By Ankur Bhatia:
Dearest “Intellectuals” of India,
To start with, I have nothing personal against you. I’ve supported you through all your struggles for LGBTQI community, gender-equality (I find equality a better notion than calling for a particular sex over the other, howsoever bad the situations become), the people displaced for the modern human-encroachments like SEZ and dams, or for the victims of abuse. I’ve supported your activism religiously, but I can’t follow you “brainy” people any more. I’m fed-up of the sheer hypocrisy you exhibit, that overlooks many other aspects of the situations you opine about. I’ll begin with my rant now. The post that shook my wits is as follows and compelled me to frame this piece. Yes, this was the final nail in the coffin.
Yes, it is the Mars Orbiter Mission or the ‘Mangalyaan’ being talked about above. The morning of 24th of September, 2014, was not a usual one. As I switched to the news on the TV Screen, my eyes shone bright. Our MOM was a success with a minimal cost, and we had become the first nation to have done that in the first attempt. I can’t even comprehend the Facebook status update of the ‘Intellectual’ posted above. Seems like, God hasn’t blessed me with such wisdom. I tried hard and even harder to brainstorm and link the society-part with the satellite-part but failed every single time. Even I get crazy over some aspects of our society, but this piece of news did fill me with a lot of pride. Does he want to mean that our society is not apt, so we should shut down our research-labs and let the ‘First-world’ nations continue with it, so that our scientists go and work for organisations like NASA, and encourage brain-drain (like we’ve been boasting all these years about the percentage of Indians working there)? Or does he want to say that India, as a nation, should not be entitled to ‘produce’ scientists and researchers in the first place, and as a ‘poor’ nation, we should continue with just the primary sector (where economic activity is centred on the extraction of raw materials from the earth, be it agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining or quarrying)? My brain cells are almost dead fathoming. Please let me know if you have any idea about the same. I would like to quote an instance here.
On the 21st November, 1783, in Paris, Benjamin Franklin was among the hundreds of people who gathered in the gardens of the Rue de Montreuil to attend a wonderful spectacle: the first manned flight in history.
The courageous followers of Icare were Francois Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes, using a device invented by the Montgolfier brothers: the hot-air balloon (“Montgolfière” still means “balloon” in modern French).
Of course, people who watched the sight were amazed beyond description; however, as often happens with great discoveries, some sceptics loudly expressed their contempt for the invention. One of them clutched Franklin’s arm and asked him scornfully:
“Monsieur, franchement, Ã quoi peut bien servir de s’envoler dans les airs?” (Sir, frankly, what’s the use of flying in the air ?)
To which Franklin replied:
“Monsieur, à quoi peut bien servir l’enfant qui vient de naître ?” (Sir, what’s the use of a newborn baby?)
Hey Left extremists! As an eager follower, I’ve followed your posts on social-media for a long time, and have observed a unique pattern in them. You criticise things, and criticise hard, like ripping them apart, but selectively. I’ll elaborate. Some days back, the heir of Pakistan Peoples Party, His Highness, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s ‘inch-by-inch’ euphemisms over Kashmir rocked the social media. He has gained so much recognition all over India that he is termed as Pakistan’s Rahul Gandhi now. Scaling such an amazing feat in such a short span of time is not less than an achievement in itself. Now, when you people shout out from the rooftops for even an ant being run over by some egotist, this is a piece of news that deserves special mention from your side, but you choose not to. I’m very disappointed. I had very high hopes riding on you. You didn’t utter a word when the ceasefire was violated n number of times from the other side of the border, but as long as I remember, you did with “War is not the only solution” when our defence forces retaliated. You chose to ignore the praise-worthy efforts of the Indian Army in Kashmir during the recent floods in the state, because of the shameful Kunan Poshpora incident, but have chosen to highlight the plight of Yasin Malik in the past, even though he was caught sabotaging the relief operations recently, by stopping a boat rescuing the people and asking the patients to get off (which was strongly protested by some local women in the vicinity. So, Nawaz Sharif proclaiming in UN General Assembly that “women in Kashmir are suffering” does make sense). Let’s not call it a sin and forgive him as “to err is human”. I’ve seen you lampooning Kapil Sharma for his sexist jokes, but you’ve rightly let Russell Peters (of an Indian origin) pass off easily with his racist jokes, because he has a global presence now. Kapil is still wow-ing the desi audience. Good job!
Sometime back, an activist friend of mine who’s bashed Yo! Yo! Honey Singh on numerous occasions for his misogynistic lyrics was listening to Eminem, the Rap-Legend of our times. I asked him if he had listened to “Ass like that”, among others. He knew where it was going. As I was about to include Snoop Dogg and Jay Z in the conversation, he interrupted me by saying “Bhai ! Some-things are bound to be and should remain different between them and us.” I nodded my head with amazement. Now, when the topic concerned is misogyny, I should elaborate a bit more. As far as I can recall, you people did compare Diljit Dosanjh, a Punjabi Singer-Actor with Yo! Yo! Honey Singh, for lyrics of a song, but you didn’t when the same word was used by Meet Bros and Anjjan in the year’s top chartbuster, and hummed by Kanika Kapoor, a female. Do you have any damn idea how insulted she felt not getting your attention, and was depressed by not getting ridiculed by you?
I’ve heard Modi and Feminism a lot from your side. It’s not true that I haven’t supported you for all the Human-Rights violated in these contexts. I have, and always will. Trust me. Now that you have my word on that, can I have your two cents on Economy, GDP, Science and Technology and Defence as well? You’ve been very less vocal as far as these topics are concerned. I don’t think that you’re going to talk about even the little improvement in the credit ratings of our economy by Standard and Poor’s. I don’t even think you’re going to talk about RJ Naved’s fitting response to Bilawal Bhutto, taking in consideration your old habit of ‘selective response’. I might sound rude but I don’t think that you understand even the “E” of Economy, or the repercussions of a developing country’s continuous fall in GDP and credit ratings. I would like to share here some Hindi lines composed by Bhak Sala, a popular blog on Facebook, which seem to be very apt.
“Mere dard ke bare me
Split AC kamre me baithne wala
Woh aadmi likhta hai
Jise Tees degree se zyada garmi par
Heat Stroke ho jaata hai
Meri bhookh ke bare me
Leather Sofa par baithne wala
Woh aadmi likhta hai
Jisne bas isliye khaana nahi khaaya
Kyoki calories zyada na ho jaae
Meri jhopdi ki badhaali par
Pachheesvi manzil par baitha hua vo aadmi likhta hai
Jisne laakh rupay ki painting khareedi hai
Kyoki usme ek badhaal jhopdi thi
Mere bhukhe nange bachhe
Dhoop, thand aur baarish me
Footpath par khush hain
Unhe bas eente uthane do
Tumhari Intellectual bakwaas se
Farebi ki boo aati hai.”
Now, some would call me a loser-living-far-from-reality, some an attention-seeker, while many would call me an AAP-tard. I’m ready to face the consequences for the sake of venting out my pent-up frustration. If to one, it is intellect, it is nothing more than ‘glorified hypocrisy’ to me. Well, to conclude and sum it up, I just have a simple message to you all. You people are as dangerous as the Right-Extremists, the only difference is that that they usually don’t talk logic, but you people at-least claim that you base your arguments on rationale. So, till the time you don’t get a holistic (as Mr. Manish Tiwari puts it) know-how about the affairs other than those you’re a champion at, it would be really better if you kept your mouth shut as grapevine, speculations and rumours have been eating up our nation.