Santosh Pandit and the perverse viewers

Santosh Pandit does not need an introduction among Malayali film viewers and netizens. In a very short span he has become quite famous (or infamous) for his tryst with film production, thanks to facebook and youtube.

Pandit’s (I don’t have any clue about such a Mallu surname) hit film ‘Radhayum Krishnanum’ is now a matter of wide discussion. By the way, let me tell you the word ‘hit’ only means that a film reaped revenues higher than the production cost.

I would not have bothered to discuss about Santosh Pandit and his venture as personally I do not feel this is a film that I would enjoy watching. What makes me write this is a recent discussion on Santosh Pandit in a leading Malayalam news channel.

The discussion is anchored by one of the celebrated female news readers of the channel. Apart from one person who has appeared in villain roles in a few movies none of the panelists are known to me and neither do I have any clue in what capacity they were there to discuss the issue. Santosh Pandit himself joins the discussion from a distant bureau.

There is a set of audience who claim to have seen Pandit’s movie. The question is why such a ‘sub-standard’ film became a hit. We are told that the film was made a hit by the viewers who have been rushing to the theatres only to abuse him. Pandit himself had said that he has been receiving innumerable calls abusing him for having shot the film. Audience cheers whenever the panelists come up with humiliating remarks about Pandit. They tell Pandit that the film was horrible and ask him not to make another movie.

As Pandit looks visibly uncomfortable at the mass tirade against him through the popular channel, one of the panelists terms him mentally ill. The participants applaud. Another panelist even tries to classify his mental illness.

Frankly, I could only find how perverted the panelists and other participants in the discussion were and how the channel was blatantly undemocratic. The anchor, who has been playing along with them, did not seem to have learnt the basic lessons of democracy.

Being a citizen of a democratic nation, Pandit has the right to use his money to produce a film and even don several roles in its production. Being a low-budget production, he has tried to market it through a cheaper medium like the internet. Now, it is solely the discretion of the viewers to watch or ignore his movie.

It is nothing but a perverse psychology that leads one to spend his own money to make a call or watch the movie only to abuse Pandit. Pandit has done no wrong to anyone by making a movie using his own financial resources.

Now another apprehension is whether this is signaling the doom’s day of Malayalam movie industry. But there are many who feel the hype around Pandit’s first movie cannot be sustained over time. If there are viewers who appreciate quality, good movies will be made.

Some find this as an indication to the displeasure of movie goers to the some of the super star-studded movies released in the recent times. In fact, if Pandit’s movie has become a hit it indicates that the number of perverts in the state is far more than we imagine.

Some corporate lessons

My husband and I, the other day, were attending the parent-teacher meeting at my son’s school. My son was not allowed into the room where we were discussing about his progress.

We were also told not to ever open his diary in which he evaluates himself every week. There are a few set of questions in his diary like how was my week, did I help anyone this week, did I keep my cupboard clean etc and he can also record his thoughts and feelings. The teacher herself never opens the diary before the children nor discusses about it. It is an exercise to evaluate oneself honestly.

Never open it before him or ask him why he wrote so in the diary, else he will feel bad about it, we were told. This reminded me of my own school days. None of our teachers ever cared about whether we could ever feel bad about anything.

I did my schooling in one of those top ‘result-oriented’ schools in my native town. I remember one incident when the geography teacher flipped through my notebook and found out the scribbling done my little cousin. He did not even ask who did that, instead publically displayed what he called was a ‘masterpiece’. The class broke into peals of laughter and the teacher took pride in his accomplishment of entertaining everyone at my expense.

That is what our school system does, trains children how to lose self-esteem and survive humiliations. Further, the teacher also will demonstrate how effectively you can humiliate others when you are in a position to do that. During our parent-teacher meetings, we would be summoned to the teacher’s room and were made to stand through the entire exercise as muted sufferers. The teacher will happily recollect all our wrongdoings ever since the last meeting. (Hats off to his memory!) Once out of the school, we should have come in terms to the fact that being humiliated, with or without reason, was quite normal and becoming fit for life was getting tough enough to survive them.

And certainly this is one big quality that will come handy in a corporate set-up. You might be a good worker or not, the boss has all rights to publically yell at you without even enquiring what you did was a mistake or not. You are not supposed to utter a word till the boss triumphantly walks away after showing off his ‘administrative’ skills.

But, in an office, one would have a few ways to get the humiliation out of the way. Dole out to your subordinates their share if you have any or booze over it till you get drunk. You can bitch about him among your colleagues or if you are not that type, simply swallow it.

Whatever way you choose, the next day when your boss behaves as if nothing happened the previous day, you are expected to be a better actor.

Now if you try to make your point clear to your boss during his tirade, be prepared to be looked upon as the rebel in the lot. If you don’t want to suffer this ‘torture’ anymore and decide to quit job, you will be stamped as the ‘loser’, coz if you have to climb the corporate ladder you need to have the right attitude and the right attitude is – keep your self-respect at home before coming to office.

Jobs, Anna and the media frenzy

First Anna Hazare and then Steve Jobs; it makes me wonder how media and social media had taken these two people to a level nearest to God in the recent times.

