheck by the minute who else has seen it! Did anyone share?

Oh, there, it’s on someone’s timeline.

Are you sure, your mates are not falling over laughing? And do you really need to step out of your knickers to be "liked". Maybe not.

Also read: Our morals don't need policing but our streets do