I want to see the film. I saw the trailers and sensed that I was watching a very mature performance from Sharrukh Khan. I sensed that after Monsoon Wedding this may be another film that actually crosses over internationally. But I want to see the film and I cannot.
\nThe political chess game that the film has got embroiled into is so unfortunate. I watched for a while last night as the melodrama was being played out on one TV channel after another, and I wondered. How far is a frenetic Media responsible for forcing people to take stands publicly to a point where the threat of violence looms large over the common people ?
\nDon’t get me wrong. I would rather have frenetic, melodramatic, TRP driven Media than no Media at all. Those of us that remember how our Media completely capitulated under the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi, leading to a nation driven by whispered rumors and fears of saying the wrong thing at the wrong place, learned to respect the value of free Media as the bedrock of Democracy. But free Media is ‘free’ to do what ?
\nI watched last night as responsible ( i thought) presenters tried to out shout the screaming participants, completely subverting the real or potential issues. Should the Media become the ‘moral police’ of the country themselves ? While I, and most of the country will support Mr khan on this issue , I am afraid of a Media that garners huge TRP’s and then present themselves as the Moral police without a commitment to anything but their own market capitalization.
\nI know that political parties, and in this case the Shiv Sena (though the others are playing their own game) play the Media for their own political purpose. But why is the Media becoming a willing participant and a player in that game ?
\nI asked my driver, who is Maharashtrian and a once active member of the Shiv Sena what he thought of the whole issue as he watched the drama being unfolded, glued to the TV. His answer ?
\n“It’s all about jobs, Sir. There are so many people without Jobs in the slums of Mumbai that this is bound to happen” Simple.
\nTo 90% of Mumbai’s population that cannot afford to go to a Multiplex in any case, the real issue is not whether Rahul Gandhi’s traveling a suburban train in Mumbai was pre-planned or not, nor whether the film releases today or not. The real issue is still ‘Roti, Kapada aur Makaan’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I want to see the film. I saw the trailers and sensed that I was watching a very mature performance from Sharrukh Khan. I sensed that after Monsoon Wedding this may be another film that actually crosses over internationally. But I want to see the film and I cannot. The political chess game that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"yoast_head":"\n