Seemingly overnight, Dixit achieved fame on the internet and has now embraced the persona of “The Authentic Vada Pav Girl in Delhi” (as her Instagram profile declares) (Photo: Instagram)
“They say/Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me, oh-oh/I’ve never seen anybody do the things you do before/They say/Move for me, move for me, move for me, ay-ay/And when you’re done, I’ll make you do it all again.”
— ‘Dance Monkey’ by Tones and I
In a 2019 interview on the Australian radio station Nova FM, artist Toni Watson (better known by her stage name, Tones and I) spoke about the inspiration behind her chart-topping, record-breaking song, ‘Dance Monkey’. It was about her time as a busker and the pressure she felt to “always be entertaining people on the street”. As a street musician, she performed before a fickle audience. “And if they didn’t like it, when they looked at their phones, they could just click something else… we are all so used to being entertained at the click of a button.”
In the years since this interview, our phones have only gotten better at serving us with an unending stream of entertainment; although sometimes, the algorithms can produce an unlikely celebrity. The story of Chandrika Gera Dixit, now famous as the Delhi Vada Pav Girl, is one such recent example. It began with a video in which she appeared distressed and claimed that the authorities were threatening to close her roadside food cart. Her anguish touched a chord and the video went viral, amassing millions of views.
Seemingly overnight, Dixit achieved fame on the internet and has now embraced the persona of “The Authentic Vada Pav Girl in Delhi” (as her Instagram profile declares). Her nearly quarter of a million followers are treated to reels where she plays the role to the hilt. With a microphone on her lapel and a camera close at hand, she can be seen selling vada pavs in t-shirts emblazoned with her brand and collaborating with other social media personalities. Her meteoric rise has predictably attracted haters, who have found cause to complain about her pricing model as well as her attitude. These criticisms — leavened by healthy helpings of jealousy and misogyny — can do little to stop her. In fact, the flair for performance that has earned her admirers (and trolls) on social media, has also become an indispensable talent essential for corporate success.
English jurist Lord Hewart had once famously noted that “justice should not only be done but should…be seen to be done”. In the 21st century workplace, this aphorism has been adopted a bit too literally. No project is deemed complete until a grandiose announcement has been made on LinkedIn. The culture of presenteeism encourages employees to spend long (and often, unproductive) hours in the workplace in what is essentially an attempt to always seem busy. People are exhorted to constantly hustle and, more importantly, make pompous proclamations of their hustling skills. The root cause of this seems to be that now, simply doing one’s work is no longer sufficient; one must be seen to have done the work. When the performance of work becomes necessary to attract attention and reward, the work-self itself becomes a performance.
Some would say, of course, that our entire lives are a performance, an act we present to the world. We curate a public or social image to showcase the best version of ourselves to those around us. The personality we choose is based on our judgement of the attributes we think would be most palatable to our friends, colleagues, and family.
In the early 1900s, American sociologist Charles Horton Cooley coined the term “looking-glass self” to describe the phenomenon of how our self-identity is shaped by how we think others perceive us. According to this theory, our understanding of our self is formed by imagining how we appear to others and how they react to that appearance. Such external reaction can be evident — with a like on a social media post or a smile at a party — or it may be constructed by our minds when there are no discernible cues. In both instances, the real or perceived societal reaction helps us mould our behaviour and influences how we view ourselves.
Perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the idea of the looking-glass self is being self-aware. We spend our lives on digital media, the workplace, and social gatherings — and we play different roles in each of them. Be it the Delhi Vada Pav Girl or a nondescript employee in a nondescript office, we are all wrapped up in our performance. As long as we live, we may never stop performing; but self-reflection can, at least, bring us closer to the truth. If we are ever to change, we will first need to acknowledge that we are all dance monkeys vying for the attention of our desired audience.
The writer is a Mumbai-based lawyer