Media has always been doing this - turning its eyes from real issues and going after the sensational ones to fill in columns and airtime. Media will have a few excuses too - competition, reader/viewer preference and commercial value. But the independent social media was witnessing nothing but a duck syndrome.

First it was Hazare. There were not many serious attempts to learn about the proposed Lokpal or Jan Lokpal bills, their merits and demerits, checks and balances and their exact role in curbing corruption. Instead, media reserved huge space and time for Hazare and his indefinite fast. It was not so keen to educate the masses; instead it covered the fast like a live cricket match.

Through social media, there was a hurried attempt to widen support base among the users. Hazare was there in almost everyone’s status message and it was considered ‘fashionable’ to support the cause. Majority of them looked upon Hazare as the ‘Messiah’ who had just descended from heaven to wipe out corruption from the country.

The show was over with Hazare breaking the fast and none seemed to be bothered much about corruption thereafter.

Then came Steve Jobs. Media had its first round of celebrations when he quit as Apple head due to illness. His death was the ultimate loss for science and technology, at least the media made us believe so. He was compared to Edison and Einstein. Steve stole the pages of almost all the Indian papers not for just one day but for more than a fortnight.

When Apple customers in the US mourned the death, it was ‘uncool’ for any Facebook or Twitter user in India not to join them, whether he has been a user of the company’s products or not. For at least one week no one dared to think about any other status message or tweet, lest he should be looked down upon as a technological ignoramus.

The world has seen several scientists who have worked their life out for new inventions and discoveries. Some got known and some remained unsung. Steve Jobs or Apple did not invent anything new, they just made the existing products simpler for the user and they cleverly marketed them.

However, in India Apple is not a leading brand in mobile phones. There are cheaper devices to download and hear music and ipad is still not the leader in tablet PCs. Then why was the Indian media getting frenzied with Steve Jobs?

Comrades, please give America a break

Very recently I happened to watch a vernacular TV channel backed by the Communist party airing a programme on Iraq war (yes, the very same war that led to the ouster of Saddam Hussein) and America's "fossil fuel thirst". Come on guys, it has been ages since Saddam regime was toppled and he hanged. Why should the channel still harp on it and warn its viewers (read Communist voters) on the impending danger of American imperialism.

From times when the words like 'globalisation' and 'liberalisation' were first uttered in India, it has been an ideological pursuit for Communists to use them synonymously with 'American imperialism' and 'colonisation by multi-national companies' (American monopolistic companies as in the local dialect).

In those times, the common man too shared the fear attached with these 'futuristic thoughts' as the country itself was not sure how the reforms would shape up. Now couple of decades later when we realise that India was one of the foremost economies to benefit from globalisation, can't you stop this comrades?

During the last decade, we saw emergence of several domestic companies going global and growing phenomenonly into multi-national giants. While the US IT and ITeS companies set sail to countries like India in search of cheaper labour, our companies set shop in the US. Just ask a call centre guy who serves American clients in his made-up nasal accent. The moment his Indian accent lurks out, the white man on the other end will shower abuses on Bangalore for snatching away their jobs.

Post-recession, the employment data in the US has not been giving much hope. And that's why we saw, President Barack Obama hurriedly flying down to our commercial capital, scrambling up whatever he could and showing off '$10 billion' worth virtual deals to assure his countrymen that he was doing something about unemployment. It not just employment, housing, real estate and industrial data have not turned impressive in the US.

Unlike the erstwhile USSR, which would wear on the cap of super power till it got scattered into pieces, exposing its hungry millions, US is an economic super power and mostly the power resides with its corporate giants.

That does not mean that the US is finished. Ups and downs are part of any capitalistic economy. But Communists, at least give America and the Iraq war a break. There is no dearth of issues to fill up your airtime.

It is time for second Green Revolution

After a gap of a few weeks I venture into my nearest grocery cum vegetable shop. Looking at the price tags of various pulses and vegetables, I am terrified. I remember days when I used to buy a kilo of chilli for Rs eight, now it costs me around Rs 150. The pulses are all above Rs 100, not to mention about onions and potatoes. I limit the number of items as well as quantity of my purchase and still end up checking the bill twice and thrice in disbelief. They have not made a hole in my pocket, but have actually burnt it.

The food inflation is at 10-year high and they say it is due to supply shortage. The cultivable lands have shrunken and degraded due to overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, water bodies are mismanaged and groundwater depleted and the effects of climate change too is hampering crop, but what about the wastage and defective food supply system.

I was talking to a member of the Cold Chain task force set up the Union government, the other day. He tells me the horticulture wastage in the country is 30 per cent when the permissible limit in major economies is five per cent. What does that mean, when the government cries about supply shortage we are wasting 30 per cent of the fruits and vegetables at the farm, while transporting, at the warehouses and the wholesale as well as retail shops. What about wheat and other cereals that lay rotten at farms and warehouses?

