Amchee Country - Bharat Mahan

Blogging after quite some time now. This is an old piece I wrote immediately after the Bombay blasts. Uploading it just now.

On my trip to Hyderabad recently – I happened to catch some TV just before boarding the flight. What was on - sort of amused me. I wouldn’t say it was shocking – but definitely interesting enough for me to share some pearls of wisdom.

The show was being telecast on a very popular news channel, being hosted by an even more famous television personality and of course – watched by multiple people from across fields of interest and excellence – some of whom were there for the food, some hoped to network with those more prominent than them, and lastly were the ones that seemed to have just lost their way and stuck around cause dinner was being served !

Anyways – back to the show. The show was about the tragedy that struck Mumbai last month and not to forget the one that started it all - 13 years back. Ironically, Mumbai didn’t react like the last time, and neither did the media. So the show was about how people lost their lives and how many people cannot trust the local police, blah blah and BLAH !

If I may be allowed to run my thought machine here – I would actually like to commend the intelligent individual who happened to think of this brilliant show. You see, when people die – they DIE. That’s it. Kaput. Its over. But then there are some individuals who say ‘hey – they are dead. Why don’t I make some money off it!’

So the best is to have a show – invite personalities, generate money for sponsorhip, have a large following of media, make noise and then give off some of it to those who are actually the ones this is all being done for.

I will try not to let my vulnerability be of any influence here, but the point of the matter is, we Indians take great pride in talking about our problems. In fact we love it so much that we have politicians, sportsmen, and now Actresses (read the SENsible Sushmita), all queing up outside a publisher’s house hoping for some piece of the rich fat creamy pie.

On the other hand – I was watching this movie called OMKARA – a brilliant depiction of the local milieu in UP and Bihar, where the lord is the still the one with the land. And women are best in the bed or taking care of the children. The frighteningly realistic portrayal of the life out there did multiple cerebral damages to my peer, but made me think of only one thing.

We are de facto selfish and no matter what we do, what we eat, what we wear, whom we love and whom we hate, there HAS to be a selfish reason behind it. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. But it’s what has resulted in us getting to a point where I see a show hosted by a celebrity, being watched and attended by celebrities, approached and paid for by celebrities and rich, and in the end of it – the charitable sum that was raised was of Rs.20 lakhs. That’s about USD 50,000 !

All this hype and all this hypocrisy may never make us a nation like Israel. They killed 20 children in Palestine and their public spokesperson said ‘We’re very sorry – at a height of 20,000 ft., from where the bombs were dropped, it looked like they were adults. We were surprised why some of them were carrying dolls, but we thought it was a terrorist custom’

You see, the Jews in Israel have had it enough for them to make such public demonstrations of their hate. They are surrounded by Christian hating people – yet they survive. They are now instilling the fear in the Arabs by killing their children. It may not be pretty, it may not be helping, but it’s surely doing its job of protecting the country’s identity and interests. Come to think of it – could we as a nation of more than a billion, come to understand the logic behind this?