Tell me Why?

Disclaimer: This blog is on some ‘why’ questions that popped up in my mind related to the stereotype portrayal of characters/incidents. These is not a set of serious ‘Y’s like Why God is not visible? Or why earth revolves around sun? If you are looking for questions/answers on those fronts please skip this post on trivial ‘Y’s-

· Why are scientists always portrayed as old men with disheveled clothes , Einstein-like hair , and soda-glass kind of spectacles etc? Can’t there be a handsome young scientist; a tip-top , dark-tall-handsome guy as described in the M&B novels with a neatly tucked in shirt and a clean shaved face?
· Why do teachers always have to wear glasses? And further upon a teacher is generally a female and a lecturer generally but not always a male. In either cases both wear spectacles.
· Why do the ads of HR jobs, IT jobs, corporate jobs always have a model-like lady figure in them holding a laptop or a sleek bag with a nicely made up face, delicately manicured/ pedicured nails? Can’t there be people like you and me who are very normal in their looks with average heights, with dark circles around their eyes(off course this shows the amount of sleepless hard-work put) be the role models for the jobs?
· Why does a granny in a bollywood movie always has a secret love story of hers to share? Why are the grandparents (grand dad or grand mom) in favor of some love escapade of his/her grandchild while the parents who in comparison are of newer generation opposing it?
· Why in movies is a lady always screaming with pain during labour? Of what I’ve heard from my mom, aunties and others none of them screamed with such high decibels during their labour and were really silent enduring the pains.
· Why in case of any hospital scene, a handful of doctors and someone runs along with the patient in the stretcher?
· Why is a traffic congestion always present when there is an urgency to reach the hospital/airport etc and on the other hand when the lead lady and lad sing duet absolutely nobody is present in the near vicinity?(Don’t mention the Tamil/Kannada movies where a bunch of yuck dressed fat ladies emerge from nowhere and start gyrating to the beats in the background changing their clothes for every stanza of the song)
· Why does a book worm always have to wear spectacles?
· Why does a detective need to be in a suit and a dirty pair of boots with a cigar in his mouth and a hat on his head?
· Why does a dentist always have to don a white coat and flash his white teeth and always have a couple of toothpastes for making comparison? He looks so sanitized in the attire.
· Why should a writer always be absent minded , lost-in-dreams character? On the contrary these are the people who observe even the minute items!
· Why should a poor man always be virtuous and a rich man vile?
· Why should there always be a ‘too-good-to-be-true’ daughter-in-law and a ‘too-bad-to-be-true’ mother-in-law?
· Why in fairy tales, the youngest sister happens to be the most beautiful, the most decent and helpful creature while all her elder siblings are selfish and bad?
· Why does a instrument player like table/guitar always have to grow his hair long?
· Why does a South-Indian have to speak Hindi with a funny accent?
· Why is that only a house-wife/clerical jobbed husband portrayed to have headache and not the neatly clad corporate lady or suit donned manager or a teeth flashing dentist?
· Why is a faded dirty red towel always present around a coolie’s neck?
· Why does the police force generally reach the crime spot only after the crime is done or after the criminal has surrendered to the hero?
· Why is a techie male shown as a smart guy when in reality most of them are pot bellied or have a receding hair line?

Just think of these characters in your mind and almost within a second you will have the same image as I have stated above. For example, take the example, of a techie itself , you are surrounded by thousands of them , associated with many of them and you are one as well. But instead of finding your irritating colleague with a bad breath or your almost bald headed technical manager or a boy-like fresher chewing the gum like a cow chewing the cud you will only find the image I mentioned above.
Think of the teacher and your primary school teacher who taught you multiplication or the physics teacher who taught you “every action has an equal…..” does not come to your mind; instead a lady clad in starched white saree with little blue flowers in it, a stick in hand and spectacles almost slipping of her nose, contempt on her face and a blackboard in the background is all that come to your mind.
Is it because of the repeated portrayal of the image in the visual medium that your brain is tuned to the image? I must say the best of all the images imprinted in our minds is that of a ghost who we can think of only as a she in a plain white nylon saree and long hair left loose over the shoulders with a candle in her hand and cold eyes that never wink! I do not have to describe the background of the scene, do I?