When I pay 10-year-high prices for the food materials I buy, how much has the revenue of the farmer gone up. Logically thinking, that too should be highest in 10 years. On the other hand you hear about farmer suicides and demands for crop loan waiver. So the trade is still in the hands of the middlemen.

There have been some initiatives like ‘farmers market’ in some states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The farmers bring their produce to the market and sell themselves. A fair price for his produce not only motivates the farmer to increase his production, but checks other wholesalers and retailers in the town from charging exorbitantly. But it is not a viable option when the produce is large and where the farmer has to travel hundreds of kilometers to the nearest town.

For a country like India, where 40 per cent of farmers wish to quit cultivation due to unprofitability, ensuring them technology, good price, marketing facilities and adequate funding should be the priority of the government. Why government alone, why cannot the private sector explore ways to make agriculture profitable?

Better education about newer and eco-friendly technologies, accessibility to funding channels, effective management of the produce to minimize wastage and better profits to the farmer ---- when is the second Green Revolution coming?

Democracy-- the rule of majority

Mankind and his societies have come a long way through different forms of leaderships. As a group, the tendency to lead and be led is innate with not only human beings but animals too. Apart from real and natural leaders emerging out of the unknown and unexpected corners only at very few instances of history, man was forced to follow some sort of system that he thought would establish truth and justice in the society.

We had monarchy in which truth was what the King believed. We study about good kings in history who were married to justice, but what about hundreds of them for whom life was an indulgence in excesses. People had no choice other than moving along with the whims and fancies of the ruler. There was oligarchy where law meant what a handful of prominent heads in the society thought.

We also have seen theocracy or the rule of the religious authority. If God is the supreme authority of truth, religion is a path towards God. Obviously people who followed one path belittled those following other paths. In an intolerant theocracy justice is a far cry.

Socialism claims to be inclusive. It is a form of rule where the state has the control over the classless society. But what if one wants to be different for the good? How tolerant is the system for the odd one?

Then we have largely acclaimed democracy—a system where the majority rules. If two out of three claim it is night, it should be night. If the three happen to be blind and claim that it is night, is there a way out? Democracy has some fanciful instruments like referendum which seeks to arrive at a decision on major reforms and policy changes through vote of the people concerned.

What if, all the people residing near a forest land agree to clear the vegetation and drive away the animals for cultivation? Who will vote for the animals and the trees?

In democracy we have a system to ensure justice—the court of law. The court judges individual situations of the basis of a pre-set tenet. The tenet has been formed by experts who thought about the well-being of the people, precisely the majority population. So what happens when a eunuch or a gay stands up for his rights? For the largest democracy in the world it took over 60 years to hear the voice of this minority.

Climate change or change in perception Sangeetha G

There is a very popular legend on ancient poet Kalidasa. It says he was dumb before enlightened by goddess Kali. To prove Kalidasa’s dumbness, the legend goes on to say that he would sit on the very same branch of a tree that he would cut.

If pre-enlightened Kalidasa was dumb, so is the modern man. What are we doing to ourselves and our fellow creatures? Killing the planet where we live -- poisoning the air we breathe, water we drink and food we take.

Even after doing all possible damage to eco system, it is not yet time to revert. Climate change talks are flavour of the season and it seems the developed nations will go on talking endlessly until the earth collapses.

Climate change summits themselves have become rituals. Each summit comes up with a framework, protocol or a roadmap for the industrialized nations, which are reluctant to own the responsibility of the damage they have caused to the planet in the mad rush towards ‘development’. The question is how to save ourselves from the damage we have caused to the earth by thoughtless industrialization and the answer is simple -- cutting down green-house gas emission levels.

Now the key framework for the climate change talks, the Kyoto protocol itself deviates from this basic solution and gives the industrialized nations the privilege called carbon trade. This enables them to maintain status quo while shifting their responsibility of making amends to their follies to poorer nations, which are willing to take up the paid task. Despite this convenient solution, bigwigs in the global circles are still fighting among themselves over compliance.

The basic underlying cause of all environment-related problems is the man’s vanity, which makes him think that he has a legitimate right over whatever he beholds and to make any change for his convenience without owning up the consequences of the deeds.

All talks on climate change will start bearing fruit only when man accepts his rightful place in this world -- one among the crores of other species inhabiting the planet. The conflict between man and nature will continue until he goes on thinking that he can exploit the earth, its resources and other creatures for his own selfish ends, just because he happens to be most ‘intelligent’.

In this thoughtless race towards self-destruction, the so-called intelligent modern man has made the earth a ‘poisonous planet’ using his scientific knowledge. Science has definitely made man think rationally. But he has used it only partially for his convenience -- to make a change and not to make amends to the consequent changes.

In this context, I should tell you about a temple ritual practiced since time immemorial in Kerala. Before felling a tree for a temple flag-staff, people associated with the temple will seek the tree’s ‘permission’ and that of all the creatures living on it. Further, in respect of the tree, they take due care that it does not touch the ground from where it has grown tall over the years.

One can term this as a primitive and unscientific ritual, which does not serve any purpose. But the thought behind it is solemn -- whosoever framed this ritual found man as part of the eco system and not above it.