Non-Sense of Humour

Long ago,when I was studying my engineering,I had read a news item wherein a fine arts student,Chandramohan from the Maharaja Sayajirao University was arrested and charged under sections 153B and 295A for the said depictions of some gods in his own way.Which I would say should be referred to as his own renditions of his Gods!Then a few other popular references that,to me, have been pretty disturbing could be a Taslima Nazreen for Lajja or a Salman Rushdie for Satanic Verses or a million more.Time and again a person's right to expression has been tied down with the bureaucratic chains.There can be no state that can say that it is a developed one if it has so many curbs on free press.The reason we call it 'free press' is because of the fact that they can report what they see.(let us not discuss, poor reporting and masala-fication of news here).Our loyalty to anything borders on the lines of fanaticism.Religious,regional,ethnic,cultural,caste-based even a simple emotion like love;anything, we have to lay down the 'my way or the highway' rule.If we want something we get it else we protest.A near 100% of our protests involve one or all of these: slogan shouting,window breaking,bus burning,if that doesn't work we resort to the next level that involves strike and more often than not,a total shutdown of the machinery.If it has to do with the entertainment industry we call for a ban on the movie/play/actor or a heavy censorship,which would anyway kill the movie.

Let alone art we cannot even handle humor in a mature way.The 'cattle class' tweet by Shashi Tharoor,which in a way,if not directly, cost him his ministry is still etched fresh in our psyche .His indication was to something miles apart from what was made out of it.Things that we hold in supremely high esteem should not be criticized,be it something mighty obvious.But no, you dare not say a word against them.We are never open to discussions.Our sense of humor may sting others but when and if it even remotely comes down to us,we unleash hell,show the world how crass we can get. We watch so many foreign production talk shows on television and laugh at their jibes on their actors yet get pissed when something similar happens here.We get furious and release a press statement with the words culture,respect,women,dare,sad,India distributed randomly across sentences.Maturity in thought and humor reflects in the intelligence throughput of the state.We are a great nation(well that is what we like to call ourselves) with a rich history and a beautiful culture which is the envy of the world,then why do we react the way do.

I was talking to one of my friends,when she mentioned to me that Russell Peters had,apparently, made some remarks which,as many believe,are not in a very good taste. One of the main reasons why I decided to voice my views about this,here and now.Well,knowing his genre of comedy,I was not expecting anything new or alien.I later read that he had slung some mud on Hindi movies and some actors and actresses.

This is how we reacted:
We demanded a ban on the movie which featured him,and is currently in the cinemas.
We asked for a ban on him from entering the country.
We started doing what we do best(read often) ,start calling names and abuse him.Statements like,"Russell Peters should die".

What sort of a big and mature nation reacts in such a manner?First things first,every individual is entitled to his own opinion and he has every right to speak it out.Now,here is where the,"speak responsibly" part comes in.That would be a different story altogether.

This is how we could have reacted:

If someone chooses to say things that we do not like,ignore him!
If the popular media doesn't like what he said,they should refrain from giving him coverage,at all.
Better yet,pay it back,in his own currency.Think of innovative and witty ways to get back at that person.

Well,there are a million other ways.Also,what we tend to forget is the fact that movie making is an art and art is any form is liable to criticism.Honestly,hasn't anyone from the north ever criticized a Tamil/Telugu/Kannada movie?I can quote a dozen examples,randomly without much digging!A majority of people all across India find the movies of other languages,silly and their actors dumb.So,why did we get so offended when someone pointed out the same thing,yes,that was tad brutal,yet!Inspite of the likes of Shahrukh Khan mocking the South Indian style of movie making and its characters,the movies are made and they continue to reign at the box office and ring the cash registers.Just because that is what pleases the audience.That is how simple the proportion is.What someone said against our leading actors or actresses would never deter us from going and buying a ticket at the counter,ideally on the first day of release.Yet,we continue to over-react!

It is high time we show the world how a nation with a history spanning thousands of years and a population of over 1.2billion thinks and talks like.If we say we are mighty and mature we should as well act and react so!

Suggested Reading:Bandh and Associated Telangana Fiasco,art?

Can you quarantine an entire nation?

"Now what is it that you are blaming the Indian government for this time? The swine flu did not originate in India, so we are not to blame for this. Furthermore, it is a pandemic; there are more than 168 countries which have been affected by this. Why blame the government for this?"
When people across nations were reeling under this influenza, we were sitting in our living rooms enjoying the bulletin on our television sets. We did nothing till the 17th of May when the first patient was screened at the Hyderabad International airport. Even then, but for a few eye-washing steps we did nothing. Now when it has reached epic proportions and hundreds of cases have been registered, we 'react' and how? We 'react' by shutting downs institutes and complete cities. What we still did not acknowledge is that we cannot go quarantining entire cities. Shutdowns will not stop the virus, what it will do is create panic. Ironically the government itself issues as Don't-Panic notice. Blames people and media for creating this panic and rush. Will we ever grow up? Will this delinquent behaviour ever end?

