Week 3

 Hi everyone. Welcome to Wild Wild Week.

I was out of station last week and hence had taken a break from the blog. I am really sorry for that.

One of the most debated things this week was a topic middle-schoolers have for essay writing and debate competitions: Are school uniforms necessary?

There are many protests throughout the country, with people protesting not only for the allowance of hijabs, which were allowed until recently, but also for other religious symbols in educational institutions. Well, to be honest, this is an open-ended question.  

But here’s what I think: Like reservations, religion should be kept out of educational institutes.

Religious symbols, notably turbans and hijabs have very much been a part of the Indian educational institutions since time immemorial. Not only in educational institutions, but religious clothes and symbols are a part of many other places, including the Parliament.

Article 25 of the constitution allows us to preach any religion that we want, “subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions.”

So, either ban or allow everything. There shouldn’t be any selective boycott. It is bad for a secular and democratic country like India.

The shocking thing was that this is taking place in the school campuses, like the students haven’t already lost most of their academic year due to COVID-19.

But this issue was not initiated by the students. These things were initiated by various religious and political groups, which are doing this for their personal agenda. They are brainwashing the students into believing that it is the biggest problem that they should be focussing on right now.

Let’s not waste our time on such imagined issues, created just to divert our mind from the real issues in the country including unemployment, growing inflation and the Budget.

Also, we should be aware of the people who spread hatred and not let them distract us or incept any kind of hatred in our minds. We should call out hate speech, whoever may be saying it, be it your uncle, parents, aunts, relatives, friends, teachers.

Call them out to their face! Laugh at them. Tell them to read the history of how we got independence. Tell them the idea of India and how the idea of unity in diversity came into existence in the first place.

I would like to quote Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam here, “for great men, religion is a way of making friends; small people make religion a fighting tool.”

Now let’s talk about this new breed of people dominating the social media and the internet at large. INFLUENCERS.

The people who use their joblessness proudly to drag other people down and tell them that it’s okay not to have a dream and job. You can be a fool, do nothing and be famous as well.

Remember what the tagline of 5 Star reads, “Do Nothing. Eat 5 Star.”

I think they should hire some so-called self-proclaimed influencers who make short videos on social media platforms to promote these types of things for a better reach. Oh, wait! They are already doing so, aren’t they?

Remember the time when people had to struggle a lot to become famous? Like you really had to do something big to make a name for yourself.

Even for being an actor, you had to work really hard, for decades together. Take Nawazuddin Siddiqui for example. From a cameo as a pick pocket in Munna Bhai MBBS to being one of the most versatile actors of Bollywood, Siddiqui has come a really long way. And he has put in lots of efforts in the craft to get here. Nawaz is just one of the many people who got the limelight because they really worked hard for it.

Now, fame has been separated from the craft. It’s about the number of followers you have or the amount of watch time you have, which is fairly easy to get these days.

People make some really high effort content-based videos and garner only 1 million views and a few followers, but on the other hand, others make short brainless and logicless content, just for the sake of “entertainment”, garner more than 3-4 million views and some even go on to think that they are celebrities.

Why are we talking about these “influencers” all of a sudden?

It is because of how they are creating a wrong influence in the minds of the people and in some cases also hatred.

Last week, “influencer” Vikash Fhatak, infamously known as Hindustani Bhau, was arrested for instigating students to protest against exams in Maharashtra. How I wish Fhatak would have given some exams and had a proper education as well!

There was a time when students used to get influenced by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Sachin Tendulkar, and such people. And now we have stooped so low that a jobless person like Fhatak is influencing people!

Last Sunday, legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar passed away due to post-COVID complications. People from all over the world started paying tributes to her.

Most influencers, as usual, started lip synching to her songs and paid tributes to her (or tried to establish themselves as great singers and maybe go “viral”).

While some others tried to divide people in the name of religion, finding hatred even in Shah Rukh Khan’s tribute to Mangeshkar.

As is customary, SRK offered ‘duaa’ for the departed soul, then lowered his mask and blew into the air.

The next thing you know, SRK was getting hate, because people, or these so called “flag-bearers of Hinduism” thought that he was spitting on Mangeshkar’s body.

Come on dude! You are the flag bearers of Hinduism; you need to have ideas about other religions before blaming them.

Oh sorry! I tend to forget that these people don’t even know Hinduism as well. These guys go on talking about how Hinduism is such a great religion and dominates all other religions without even reading a single page of scripture and having the idea about what Hinduism actually stands for.

So guys, here’s a request. Please don’t fall for the filtered, brainless content of these mindless people and give them undeserving fame. Support people who really do something creative and who deserve to be in the limelight. It’s surprising that even in this generation we fall for outer filtered beauty and not for the quality of the content.

Why do we fail to grow up in terms of entertainment? Why do we keep on seeing the same kind of content for the sake of entertainment, even if we know we are literally wasting our time and giving fame to people who don’t deserve it?

Have we really stooped so low that talented people like Rob have to literally ask people for supporting him, while people who make shitty brainless content get big brand deals, feature in music videos and even get signed for movies? Let’s take a moment and think about this.

Let us also think about what we are leaving for the future generation and how history will see us.

We do know what kind of content Indian cinema mostly had in the 90s and how we look with disgust on the people who supported such content and made it famous. Are we not doing the same thing?

But let’s not hate the ‘influencers’, it’s never about hating people. Let’s just unfollow them and show them that we won’t fall for such brainless content anymore.

Let’s follow true ‘influencers’, someone who will inspire you, who will make you dream, and will help you in achieving your dreams.

These short video platforms have given rise to many new talents as well, whom we wouldn’t have known in any other way. So let’s support original and quality content instead of these.

I watched the Nani-starrer Telugu movie Shyam Singha Roy this week. It is a really brilliant and a must watch movie. It focuses on the concept of re-incarnation, which you may find a bit weird, but you will love its theme.

It talks about the caste system, about the ancient devdasi system, which prevailed in India. (PS: I didn’t know that Karl Marx had called Puri Jagannath temple as the “graveyard of human dignity” because the temple allowed people on caste merit and also due to the devdasi system prevalent there).

This movie also pays homage to iconic filmmaker Satyajit Ray and his idea of filmmaking. The songs of the movie are beautiful as well.

Well, that’s all for this time. See you again next week.

Cheers!!