Changing Times

After about the 20th message of "Happy Doctor's Day" by people random & not so random I just could not contain my annoyance anymore. Do we have a Peppy Plumber's Day? A Cheeky Chartered Accountant's Day? A Buoyant Bus Driver's Day? A Perky Pizza Delivery Guy day? OK fine we are celebrating the birth of a famous doctor B C Roy on 1st July in India & applauding the role doctors have in community (Doubt anyone cares for that or tries to know why B C Roy was so famous)....But everyone is merrily wishing a Happy Doctor's Day?
Wtf??? What's the Happy about??
We always had a Teachers Day for S Radhakrishnan's birthday... our premier educationist...& we had events to commemorate the day & pay homage to the teachers....but the spirit of that homage would be completely ruined by a meaningless "Happy Teacher's Day" to all the teachers.
What is this fascination people have ....more in India than anywhere else & more on social media than anywhere in real life...where we canonise any random day for any random thing & add a happy before it like the happy birthday. The spirit of Valentine's Day has been perfectly ruined by the whole crass commercialisation with the Happy Friendship Day/ Happy Rose Day/ Happy Teddy Bear Day/ Happy Cake Day & god knows what else day. We seem to be so eager to celebrate something special almost everyday that we are trying to label everyday into something special--thereby losing the "special-ness" of even the erstwhile special days which had years of tradition & goodwill behind it. We are turning the days into a mockery of whatever it stands for by this thoughtless extension of a meaningless wish. If everyday was declared a festival who would value the real festivals?
While I'm in my ranting mode let me extend the spotlight to this whole exercise of self aggrandiosement prevalent nowhere more rabidly than in the social media pages of users from India. So we always had Dr as a prefix....I didn't create it.....I try not to promote it...but it existed & some people got their jollies by flaunting it on an unsuspecting world every chance they got. OK doctors (including Ph D's) are generally narcissistic.....maybe some feel it is the just due after working hard....well good for them.....but it always made me laugh when I saw the name Dr something or the other on the train reservation list or on a plane boarding pass.....it is just plain narcissism----no one cares! But not to be left behind we soon had Er cropping up on visiting cards & name plates at homes to highlight the august presence of an Engineer in the vicinity. Now of course we have Arch. (Architect) & Adv. (Advocate) & so many more....no one willing to leave the glory behind their name--they need to have it before their name & they want it all.
Hey a prefix doesnt make you anyone improtant....do important work to be improtant...do not claim importance by a prefix....goes for doctors as much as anyone else.
I guess soon we would have  Jo. (Journalists) Po. (Poets) & Lo. (Labourers) as well...why should anyone be denied their prefix?
We've already presented ourselves as CEO's & GM's of whatever fly by the night corner shop establishment we trade in.
Hey you're running a shop in a small residential colony.....you are a shopkeeper...not a CEO of a trading house ....& you go paying people kickbacks for the business they send your patron--you are not the GM (Public Relations) of some firm.
What happened to the self depreciatory humility that was our heritage once & an effort to make a day soecial for someone special by doing & saying something special & personal? This cut paste forward era of meaningless euphemistic utterances are just plain lazy & to me ....extremely annoying!
I wish people be who they are & mean what they say ( & for a change sometime know why they are saying what they are saying) rather than saying or doing it because it is the trendy thing & every man jack & his dog is doing it.