"Okay, there were cases like these before as well, sample bird flu. These are all viral. How can you prepare for something you do not know?"
No we cannot prepare for the unknown. But we can learn from our past experiences. What this exposed is that we do not have a good crisis management machinery in place. Our stance needs to change from a react-ive one to a proactive one. We still lack a clear direction. The notices that were issued were too less and far-spaced. We are still importing testing kits in a few hundreds everyday. There is only one institute that can perform these tests, i.e., the NIV, Pune and it is so overburdened by the number of requests (around 650 a day!) that it is turning down further requests for tests. We need to have a strong conformity of infrastructure in place. It is if-I-contracted-this-where-will-I-go syndrome that is haunting people more than the fear of the virus. Where do we go, if we are apprehensive? To the government hospitals (if we ignore that fact how ill-equipped they are!) and here the medical attendants turn you off saying that there are already enough cases. Now where does one go? To a private hospital? And what are the odds that the government has not yet issued a list of private hospitals that are authorised to test.
When a situation such as this strikes, one of the first things that strikes some people is ‘business’. Sick! How else would you define people trying to hoard and even black-market the N-95 masks or even TamiFlu in certain cases. Inspite of the heavy culture talk (that has now become a trademark of India) we do often, we lag way behind in terms of some primary things like ‘social responsibility’. We still throw our garbage on the road, have a heavy not-my-problem attitude, don’t bother to carry handkerchiefs around, lack the basic etiquette that is taught to the kindergarten kids and feel that things like swine flu are pretty exotic and out of this land to infect us!
What we are also overlooking is the fact that WHO has issued a notice saying that even if the flu plateaus now, it will resurface again in winter, it has put the number of people estimated to contract this at around 2.2bn,almost 30% of the world population! The national labs say that cheaper testing kits are coming not before a month. We still don't have a vaccine; even Tamiflu at best is questionable. Are we prepared for all this? Or are we doing what we are best at: play the waiting game; wait till it strikes that big!
What we cannot ignore is the financial hit that we will take. Mexico lost close to $55mn a day during shutdown. The headlines on BBC World yesterday morning were, “The commercial capital of India shuts down”. You cannot shut down financial hubs like Mumbai where thousands of people are dependent on daily wages. And as a senior journalist put it, If you are an 'aam-aadmi's' government you definitely cannot ignore the 'aam-dani of that aam-aadmi!

Institutionalization!

I was planning leave for my friend's wedding and as it usually happens to me,some psychological undercurrents swept me to a my thoughts and I started recollecting all the discussions about marriage,of my friends,friends' friends,cousins of my age;everyone and anyone who had touched twenty three.Everyone discussed wedding.Longime boyfriend-girlfriend wanted to get married n 'settle down'!
Marry & Settle Down!
We in India tend to use these two words rather synonymously.For me they are two different words and mean two diametrcally opposite things.But as everything else marriage in India has been institutionalized.You are five you go to the school,twenty one you graduate and after that you marry(and settle down!).It is just another stage in your life.
Success Rate
It is not that this approach does not work,most of our parents did this and their parents too.But,I feel that this approach has been made to work.We have beaten this into the box and we are quite good at it,blame it on the adjust kar lo na attitude.
"Dad asked me to marry this girl,mom liked her too.They must ve chosen the right girl for me"
This applies even more to girls than guys.They solely rely on the decision taken by their parents and in most of the cases it is assumed that they must not go against their decision.What we donot undrstand is that parents are also humans like us and the margin of error is the same as it would be for any of us.The error in judgement might be because of scores of reasons,the short span of meeting being just one of then.Even the backgroud check that they might run(which extends to hiring private detectives in some cases) might prove to be inadequate.What we must understand is the fact that we ignore scores of things that we feel are not so important but the decison that we take might change a person's life completely.I am not even mentioning elders-are-experienced reason because noone and I mean no-one other than you can decide who you would be best with.
Why not?
Why can a person not chose the person he/she likes/wants to be with,marrying is a totally different thing,he may chose to marry or not.The lines of marriage and the person you would like to spend the rest of life with are skew symmetric often assumed to be interesecting by people whose vision lacks the ability to fathom depth.
If there is anything we donot know or cannot explain we take cover in our culture and/or tradition.Not chosing the right individual and spending the rest of our lives in the agony of incompatibility is not our culture,believing that others can make the right decision for you is definitely not our culture.
So what do we do?We should keep in mind that relationships are important but not everything in your life.I understand that people have their priorities but marking getting-married on the top of your list is something that still bewilders me,unless you are wedding planner or something.

· Current Mood: hyper
· Current Music:Jiye toh jiye