(Don't Be A) Shoppoholic!!

Driving around Delhi and spotted this billboard at a petrol pump (on Mathura Road, in Nizamuddin). The image looked really familiar and then I realized that it was a picture I had clicked at Dilli Haat's Nature Bazaar a couple of Novembers back! Apparently the billboard is by the Delhi Govt to promote shopping in the city. They obviously got the image from my Flickr account, where the pics are free for download and use as long as the users attribute the original pic to me. This being the govt though, there was no attribution nor any intimation that they were using the pic. Oh well! I still got a kick of seeing one of my work on a billboard!

The billboard


Close up


And the original image



Thankfully the image they've put up is one of shopping for fabric in Dilli Haat, and not, for instance, jewellery at some fancy Delhi zevar ki dukan! Still, since they used my picture to promote consumption, I feel compelled to a tiny rant on the topic: shop/consume in a way that leads to a more equitable society, not in a way that leads to a more unequal and polarized society!

Cheers!

PS: No idea where they got the spelling for "Shoppoholic" from - obviously they were trying to go for "Shopaholic"! Maybe they conflated shopaholic with the trend (current? past?) to name things "Shoppe" in Delhi/India.