Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Rant: the good days

We talk about development and about good days
and then there are sources
Bad, evil
who pull us back, back into the orthodox times
and thoughts so backward
yet they dare to preach it to the public
Stupidity is shot and sold in open markets
With hoardings showing fancy faces
and advertising plastic promises
And we talk about development
while disrespecting our own roots,
making judgments based on half-baked theories
coming straight from the corrupt minds
of Bad, evil
sinister ministers playing strip poker with us;
a game which we always lose
and get lost in the madhouse maze
of unsolvable paradoxes with bilateral answers
of which to believe, we are not sure enough
and while we think and send some of our brainy representatives
to put forward our say
on public debates where curtains fall
before a conclusive climax
which are held on expensive podiums
owned and run by
the Bad, evil
criminal minded shenanigans who broadcast filth in broad daylight
and have the audacity to hire defence lawyers
to justify their intended crime
and then some black coats are found,
just ‘black coats’ because there’s no human in there,
waving their participation into the missions
of hiding dark deeds in darker coats
making uncountable victims’ resilient tears collect
In the dusty, old and unread files
on a shelf of a slacker’s office
and censoring every quiet shriek of openness
and banning every bit of thoughtful art
which died in a want to yell the bitter truth
to an audience, oblivious of logic
and we talk about development
where people still need to be fed by a spoon
about the basic facts of being normal
providing a vulnerable, dirty habitat where
Rises the Bad, evil
which comes back again and again in different avatars
of demagogues, lecturing hate
of lawyers, advocating lies
of godmen (fraudmen), preaching terror
hurdling us, on our path towards the good days
pulling us back, back into the orthodox times
from where, we the junta
have been trying to free ourselves
by voting for the lesser corrupt
and they win, the prodigal hooligans
who vandalise every street with their dominion,
and spray cans
with which they paint every wall in dark bold letters:
RULES THE BAD, EVIL
giving out the idea of dystopia
and we fall for it
and we walk along with it
keeping an eye on the clock, waiting
with a few, quiet outcries
for the good days.

-Ashish

Thursday, September 5, 2013

In the Meanwhile: Last telegram to Rahul Gandhi

A Mid-day Heal


Hello Reader,

It was much before the Bihar Mid-day meal tragedy that my mother, who teaches in a government school, had told me about how unhealthy is the food that is being served in her school and how carelessly it is cooked. The amount of money spent to buy the raw cooking material is much less than that of being sanctioned to run this scheme. Certainly, there is corruption.



And the result of it, we have all witnessed, is the number of innocent deaths, children falling sick. Blaming the government will be a long process to fight this evil. Because, if we point our finger to someone, he/she shall point it to his/her rival and that will continue and in the meanwhile, more children will die. There will be no results in the end of this blame-game.
So, it is better that we stop cursing our deaf-government and rather help the NGOs to fund these schemes. Why not rely on the people who actually work for the betterment and help them.
One such NGO is The Akshaya Patra Foundation, which I am sure most of you would be aware of.

You can make donations of any amount through this link.
https://www.akshayapatra.org/onlinedonations

I request all my readers to share this and donate for this good cause. The children need your help.

You can read about the foundation here. 



Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Poem: Box of Blues

To avenge the banal opus,
in fiasco, the controller is assaulted,
numerous times, it is clicked,
only to find exhilaration. 
Every face of the colored box is painted,
but, with a similar shade of poignancy,
boasting of some lachrymose issue. 
Despair makes the headlines look fancy
and every page turns into a tissue. 
Be it inside or outside the box,
to search happiness is not a cake-walk.
Liberation from an unendurable writhe 
or is it our world stuck inside the box?
A thin screen between material and myth,
or is it just a mirror that stares back, I wonder? 

-Ashish

Thursday, January 10, 2013

No Justice for Martyrdom



Hello Reader,

Every time when this country is awakened, a heavy price is paid. An innocent lamb is sacrificed.
Or is it some kind of tradition which started ages ago? Why do we need such a deadly alarm to wake a sleeping country every time? It happened again, one matchstick burnt a million candles and silently quenched. 

Recently, two of the most gruesome sacrifices were one of that of the girl who got brutally raped in Delhi and second was that of the two Indian army soldiers beheaded by Pakistani army.
Though these alarms were loud enough to go unheard by the disabled common people, who can do nothing but protest around the India gate, it is still unheard at the administrative level. The ones with all the power in their hands are acting paraplegic.

