Just a week ago, Indore was declared the cleanest city of India. Our country hasn’t become clean overnight. We, as a nation, have consumed a lot of garbage over the years. We still continue to do so. You will know how.
You grow up being highly influenced by everyone you interact with, including
the one-sided interaction with TV and movies. You watch the commercials of “Slim
Sauna Belt” with a man saying, “I used to be FAT and UNHAPPY.” You watch the
popular fairness cream advertisement where a girl lands a lucrative job because
her skin shade becomes fairer after applying fairness cream. You watched those deodorant
ads where a guy becomes a chick magnet after applying a particular deodorant. I
used to apply four of them, all at once, for advanced effects.
Of course, we did not believe these ads, in the literal sense. However,
in some way, what we watch does influence us one way or another. This is
especially the case when we are young and naïve. To illustrate with the slim
sauna belt ad: although you may not believe that the belt will make you slim, you
start believing that being fat will have you bullied and make you awkward and
unhappy. The fairness cream ad exaggerated the importance of looking fair, and
penny for thoughts for anyone who was watching that ad and had a darker skin. Awkward,
right? The deodorant ads made you believe that having a pleasant artificial
smell will make you attractive to a person. You never realized that your body
odor releases pheromones, which have a better chance of attracting someone than
any deodorant. When you use a strong deodorant, you destroy the smell of these
pheromones.
To sum it up, these ads made you believe that overweight people are the
unhappiest, dark skin was a disorder, and smelling human was a turn off. And
these are just a few examples.
Oh, don’t get me started on movies. I will need at least a 1000 words
for each of them and still wouldn’t be able to reach their depths of stupidity.
The songs used to be next level. If ever you want to determine how creative the
lyrics were, you need to just translate them to English. There’s a particular
sad song picturized on Govinda, which makes me laugh. A couple of lines below –
Original
version – Tum hi ne meri zindagi, kharab ki hai,
Tumhare liye
hi maine, sharaab pee hai
And just for
you, I have consumed alcohol
Govinda gets slapped at the end of this song by the way (link below), and rightly so for singing such disgusting lyrics.
Just randomly pick some movies from 90s. The blame of a failed relationship was put on the female lead most of the times, if not all the times. The female actor moves on, but the male actor is left all gutted. Why is it that most sad songs in movies are shot on male, but not female actors? Mildly sexist, eh?
Even the serious content we produce is sometimes so garbage. Look at our news channels. They are busy reading the Whatsapp chats between Mahesh Bhatt and Rhea C. One news channel which broke the news of his death headlined – “Sushant out hit-wicket”. Hit wicket is a dismissal in cricket where the batsman gets himself out by hitting the stumps with his bat. A very sensitive analogy indeed.
One of India’s leading prime time news anchors, who is supposed to moderate debates, actually gets involved fully and makes the debate all about himself. Not only that, his command over language is exceptional, and sometimes he can be spotted using words like “chillam chilli”. If you are watching this guy debating with your kids, you might well encourage them to watch porn as well. They are going to end up with a contaminated mind anyway. For a change, there is a video of him being trolled internationally in the link below.
Make no mistake, such content has been created and continues to be created, because it’s acceptable to the majority of us. If there was no appetite for such a content, no one could be encouraged to create them. They are what we are, sadly. We clearly need to improve our tastes.
Lastly, happy (and safe) Ganesh Chaturthi to all of you. Hope you aren’t inviting to many guests over your place during the festivities. May Ganesh give you and your family a lot of immunity, in case you are.
Thank you.
Yours bitterly,
Ashish M.
