I wish it was me! But I am talking about none other than Ms. Shetty! Meet the bollywood superstar (as per various websites, including the BBC!), who is actually disappearing from the Hindi movie scene...suddenly appears on some random show in the UK....and out of the blues, one day we read that the show is facing allegations of racial discrimination!! and whoz the victim?? u guessed it...our "superstar" of course! the public outcry that followed in the UK and India had to be seen to be believed! every politician tried to use the incidence to his/her advantage...in India, people resorted to their new favorite pastime...burning effigies!
i, in the first place, could not understand, how some idiotic people in some show calling a nobody in India, hurt the pride of a country?? How and why should that affect us in any way? How come we are so intolerant of such a thing? That too, when we come from the land of the Gandhi!! The amount of print and media coverage this event got in India and all over the world was ridiculous! The one person who benefitted the most from all this was Ms. Shetty! She got a lot of sympathy, she became an instant celebrity worldwide...shez got offers from the US, the UK, Singapore (do they make movies there???) and of course our very own bollywood! Plus, she won the show and got a cool 1 lakh pounds prize money plus another 40K appearance fee! translates to over a cool crore odd in hand after taxes (assuming our GoI does not show it's largesse and takes it's "pound" of flesh!)...and on the other hand the poor Goody female lost all her fortune which she had made because of one of the earlier versions of the show!!
coming to the point, what did the people gain from this whole episode? NOTHING!! all they ended up doing was to blow a stupid issue out of proportions, waste their hard earned money in sending sms's to ensure ms. S won her fortune and became world famous and more importantly lose a lot of valuable time over a non-issue! But that is how we are! we wont protest bad governance, lawlessness, rising prices, bad infrastructure, ridiculous taxation policies etc...but we have all the time to protest racsim, the death of a dictator 20 days after his death (so what if cost the life of an innocent 11 year old?) or the exclusion/inlcusion of some random cricketer from the Indian cricket team!
As they say, "Mera Bharat Mahaan"!!!
-uv.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Monday, January 08, 2007
A Year of Hope
Happy New Year everyone!! (yeah, i know itz a touch too late, but what the heck!!) Sadly, the old year didn't end on a good note, nor did the new one begin very well...and no, i am not referring to the "brilliant" performance of Team India!!
First we had the shocking discovery of remains of about 30 odd kids in Noida...cannibalism in India! what was shocking was the apathy displayed by the cops and the CM who reacted as if it was a daily affair! Just because they were the kids of the aam junta, the authorities have shown their typical don't care attitude. as someone mentioned, if it was a vip kid who had gone missing, the entire police force would have been swooning over Noida and random people would have been arrested and harassed on the basis of slightest of doubts.
Then we had an equally shocking incidence (and again the helplessness of the authorities) at the Gateway of India on new year's eve in the financial capital and my beloved city - Mumbai. Yes, it was shocking and shameful that a lady was molested by so many people in the heart of the city and the million cops standing guard did not even notice!! Stating that the revellers were drunk and that the girl invited trouble by wearing short clothes and being present at the Gateway is just not acceptable!! India is a free country and you can do as you please, but that does not mean you go and molest/eve tease women! and the excuse that they invite it just does not cut ice with me! oh and yeah, this is the same place where a girl was murdered in broad daylight and no one had tried to save her! (guess hardly any one remembers that incidence...even i had forgotten it until i read about it in the paper yest :-(
on similar lines, we had another incident a few days back, this time in the IT capital - begalooru (when will our politicans do some real work and not rename cities??). a bouncer in a pub in the heart of the city (brigade road for those who know) throws a few drunkards out who were - you guessed it - eve teasin a girl in the bar... the next thing the poor guy knows, those same drunkards are waiting for him with knives and the kill him on brigade road!!! what is this world coming to! first, there is hardly anything to do in this crappy city. you have malls, multiplexes and overcrowded bowling alleys/coffee shops/pubs for leisure/entertainment! on top of that the stupid cops go and close all hotels/cafes/pubs by 1130. and then you have such incidences where you are no longer sure if you are going to return home alive!!
(you may think i am over reacting, but i dont think so considerin the rate at which techies are being targetted and the dislike the locals have for techies!)
and the last piece of bad news - 2 rounds of inhuman killing of 60 odd people in Assam. the second one being carried out after assurances from some minister that the ULFA is a dying movement in Assam! I know now that our government has been largely neglecting this part of the country (North East) and that the army has been time and again indulging in behaviour that goes against human rights (most of this does not get reported!), but there was a peace dialogue going on and as usual our govt seems to have screwed up! And if it cannot protect it's own citizens, then what is the use? Similar things are happening in the valley as well and we are alienating all these people...
well, i know i have, as has been my attitude of late, very pessimistic about the future of India, but i dont see any signs yet of things improving any time soon! Anyways, herez still hoping that I am wrong and the country and it's people have a gr8 year ahead!
-uv.
First we had the shocking discovery of remains of about 30 odd kids in Noida...cannibalism in India! what was shocking was the apathy displayed by the cops and the CM who reacted as if it was a daily affair! Just because they were the kids of the aam junta, the authorities have shown their typical don't care attitude. as someone mentioned, if it was a vip kid who had gone missing, the entire police force would have been swooning over Noida and random people would have been arrested and harassed on the basis of slightest of doubts.
Then we had an equally shocking incidence (and again the helplessness of the authorities) at the Gateway of India on new year's eve in the financial capital and my beloved city - Mumbai. Yes, it was shocking and shameful that a lady was molested by so many people in the heart of the city and the million cops standing guard did not even notice!! Stating that the revellers were drunk and that the girl invited trouble by wearing short clothes and being present at the Gateway is just not acceptable!! India is a free country and you can do as you please, but that does not mean you go and molest/eve tease women! and the excuse that they invite it just does not cut ice with me! oh and yeah, this is the same place where a girl was murdered in broad daylight and no one had tried to save her! (guess hardly any one remembers that incidence...even i had forgotten it until i read about it in the paper yest :-(
on similar lines, we had another incident a few days back, this time in the IT capital - begalooru (when will our politicans do some real work and not rename cities??). a bouncer in a pub in the heart of the city (brigade road for those who know) throws a few drunkards out who were - you guessed it - eve teasin a girl in the bar... the next thing the poor guy knows, those same drunkards are waiting for him with knives and the kill him on brigade road!!! what is this world coming to! first, there is hardly anything to do in this crappy city. you have malls, multiplexes and overcrowded bowling alleys/coffee shops/pubs for leisure/entertainment! on top of that the stupid cops go and close all hotels/cafes/pubs by 1130. and then you have such incidences where you are no longer sure if you are going to return home alive!!
(you may think i am over reacting, but i dont think so considerin the rate at which techies are being targetted and the dislike the locals have for techies!)
and the last piece of bad news - 2 rounds of inhuman killing of 60 odd people in Assam. the second one being carried out after assurances from some minister that the ULFA is a dying movement in Assam! I know now that our government has been largely neglecting this part of the country (North East) and that the army has been time and again indulging in behaviour that goes against human rights (most of this does not get reported!), but there was a peace dialogue going on and as usual our govt seems to have screwed up! And if it cannot protect it's own citizens, then what is the use? Similar things are happening in the valley as well and we are alienating all these people...
well, i know i have, as has been my attitude of late, very pessimistic about the future of India, but i dont see any signs yet of things improving any time soon! Anyways, herez still hoping that I am wrong and the country and it's people have a gr8 year ahead!
-uv.
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