The criminals are not yet punished. It has been about 20 days and they are still looking out for more evidence. The sad thing is that the victim succumbed to her wounds and the criminals are still alive.
Why could the victim, before dying, not able to read a headline saying, ‘Criminals hung till death’?
That would have been a tribute to her sacrifice. On her death, people asked her to rest in peace. But, how could she? After enduring such a painful end, nobody would rest in peace until and unless it is worth it.

Is there no head count of the soldiers who die for our country? No, they are just sent in troops and at the end of the political wars, these men of honor get killed. Then the list of men who die is recorded and they remain in a pile of lost statistics. The brave hearts fight for their country because they respect the land which gave them birth and they respect the former sacrifices made for this country. And now, after their death, the country is mourning. And yet again, our government has no answer for that. The soldiers are used; their sentiments are used in the midst of the political wars.

Just suppose, a minister dies and the next day you read the newspaper, you find a whole page dedicated to him with complete detail of his personal and professional life. They’ll write only about how he served the country and how we have lost a diamond. Of course, he was a diamond. Diamonds demand a lot of money to buy them and that is exactly how he was.
What happens when one or two soldiers or policemen die?
A headline saying, “Two men died in crossfire.” That’s it.
Do not expect to find much detail in that article, you won’t find any. This article will be lying somewhere, in some corner of a page, overshadowed by other more interesting news items.

Media really plays an important role in making news viral. Would we have ever even thought about that girl if they didn't want us to? Millions of people stuck in front of their televisions acted accordingly. Now there is this new rage about the two soldiers and thanks to the media, people are at least thinking about it and respecting their priceless sacrifices. People are the puppets and media is their master.  It can be any media, television or internet, when a trend begins, people just go with crowd. On Independence Day or republic day, people suddenly get patriotic. They start remembering our great leaders of the past and those who sacrificed for the independence because in school they were taught that we remember them on the 15th of august and on the other national days. So they took it too seriously and started following the rules as they thought that these honorable men are to be remembered only on those particular days. You see the problem? There is no value of their lives.

One should not show their concern or respect when they don’t really mean it. Sitting in your home and saying words like ‘rest in peace’, ‘jai hind’ is very simple. A real tribute to them will be when people fight for them and for anything bad that is about to happen, before the next crime actually takes place. Why should we wait for the next ‘trendy’ crime to occur?
It is the intention behind every action that matters. Only then, the thousand sacrifices will have their meaning. Only then, we can ask them to ‘rest in peace’.

Ashish 

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Your television is crying

Hello Reader

Are all the good writers dead? Are all the good actors dead?
What has happened to the realistic shows such as Malgudi days, Office-Office etc?

Switch on your TV and tune into any Indian channel on a weekday, the first thing you observe is a heavily loaded (with makeup, flashy jewelry and weight) women excreting waterfalls from their eyes and drum beats with temple-bells buzzing in the background. As if God is being cruel to them lifelong and as if they have been seeing only downs and facing hurdles all their life. Oh! please, shut that plastic emotions up. I seriously want to belt the writers of these daily operas. Broadcasting at national level, do they have no sense of writing a real story? If there were a law, these writers would have been given death sentence for writing those senseless, baseless dramas garnished with overacting by the people who try to act. Just to bring a new twist and spice in the tale, the complete theme of the story gets converted into a melodrama even though the show's actual purpose was to meet social issues. If there are 10 shows being broadcast ed on an entertainment channel, 8 of them have the same taste of family drama...containing a huge family living a larger-than-life life. There would be family living a lavish life in a palace or if they have to tell the story of a middle class people, the family would be living in a Mumbai based chaal or slum.

Oh! naive art directors, have you never lived a normal life?  Due to lack of creativity, even the titles are lifted from the old retro songs. And why do they keep on crying? IS there nothing that makes them happy.. or do they cry because of low pay they get. There is too much of negativity in these shows. Why can't they showcase a story that brings smile? And why isn't there no end to a TV show? it keeps on going...decades of crying. Uh! it does make a huge impact on the viewer's life too. A huge percentage of population watches these shows, not because they like it.

