I'm most disturbed with the emergence of the type of mindsets which comprise this nation in larger numbers than I had imagined.
Yesterday, I received a mail with some 40 pictures of Tirupati Balaji, at the end of which in bold was a message saying that if the receiver does not forward the mail to 20 people, he/she will face bad luck for 14 years. I replied to all who were on the list of the sender as well as to the sender, that those who forward this mail will be faced with bad luck till the third generation of their family after them, and the sender was offended. She immediately retorted that I should chill and enjoy the pictures. So then I said to her that she should chill and had the message in the first place been that I should enjoy the pictures, I wouldn't have been offended at all. She, and her bunch of friends are an educated lot, who create and produce the type of TV we see today.
Then the news of the poor professor who was caught by cameras having consensual sex with his gay partner who happens to be a rickshaw puller. Wow! He has actually been given a few hours to disappear from the campus at Aligarh Muslim University where he has been teaching for the last 20 years, by people who are the offenders themselves for having planted camera's in his lodgings and invading his privacy. Instead of them being booked, the poor victim is being punished. The absurd explanation of morality being meted out by other outdated and archaic members of the faculty of the dilapidated university was worse, seeming comic and satirical at times. The Buck Stops Here - NDTV 24/7 with Barkha Dutt.
But what it has taken for make me write this piece, is the worst.
I read today in the Mumbai Midday, that Muzzafar Ali, the respected filmmaker and designer, a man who has been called an artiste and received accolades for his works, was heard saying that if Rumi had been gay, he would not have been a poet.
This coming from a man of the caliber of Muzzafar Ali was unbelievable and I could not help but comment on the terrible quality of thinking that has infested the minds of people, mostly the educated and enlightened, in present times. I can't help but wonder what has gone wrong with us as a race and why, unlike other developing nations in the world, instead of evolving and paving a path for the aspiring, we are regressing and destroying the path laid out by our own ancestors who were far more progressive than we can even dream of being.
Literature, poetry, music, dance, sculpture and all other performing and non performing arts are manifestations of freedom that people feel, which compels them to express their joy, sorrow and pain. That freedom is possible when people are liberated enough to make a choice of who they want to be. And the choice is available to only such people who are led by an enlightened and enriched society which creates space for everyone to feel secure in being who they are.
The place where the freedom to love who you want to is a fantasy and not a reality, is one where the politics of time are disturbed with conflict, and therefore that is the society which then becomes rigid, bigoted and insensitive to diversity.
People are shackled and slowly cease to express because it becomes a punishable act to display your soul through art.
Creativity goes underground and life in general gets homogenized.
India is on the verge of a collapse.
We are at the edge and if we are to fall, it could mean that we go back in time and start from scratch after a massive destruction which will level out everything.
If we don't take the right measures through our media and through all other streams of communication that we have, to rebuild the minds of people in general which have become a mangled mess and chaos of thoughts driven by a lack of faith in modern philosophy and politics, we are doomed.
We have to first admit that our irrational growth in the last 60 years has created an insecurity amongst our people which compels them to hold on to irrelevant beliefs and traditions as crutches. The illiterate are yet to be educated so they cannot be blamed for following anything blindly, as they are only doing what is necessary for them to survive.
The worry is that it is the minds of some of the educated, the foundations of certain institutions of learning, and the expression of a few respected artistes (I would like to believe that it is some mistake and not the truth what Muzzafar Ali has been quoted to have said) which has started to rot and it must be addressed immediately.
If we allow further growth to implode instead of helping people to reach out to the stars, it will be fatal. The strict enforcement of a single law for one and all, is the only answer and if the Government in power continues to appease different sections of society, and fails to perform its duty making democracy and cultural diversity the excuse, it will be disastrous.
Yesterday, I received a mail with some 40 pictures of Tirupati Balaji, at the end of which in bold was a message saying that if the receiver does not forward the mail to 20 people, he/she will face bad luck for 14 years. I replied to all who were on the list of the sender as well as to the sender, that those who forward this mail will be faced with bad luck till the third generation of their family after them, and the sender was offended. She immediately retorted that I should chill and enjoy the pictures. So then I said to her that she should chill and had the message in the first place been that I should enjoy the pictures, I wouldn't have been offended at all. She, and her bunch of friends are an educated lot, who create and produce the type of TV we see today.
Then the news of the poor professor who was caught by cameras having consensual sex with his gay partner who happens to be a rickshaw puller. Wow! He has actually been given a few hours to disappear from the campus at Aligarh Muslim University where he has been teaching for the last 20 years, by people who are the offenders themselves for having planted camera's in his lodgings and invading his privacy. Instead of them being booked, the poor victim is being punished. The absurd explanation of morality being meted out by other outdated and archaic members of the faculty of the dilapidated university was worse, seeming comic and satirical at times. The Buck Stops Here - NDTV 24/7 with Barkha Dutt.
But what it has taken for make me write this piece, is the worst.
I read today in the Mumbai Midday, that Muzzafar Ali, the respected filmmaker and designer, a man who has been called an artiste and received accolades for his works, was heard saying that if Rumi had been gay, he would not have been a poet.
This coming from a man of the caliber of Muzzafar Ali was unbelievable and I could not help but comment on the terrible quality of thinking that has infested the minds of people, mostly the educated and enlightened, in present times. I can't help but wonder what has gone wrong with us as a race and why, unlike other developing nations in the world, instead of evolving and paving a path for the aspiring, we are regressing and destroying the path laid out by our own ancestors who were far more progressive than we can even dream of being.
Literature, poetry, music, dance, sculpture and all other performing and non performing arts are manifestations of freedom that people feel, which compels them to express their joy, sorrow and pain. That freedom is possible when people are liberated enough to make a choice of who they want to be. And the choice is available to only such people who are led by an enlightened and enriched society which creates space for everyone to feel secure in being who they are.
The place where the freedom to love who you want to is a fantasy and not a reality, is one where the politics of time are disturbed with conflict, and therefore that is the society which then becomes rigid, bigoted and insensitive to diversity.
People are shackled and slowly cease to express because it becomes a punishable act to display your soul through art.
Creativity goes underground and life in general gets homogenized.
India is on the verge of a collapse.
We are at the edge and if we are to fall, it could mean that we go back in time and start from scratch after a massive destruction which will level out everything.
If we don't take the right measures through our media and through all other streams of communication that we have, to rebuild the minds of people in general which have become a mangled mess and chaos of thoughts driven by a lack of faith in modern philosophy and politics, we are doomed.
We have to first admit that our irrational growth in the last 60 years has created an insecurity amongst our people which compels them to hold on to irrelevant beliefs and traditions as crutches. The illiterate are yet to be educated so they cannot be blamed for following anything blindly, as they are only doing what is necessary for them to survive.
The worry is that it is the minds of some of the educated, the foundations of certain institutions of learning, and the expression of a few respected artistes (I would like to believe that it is some mistake and not the truth what Muzzafar Ali has been quoted to have said) which has started to rot and it must be addressed immediately.
If we allow further growth to implode instead of helping people to reach out to the stars, it will be fatal. The strict enforcement of a single law for one and all, is the only answer and if the Government in power continues to appease different sections of society, and fails to perform its duty making democracy and cultural diversity the excuse, it will be disastrous.
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