HULLABALOO OF TELEVISION SHOWS

 

I can distinctly recall in 2001, at my friend’s place who had organized a ‘Havan’, a holy ritual in Hindus. It was the occasion of her nephew’s first birthday and the whole family had gathered for the same. But I was greatly shocked, when I heard a few of my aunts talking about a lady who had unfortunately lost her husband in an accident. Even I felt very sorry for her. I nodded a deeply felt yes when they said , ’God has not been kind.’

Would you believe me, if I tell you the truth? To my utter surprise, its only towards the end of the pooja that I realized that the lady was none other than just a character from ‘KSBKBT’ , then a very famous Ekta kapoor television series being aired on star plus.

Gosh! That was pretty exasperating. People, and I mean not just them but every woman in the neighborhood, was talking about it as if the misfortune had actually taken place. Just imagine the extent of it that persons like me who were not religious followers of the soap were misled to believe that it was a reality.

This narration may sound exaggerated but I can assure you that it was not just me who felt it, a lot of other people did. I have seen my own mom trying to wind up her routine work quickly to be relaxed to watch one of these melodramatic soaps or my grand mom skipping to go out for any other commitment just coz there is a maha-episode of some serial. This is strange but a fact.

Should I be happy that such action packed, enthralling and beguiling series entertains all the house wives and keeps them busy besides giving them a spanking topic for their ever-droning kitty parties? Or should I just pity their indolent and slack lifestyle?

Ekta Kapoor who started this trend must, in fact be appreciated. She as a business woman with a good business sense, perceived the need of such idle people. And making work-shy women her special target, she exploited the opportunity to her business advantage. She revolutionized the whole concept of television soaps. It is claimed that until date, no serial has ever got as high TRP ratings as her first serial ‘KSBKBT’. Very enterprising I must say.

But what happened to us. Why are we even watching any silly irrational serial like this and devotedly following it too. Did anyone force us? Or are we just doing it because we have nothing better to do. Like Ann Landers said,’ Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.’

Like a non- loyal television viewer, I have never managed to follow a particular soap daily. And I have a very interesting suggestion. It would be sufficient If you just watch it once a week, considering the deliberated slow pace of each storyline. Thanks to the suspenseful special effects and melodrama that takes about eighty percent of the episode.

Unfortunately, though there are brilliant artists in those serials and excellent innovative ideas involved but all are dawdled just to get more number of episodes, sponsorships and higher returns for the channels and production houses. It seems, the objective of entertainment has been long forgotten. The idea should be to make us laugh and present to the audience things which are good-humoured and fun-loving. After all, one watches movies and television for pleasure and not for something totally mind-numbing.

Next time if someone catches you red-handed watching one of these, don’t make a lame excuse that you do not usually watch it but just flipping through the channels. Choose not to see any such nuisance at all because you have to decide what needs to be rejected totally and help re-define th meaning of entertainment.

DEMOCRACY: Who made the rules?

As I put on the Television today like the entire India was watching, to know anxiously how ‘The Anna Hazare’ campaign was going on in Delhi; I was disgusted to hear about his detention. What was more thwarting was a Congress’ statement” In a democratic nation, Everyone has a right to protest, but there are rules, methods and laws to do so.” Did someone dare to ask ‘who made these rules?’

 Just a reminder, Democracy, comes from a greek word ‘dēmokratía’ meaning ‘rule of the people’.  If the Government understands that these laws were made by and for the people of the nation, then I am sure it also understands that there is a lot of dissatisfaction and aggravation in the general public due to issues involved in the LokPal bill.  This is quite evident with the kind of massive support Anna Hazare is getting from THE PEOPLE - first in April when he demanded the bill to be introduced in the Parliament and now when he feels that the same is not totally transparent and integrated.

So, is it a time that we like cowards under the cover of justice, arrest such a personality and try to suppress the reason behind it saying that the method of protest is incorrect. Or is it the time to understand what the public is trying to put forth through Anna and address the matter. This includes changing our laws/regulations which hinder such meaningful protests.

Anna Hazare , a social activist, believes that our freedom is at the teeth of danger due to corruption and unless it is eliminated, the country will not be free in its true sense. Therefore, a peaceful war has been waged against corruption with the help of immense support from people.

However, the matter in question has instead become ‘Whether the hunger strike started by Hazare confirms to the democracy standards?’ If you ask the Government, they have already answered it by imprisoning this icon who is trying to raise his voice on behalf of the majority nation, for a good cause.

If we come to analyse democracy standards, while there is no specific, universally accepted definition of 'democracy', equality and freedom have both been identified as important characteristics of the same since ancient times. And by no means has Anna done anything to disobey these fundamentals of democracy. He just got a huge public support which did not seem to go well with the few. On the contrary, in fact, steps taken by the Government are completely abhorrent to democracy.

