Hero Worship and fanaticism

We say that India is a country of laudable cultural heritage and a melting pot of diverse cultures. But that is just one side of the coin. And the other side isn't that praise-worthy to say the least. You might say that "this is true for any Nation and our motherland is no exception". I agree, I agree that corruption, religious anomalies, racism are bugs that digs at every societal structure. But certain aspects do raise a concern in my mind. And this post just discusses one.

Social befriending is a rage these days and we all have become a part of this virtual world. So far so good! But as soon as this tool becomes a pistol in the hands of a raving teenager or a weapon in the hands of a user who is hardly aware of the devastation it can cause, it is a serious concern guys! And I think India is such a teenager when it comes to handling social presence. While media and movie makers are en-cashing on this crazy crowd, we are losing on our integrity and lot more. I get astonished to see the number of fan clubs stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Rajnikanth have on social networks like twitter, Facebook etc. Yet it doesn't bother me, after-all they are public figures. But when I see people passing nasty, derogatory comments to each other in support of the heroes they worship, I feel bothered. 

The recent cyber bullying of singer Sona Mohapatra when she tweeted “Women thrashed people run over, wild life massacred and yet #hero of the nation. ‘Unfair’. India full of such supporters,” as an answer to Salman’s infamous rape comment, should raise concern amongst all. The kind of comments thrown at the singer to combat her attack on a man our nation follows like a brainless creature, made me cringe and think that are we living in a civilised society at all? These same people had stood against Tanmay Bhatt’s comic take on Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar. This hypocrisy proves my concern on dim-witted, thick-headed hero worship.

Frankly I disliked the video by Tanmay Bhatt too, because somewhere I thought it crossed the border of fun and entered into derogation and insult. But my opinion should not be based on the people the comments are aimed at, it should be content driven. But sadly this is far from the reality of the twitterati and social butterflies flying around.

Ø  When a movie like “Kabali” which is solely dependent on swag instead of content does ~200 crore business from pre-booking and earns a holiday for employees in many organisations, when the liability of Virat Kohli’s bad performance in a cricket match is thrusted on the presence of her girl-friend around, when Salman Khan can get away with anything and everything he says or does, don’t you think we are in an era when the media is earning  bread by controlling our minds the way they want, illiteracy has found a new vent and logical thinking has evaporated into thin air.  

Earlier we were blindfolded by religion, region, economic standards, now a new genre is added to this list which is “social media hype and hashtags”. Time to introspect!!! Time to understand the blurring line between following an icon and becoming a fanatic about him/her......

Aritra Chakrabarty Sengupta
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