Now coming to music channels, MTv and Vtv used to be music channels some years ago. Following the trend, even these so-called youthful channels have been running these dramas.  The real music is lost.
Reality in these shows is hard to find. Reality in reality shows is even hard to find. To attract audience by creating unwanted drama, the real life stories of people are narrated in a filmy way... to gain cheap T.R.P.
Not only reality shows does that but even news channels. God save those news channels who create stupidest news you can ever imagine and actually dare to broadcast it. The range of their creativity is high though...they have been telling us the news of Aliens kidnapping farmer's cows. So it includes kidnapping, aliens, cow and drama. Now do I put that channel under news, entertainment, science, spiritual or just grabage.
Oh yes, how can i forget the spiritual channels. They are the ones who have been making fool out of television watchers. Recently, fortunately, the frauds such has Nirmal Baba have been unveiled who have been talking shit all day in these channels. Now here's the question Who the hell allows them and gives them space to do that on a national TV? It's like promoting con-men in open. Making fool out of people, telling lies publicly is stealing one's right to know the truth. 

I don't know about others but I am certainly fed up of these TV shows. Apart from some, rest all are simply lame.

We really require a lot better and creative story writers.
Indian television should grow up. Really, ASAP!


Monday, November 14, 2011

Being Human?


Hello reader
While reading newspaper this morning, I found an article, on how unsafe our country has become for women. It made me feel sick and very angry of the people responsible for it. Only after reading the bitter reality, I have no doubt stating that India is nowhere towards any better. Nothing except population, petrol prices and molestation rates are increasing. 800% rise in molestation cases. Pretty good, isn’t it? What a raise, dude!
I may sound really negative. But I think it’s important to be negative towards negative stuff like these. Really feel sorry for the victims, the girls who go through such a thing and then nobody support them, not even their own families. And why is that? It’s because, they are a considered as a disgrace to the society. They bring home a bad name. People make them feel as they are the guilty-ones rather than victims. People stare at them as if they committed the crime.
The innocent ones are once again blamed and the criminals fly back freely to plan their next crime, their next hunt.
Who is responsible for this bloody pothole?
I have a list of people to blame. First are those who think that the females should be tied back inside the cage. These people who don’t want their own women to leave the house but themselves go out and tease and comment on women they find outside. All because of their low mentality, the way they see a girl and talk about her, may be about her dressing style. These are the people who discriminate them. They don’t consider a girl’s freedom can be ever equal to a boy. It’s her wish! What to do, when to do. Then, society is the word which comes into the picture. What is society? It’s all about law. When a guy can do anything, so can a girl. Remember? That’s why we were taught about the fundamental rights: The Right to Freedom. Who are the people in society to decide that?
The family of the victim comes next. When her own people won’t support her and blame her for being too liberate then certainly she has nothing left in this world, which she can call her own? She can trust nobody, can have faith on nobody. It’s the duty of her family to support her at the worst time of her life. But they prefer to stand by the so called rules of society. Because, they feel they have lost all respect. Well, a parent who can’t support her own child at such a bad time certainly doesn’t deserve any respect. What they deserve is a nice tight slap.
Then the poor security of our country is to be blamed. When a person can walk in and place a bomb inside the parliament, it’s certainly a piece of cake to molest a lonely girl. In the case I read about, the girl wanted to keep the story confidential but because of the stupidity of the police men working in the case were responsible in leaking the story outside. She would have faced lesser shame only if the police could work a bit more smartly. And even if the culprit is caught, what’s the use? He will come out as a reference of some high profile person or bribing the police. They are treated like guests. And the one who is the victim is ill-treated: forcefully interrogated. The doctors who do the report work do the same.
The condition of the victim gets so dreadful that they have to go through a counselling session for days to be something closer to normal. And all this happens only in case the victim is a strong enough person to face it. Otherwise it is certainly a suicide case.
These were the victim’s own words “People look at me and make me realize that I am the one who was raped. It’s horrible.”
It made me sad after reading all this. And I wanted to share it. I really feel sorry for the helpless victims. And it rages me when I think about the vegetable-like people who don’t bother to help this serious issue and don’t want to get into this for the sake of their ‘name’ in the society, the jerks who consider girls as nothing more than a body with no heart and soul, about the criminals, the murderers who deserve to be hanged, are still roaming freely, and the blind society I am living in.

