My daughter remarked snidely a while ago that these days there are so many idle, stupid and distracted people around, especially in the cities, that their favourite pastime has become 'get up in the morning, get offended at something someone somewhere has said or done, abuse him (usually in the name of 'majority sensibilities'), fall asleep again'.
I happened to come across the perfect example of this epidemic recently on - where else? - the internet. Ranveer Singh had done a photoshoot in the buff for some foreign magazine, and that had become viral in India. Some woman found it 'very vulgar', and called for his head. Mind you, I am not a great champion of the idea that 'everything goes in the name of free choice and free expression'. As I have said a thousand times in my class, one has a right to one's own sense of privacy, decency and decorum, which one must not sacrifice at the altar of public preferences if one wants to preserve some dignity in one's own eyes. Shah Rukh Khan might be comfortable posing in branded underwear because they pay him the earth for it: given the same choice, I won't think of doing it. But how stupid and coarse must one be to call for social ostracization of anybody whose tastes make him grimace? Just make your own opinion clear in your private circle and avoid keeping tabs on what such people are doing and saying, that's all that is needed!
Anyway, I am glad that the country has not filled up with uptight sourpusses yet. Some people can make fun of such things, and many others can see the fun and enjoy it too. Here's a meme that does exactly that, and I had more than one good laugh over it. More power to your elbow, Yashraj Mukhate!
(afterthought: I wonder what the woman who condemned Ranveer would do or say if she knew about the sculptures on the walls of the temples at Khajuraho and Konarak?)
.JPG)
