I love me...

There are narcissists and there are narcissists. Oh! You do not know what narcissism is? Wiki to the rescue as always:- “Narcissism is a term that originated with Narcissus in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Currently it is used to describe a person characterized by egotism, vanity, pride, or selfishness.”  

By now you would have understood your typical next door narcissist. Who for boring the ear of the daughter of someone in the family or even worse the coming of age of a daughter in the family makes a huge flex print and proclaims the event to the whole world with the accompanying mug shots of the narcissists who must delight to see themselves larger than life on the roads. Then there is the narcissist who desiring to celebrate the festival of the neighbourhood deity makes a huge board and ensures that he gets enough space on the board to relegate the deity to a corner. After all Gods do not need publicity so I suppose that is understandable.

The pride of place will definitely go to those who are in politics where sycophancy stokes narcissism or is it the other way around? Either way it ensures that the fires keep burning in the homes of those involved in the trade of making and displaying these boards. I really wonder if people actually like to see themselves staring back at them when they move around. At times these images can be very unflattering and even cause a few smiles and I often wonder at the implied message when I see one such board.

These days I have noticed a new breed of narcissists on the roads of Chennai, these people are always found on two wheelers. These people really delight in seeing themselves whenever possible and for this reason they usually have two vanity mirrors mounted on their vehicles. With typical Indian ingenuity these people turn the rear view mirrors towards themselves so that they have a clear view of themselves always. When they need to turn they can always look back so a redundant accessory on a vehicle is put to better use.

I sincerely hope that on a particularly bad face day one such guy will not scare himself when he sees the mirror while riding.

Images courtesy Google images