I can recall a quote by Wills Rogers, an American humourist ‘ On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.’ Yes, this strongly brings to my mind that probably that’s what India is doing. It’s high time we use our fundamental rights and our minds. Frankly, we as a part of a huge democracy must be unwavering and aware enough to support wisely who we think is our well wisher – one who recognises our problems or the one who blindly follows the system.

Aristotle once said, ‘Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.’ Do we agree to that? NOOOOO……. And if that’s the case we should all muster up the courage to support Anna Hazare in every possible way. We are neither indignant nor uneducated. We just have to prove it one more time that we have the capability to take the right steps to say the right thing at the right time and tell the world that we know well to conduct ourselves as a successful democratic nation.

DO NOT HONK

It was a pleasant day in the scorching summers of June, drizzling. So, early in the morning, I decided to skip my gym and go for a drive….. to be Alive, peaceful and enjoy the  silence of the morning hours. Just a few minutes run made me realize that I was mistaken. The drive was anything but peaceful. All that I could hear was cacophony of sounds - horns blaring, prayers broadcast on loudspeakers and local vegetable sellers weaving their way through residential colonies shouting out their offerings of the day.

That is how a morning normally starts in a metro city like Delhi. Yes, I mean the noise from the road traffic. And for some who reside on the main road, this sound never ends, not even at night. Studies reveal that it also affects concentration, particularly for people who are living near heavy traffic intersections, and blood pressure levels in heart patients.

Delhi Traffic is appalling, not only because of the escalating number of automobiles in the city but also because we have made it earsplitting. The voluble mad rush at peak hours and the extreme weather both have made travelling very taxing. The bass of a bus mixes with the thin shrieks of a motor scooter. Add in the noise of rasping truck brakes, the sweet tinkle of bicycles and rickshaws, the wailing Bollywood music pumped out by kids in their new cars, the siren of an ambulance vainly trying to push its way through the heaving mass.

When I started to learn driving, one of the first few lessons I learnt  was that one should use the horn only when needed and no horns at night. I don’t know if we are not aware of this or we simply choose not to pay attention to it.

Once in jam, I was unfortunately stuck in front of a BMW. Gosh! Agreed he had a superfluous car and the money to own it but did that give him a right to own the Delhi roads? I noticed that the he had conveniently found a spot on his steering wheel where his right thumb rested and pressed the horn incessantly as he weaved through traffic.

Horn as I thought was to be used by the driver to give a warning; Mind it, it must be used for a WARNING. The reality however is :It seems almost compulsory to use your horn constantly. We keep pressing that pomp pomp very conveniently and as many times as we like because there is no one to stop us.

Environment ministry is soon rolling out an Ambient Noise Monitoring Network to monitor sound in seven metros in India. We’ll soon have a fine by the Traffic police to get us into the discipline. My suggestion is that we do it by ourselves. We are civilized grown up people who don’t need teachers all the time on our head, like school children. Even if we resolve to use the horn just 5 times less each day; Wow! That change would be a welcome change. I am already thankful in advance for those agree to follow this.

ENGLISH: Our new mother tongue?

 

Before I say anything further, What do you call ‘Mobile’ in Hindi? To be honest, even I don’t know.

The Title of this write up may sound a bit offending to some, but I believe it’s becoming a fact for a large segment of our society. Tell me how many of us say ‘Namaste’ instead of ‘Hi’ when we meet our friends or loved ones?

What has forced me to write this,  is not one instance but a thousands of them which I have observed since childhood and felt ashamed to know that being Indians, we have started giving  a lot more credence to a language (English) other than our own mother tongue.

Forget about others, I am myself trying to teach my two-year old child (who loves to speak Hindi) to start conversing in English. This is out of desperation coz she was not really following what half the world around her was speaking about. On being asked ‘what’s your name?’, my daughter would smile and look at me with a mystifying expression as if ’ Mom! What exactly does that mean?’ And though she is trying hard to learn her second language, English but I know if someone still asks her “How are you?” her spontaneous answer always is ‘ Main thik hoon.” And then she corrects herself to say  “ I am fine”

Actually despite everyone’s repeated advice, I consciously taught her Hindi first. I had always thought my child must speak her first word or sentence in her mother tongue. And yes, like a brilliant girl as she is, she picked up this language beautifully. But then came the schools and our educational systems and the trouble  started.

Unfortunately, English has sub-consciously taken a superior place in our vocabulary and more significantly  in our minds. I remember my parents being so worried during my childhood that I did not speak fluent English and that they felt was a serious glitch. Did THEY feel it or the whole gang of relatives made them feel it; I have no clue.

