What an eventful week! Two sensational news that gobbled up our time, energy and attention last week were; a song sung by Dhanush, "why this kolaveri di " and mr.Sharad Pawar, our agriculture minister, receiving a slap from enraged man! Well, in the era of serious deficiency in attention spans, anything that holds our attention long enough and makes us talk about it, is worth mentioning, isn't it?
In my futile attempt of enjoying the song "kolaveri" I wasted few minutes and realized that it doesn't make any sense (at least to me, even after asking some of my Tamil speaking friends for help). Albeit, there is an interesting lesson to be learned in understanding how to convert an absolute gibberish into a hit, whether it was by default or by design (any PR agency, digital media marketing firm listening?) I am sure this sudden sensation would provide quite an inspiration for advertising and song writing for the days to come and we would welcome it as "cool"! We have humongous appetite for absolute rubbish.
Talking about the slap-trap episode of mr. Sharad Pawar; I watched the entire episode with great shock and disbelief but have been guilty of enjoying brilliantly brazen humour on social networking sites, born out of this slap incident. I have laughed incessantly at unguarded comment of mr. Anna Hazare, "he slapped only once?" It makes me wonder aren't we encouraging a dangerous trend here? We are champions at mud slinging and by cheering for such acts of assault and violence we have conveyed our misplaced frustration and irresponsible, disdainful judgments. Instead of condemning tamasha of such despicable incidents, we are getting kick out of it! Is it our catharsis?
The people who slapped mr.Sharad Pawar, hurled a shoe at mr. Arvind Kejriwal, attacked mr. Shanti Bhushan or assualted mr.Sukhram are NOT representatives of rage of nation. There is a pattern emerging out of these sad incidents of unease and intolerance. Agreed, our political leaders have failed us pathetically. Our country is in a huge filthy mess due to complete lack of political will to address issues of a common man.
Before we react or justify these attacks, do we ever ask ourselves, if we are doing our bit? Who is responsible for bringing these very spineless leaders to power? How many of us have really not participated in some corruption for sake of our advantage? How many of us really vote, pay our taxes, make purchases without paying taxes or have been really aware citizens and performed our duties when we should? I am sure most of us have been guilty in some way or other. Why blame government then ? They say, people get the government they deserve and we got whom we voted for. Simple. Why this kolaveri di?
No civil society can thrive on lawlessness. If we are truly fed up with the issues of governance, lets bring in people who are good leaders and know their business well. If we are sick of corruption, let's not encourage it in any form. There are ways to address challenges but taking path of violence is not answer to any issue. And in a democratic nation like India, with its unique challenges there is all the more need to understand and address the challenges in much more responsible manner. Lets not give in to temporary titillation of acrimonious acts of rancor. Solutions to our problems lie in considering our real issues with candour and addressing them. Its time to think, where are we headed really?