Ashish :(
Everything I wrote is based on true facts.
Courtesy: The Times of India

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The History itself is the witness



Continuing from what i had written in my last post, this 65th independence day was indeed different except for the Prime Minister's same old speech and same old promises. But yes, the promise that Anna Hazare made to the people was not broken. He once again knocked the doors of government of India and peacefully appealed for the lokpal bill against corruption. And history has witnessed whenever somebody goes against the system, that person will be suppressed. And today even before Anna and his supporters could make his move, he was arrested. People call it a deja vu of what happened with Gandhiji.

Once again common people of India were on the streets everywhere. Candle march, protests and strikes in every state. Unity was redefined. And all this just after the night of 65th independence day. India has always won when its people get united. Everybody except the government officials, the politicians, were supporting Anna Hazare. Because the politicians are scared that if the bill passes everybody will be behind the bars. Its all transparent.

And like always the young population of the country are on the roads . The Angry birds are all in open to hit the swines (politicians). It was young fighters like Bhagat Singh for India's Independence who are considered as the seed to thousands of such young fighters who are against the system. Even in those days the Congress was the one who made wrong decisions. The time has changed but the scene is the same.

I wish there were no parties like congress, bjp and so many more. There should be just one party. And the best man from the party should be the leader. Having so many parties only brings up more fights and controversies. If party A makes a decision Party B wont agree. And in middle of all this politics, the people suffer. Constitution itself is wrong. Party A rules the centre and B rules the state. How stupid is that!

India and Pakistan were one 64 years ago. Its only because of two different parties that they had to settle with partition and even today the fight over Kashmir is on. Only because of greed of ruling the country. It was Jinnah versus Nehru then. And now its India versus India. Party A versus Party B. State Government versus Central Government.

I am witnessing everything that had happened in 1947 and throughout the freedom struggle in a mordern way though.
Like Bollywood remakes old movies. This is a remake of reality. And as people say Anna Hazare is the new Gandhi. In this way our own Government is our biggest enemy. The fight for poorna swaraj is still on. Long live Revolution!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

It's all about unity


It was the day I always wanted to witness. The day India was united again. Even after being so colourful, it reflected just one colour: blue. It was the day when India won its second One day international cricket world cup. The triumphant screams still buzz in my head when I remember it. The crowd was on the street celebrating a common festival and dancing to the Indian victory. No political party bias, no caste bias, no religion bias. In fact they all followed just one religion: Cricket. Lovely it was.
The emotion was the same just like that when India won its Independence from the British. The rare emotion of smile and tears could be seen on many faces. It was wonderful to watch the joyous faces of different colours smiling for the same reason. I bet people would have witnessed a similar scene when India was a free nation on 15th August 1947. And all that was made possible by the young and rocking Indian cricket team.
But then, Indian Premier League arrived. It is a game of pure politics and business played by biggest players of the country. No emotions, no heart. Many innocent people of my country start supporting these colourful IPL teams reflecting different colours once again.
To add to this, our honourable politicians are always ready to dig the paths. I can write so much negative about them but I don’t want to. And it’s of no use either. It’s of no use because everybody knows about it. Everybody knows about it but nobody raises their voice against it. Nobody raises their voice because, once again, we all know it’s of no use. But then, some heroic personalities stand up to make a difference. Anna Hazare is the latest name. This man has stood up to bring the change by forcing government to issue a new bill against corruption. I won’t go in much detail about the bill. There were hunger strikes, lathi-charges and lots of conspiracies happening in India once again. And in between all this stood one more man to raise his voice with Anna: Baba Ramdev. The popular yoga guru fell into the scene out of nowhere in support of the bill and many of his own new ideas to erase corruption. Many of which are really lame as I feel. And not only that, he said no to food and water for several days till he was actually so weak that he had to finally stuff in. It’s all up to you to decide if that is for the sake of country’s welfare or publicity.
The fight is still on with lots of debates, strikes, politics and interruptions. The deadline date given by Anna to the government to pass the anti-corruption bill is the next 15th august. The modern Gandhi, as people call him, is all set to go on a strike with a full on expected support by promoting his venture through sms and social networking to the youth. And look, he is trying to repeat the history on the same date.
I am looking forward to it as the cause is really good. It’s not about the cause of stabbing corruption but about the cause of India being united once again to fight against their biggest enemies: the corrupt politicians. It would be just the same like the night of Indian victory. I can wait for my entire life to see such a night again as one such night is enough to satisfy all the pleasures of your life.