I still can’t get over how a salesman spoke so disrespectfully to my mom only because she was trying to explain him what she required in Hindi. When I noticed that, only to teach him a lesson for his impudence, I had to use the right device - THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. I am sorry to say, but it worked. He apologized.

I really respect people by their character and content of they say. The dialect does not matter.  Language as dictionary defines it is 'Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.' And as long as one makes himself understood it serves the purpose.

People would argue that I am trying to criticize the global language. I am not. Let’s put it this way, had I been against this amazing language, I would not be writing this up in English. But yes, I want all of us to just take a minute and think that we have started shoving- off our own cultured language as if it’s a shame to speak in Hindi.  One must know English, as it is the most spoken language internationally, but please do not make the Hindi-speaking people left out of the crowd. Not following English is not a sin. One may not know it just like you may not know French or Japanese.

I AM PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN

As the Independence Day arrives, I get immense pleasure to think that India is celebrating its 64 years of independence. Though, my country is still a developing nation, yet it plays an imperative role in the world economy and its diverse culture is one of its kind, found nowhere in any part of the world. So on August 15, as I stand to sing the National Anthem, paying tribute to all our freedom fighters, I raise my head up high feeling proud that I AM AN INDIAN.

But come to think of it. Are we really proud? Indianness – a tag I’ve noticed, most people around me resist. They like to be addressed MODS (a slang for modern).  Some groups of people, who seem to dictate the rest, have adopted a style which is very much influenced by the West. Indians are known for their manners, way of communicating with one another, and their friendly disposition. But in trying to imitate the west, we have forgotten few of the important components of our culture.

For instance, Conversing in Hindi is considered disdainful. Western outfits are more hip-hop these days. The other day I had worn a sari to my daughter’s school and I only found people gazing at me as if I have no status or sophistication. In their language I did not belong to their society. On the contrary, I happened to meet an American on a train and she was so amazed as to how Indians tie a six-metre long cloth so beautifully and carry it with such elegance. Ironically, we look at it with such ignominy. I don’t understand, why? I would not be as embarrassed for anything as I am when I see my own Indian friends mocking at someone who is less westernized.

Etiquette in terms of manners and the way of dressing differ in every country. I am not trying to say that one should not adapt or try newer styles, language or culture. The globe is shrinking & we are all getting closer to each other in many ways. My only argument is why look down upon your own ideas, customs and social behaviour? Why are people forgetting that the people abroad never ever shove off their country’s values to own any other’s . Unfortunately, it’s we who are forgetting them and shockingly, loving to do so.

Actually no one is to be blamed in a way. Acceptance is the key. People want to be accepted well in the society. It’s probably only a small segment of the populace which has developed such ideas but most of us are just blindly following it. We refuse to apply our mind into it as it’s simple and satisfying to adopt acknowledged standards.

                                                                                                                                                                                

However, I refuse to follow them. I totally disagree with such notions. And, every time I observe such a thing, It not only makes me surer about my (Indian) way of life but also more resolute  that I will, by all means, teach my children to respect our traditional Indian culture. Even if they adopt some western ways, they should not in the least be mortified with our own customs or conduct. They should be proud to be Indians.

Thinking beyond the obvious

I remember very fondly how I always asked my dad “How come you are always so optimistic that you forget to be pessimistic?” And he would just smile at my silly question and leave. He has always been very calm and composed when it comes to what we call ‘trying situations’ in life. Not only has that made it easier for everyone around him to deal with any matter but also THAT had a fundamental impact on my mind as a child.

The fact is that he chooses to behave differently. Now when I am grown up, I understand that it’s not that he is some super-human, it’s just that he decides to THINK first and not FEEL. He perseveres.

There are so many instances in life which bring us to difficult situations or decisions. And sometimes it’s the stupid little things which perturb us so much. I have observed that most of us just respond the most obvious way. We get sad, we crib, we retort, we feel dismayed as if it’s the end of this world.

We just fall into the trap. But try this. Just once. Don’t give in to the obvious reaction. Don’t get angry when you feel its alright to do so. Don’t lose your hope when you think that it’s over. Don’t be depressed when you suspect you can’t do it. Don’t be tired when you assume it’s not happening.

When I delivered my pre-term twins, I can recall how shattered I was to see them in the Intensive Care unit. But yes, I consciously made an effort not to be distressed and poignant, but to do what I am required to and in the finest possible manner. And believe me, that worked wonders.

Single mindedness and perseverance - Take a deep breath, close your eyes and Think beyond the obvious. Yes, and trust me you will come up with a more rational, simple and better solution. And then you would only regret for not having tried it before.

“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”- Anonymous