I discover that we Indians have devised a new way of mourning death. Apparently,following the death by heart attack of the Kannada film icon Dr. Vishnuvardhan, grieving fans shut down the nation's knowledge capital. Bangalore's streets, which usually imagined as paved with hi-tech gold, but today it turned into a place that seemed like Baghdad!.
To a bemused world, this fiery convulsion triggered by the death of an old actor was just another example of Indians' idiosyncratic, borderline-religious love for their movie stars. But what is it that actually triggers these kind of behavioural patterns in people?!.
Is it that the fans are angry because he died a natural death?!. Or is it that they are ithching to get involved in some sort of a throw-stone activity since the city is full of glasswares?!. or is it that they assume that the government and the IT companies are responsible for the actors "heart-attack"?!
What actually makes these people get satiable by rioting and savaging and breaking the public properties(buses),stoning companies and ravaging hotels and shops?.
A little introspection+retrospection makes me IETise that all this is a bi-product of a jobless and sadistic being, who always feels angry,angry at this world; Angry for being miserable and poor; angry for not getting a 'fixed and heavy-paying' job,angry because "I am lazy",angry because "cigarette costs 3 bucks", "paan costs a whopping 2 bucks", "teasing girls is an offence", and simply because "there is no way to end 'my' anguishes on the Govt. and others who are enjoying a lavish lifestyle".
I do agree Vishnuvardhan died, we will all miss him, we'll miss the great actor in him. I will miss him too and in fact, everyone should miss him. Its unfortunate that its happened but, what is it that can be done? Death is a part of life cycle after-all..
The explanatory power of the 'two India's drifting apart' theory is limited, however, by the fact that 20 years ago, years before the economic reforms that unleashed India's current uneven boom, the Karnataka film board opted to edit out a scene depicting the dramatic death of Vishnuvardhan, for fear that it would spark riots.
Whatever peculiarities of the riots arise from the Indian cultural politics and the resentments of Karnataka's left-behinds, few deny that Indians generally have a deeper, more complex and more personal relationship with their film icons than Western audiences. Few years ago , when Bollywood heartthrob Salman Khan spent three nights in prison on charges of illegal poaching, thousands of his fans spent nights outside his jail cell. In 1982, when iconic Bollywood leading man Amitabh Bachchan was injured on a shoot, the nation practically came to a stop. (But not for the Bachchan fan who walked half of the length of India backwards as a show of penance.)
Why do such gruesome practices occur more in India than in other country?
Is it the low literacy level in the country?
Is it a desperate cry for mental help?
Is that the only way for the people at the lowest rungs of the social and economic hierarchy to draw attention of the top political leaders/actors to their plight?
Frankly speaking, we have no clue.
To a bemused world, this fiery convulsion triggered by the death of an old actor was just another example of Indians' idiosyncratic, borderline-religious love for their movie stars. But what is it that actually triggers these kind of behavioural patterns in people?!.
Is it that the fans are angry because he died a natural death?!. Or is it that they are ithching to get involved in some sort of a throw-stone activity since the city is full of glasswares?!. or is it that they assume that the government and the IT companies are responsible for the actors "heart-attack"?!
What actually makes these people get satiable by rioting and savaging and breaking the public properties(buses),stoning companies and ravaging hotels and shops?.
A little introspection+retrospection makes me IETise that all this is a bi-product of a jobless and sadistic being, who always feels angry,angry at this world; Angry for being miserable and poor; angry for not getting a 'fixed and heavy-paying' job,angry because "I am lazy",angry because "cigarette costs 3 bucks", "paan costs a whopping 2 bucks", "teasing girls is an offence", and simply because "there is no way to end 'my' anguishes on the Govt. and others who are enjoying a lavish lifestyle".
I do agree Vishnuvardhan died, we will all miss him, we'll miss the great actor in him. I will miss him too and in fact, everyone should miss him. Its unfortunate that its happened but, what is it that can be done? Death is a part of life cycle after-all..
The explanatory power of the 'two India's drifting apart' theory is limited, however, by the fact that 20 years ago, years before the economic reforms that unleashed India's current uneven boom, the Karnataka film board opted to edit out a scene depicting the dramatic death of Vishnuvardhan, for fear that it would spark riots.
Whatever peculiarities of the riots arise from the Indian cultural politics and the resentments of Karnataka's left-behinds, few deny that Indians generally have a deeper, more complex and more personal relationship with their film icons than Western audiences. Few years ago , when Bollywood heartthrob Salman Khan spent three nights in prison on charges of illegal poaching, thousands of his fans spent nights outside his jail cell. In 1982, when iconic Bollywood leading man Amitabh Bachchan was injured on a shoot, the nation practically came to a stop. (But not for the Bachchan fan who walked half of the length of India backwards as a show of penance.)
Why do such gruesome practices occur more in India than in other country?
Is it the low literacy level in the country?
Is it a desperate cry for mental help?
Is that the only way for the people at the lowest rungs of the social and economic hierarchy to draw attention of the top political leaders/actors to their plight?
Frankly speaking, we have no clue.
3 Thoughts have been Sprinkled!, Your Take? :
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I know you did not intend it this way but the very idea that one 'should' miss some one is the root of all evil. As a mob we are irrationally violent and stupid. When MGR died in Chennai, a party worker was breaking glass windows on Mount road and when asked he replies, " When MGR dies why should Chennai live". The lack of imagination to envision a grander apocalypse is pitiable. Such is the stupidity. Rajiv Gandhi, around whom this part of the world is revolving seems to have remarked on the Anti-Sikh riots in 1984 as "When a big tree is felled, naturally, smaller trees are crushed under the heaviness". Please note that that is not a heaviness of grief. I thought of writing a post on these things but these have built into the psyche so much that it is almost an unwritten law to burn a bus and break glass when a socializing personality passes over to the other world.
Bingo!. I have to agree with you. Yeah, that was an awful typo from my side.:)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts..:)
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