Movies: Sadak and Sadak 2

 

I watched Sadak (1991) recently, followed by Sadak 2 (2020). Sadak, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, was a super hit at its time and is still remembered for its story and performances. Sanjay Dutt played a legendary role of a taxi driver who goes on to save his girl, her role played by Pooja Bhatt. Sadashiv Amrapurkar played an epic role of a dreaded villain called ‘Maharani’ who was a eunuch and ran a brothel. After Pooja gets sold to the brothel by her uncle to repay a loan, Ravi (Sanjay Dutt) falls in love with her and tries to save her by taking her away on the run. But most importantly, in the end, the couple unite after Ravi kills all the bad guys, and hence the story becomes ‘happy ending’. Although I found the movie involving too much violence and some not so logical moments, the happy ending comforted me, and it felt like ‘worth spending the time’.

Sadak 2 is a sequel to the original movie and it tells the story of Ravi (Sanjay Dutt) after he loses Pooja in a road accident. Ravi is mentally disturbed and hallucinates where he talks to Pooja and also sees her (even after she is dead). The story involves a theme of “anti-superstition” or “anti-Godmen culture”. The main story is a complex one which keeps the viewers involved for quite some time. Alia Bhatt plays the role of the only daughter of a rich businessman, and she is trying to eradicate the prevalence of “fake Gurus” who exploit people in the name of God. The reason for her motivation being that her mother was killed by the aunt under the influence of a Godman. In the end, the story turns upside down and hence it becomes a thriller and full points to the movie for that. I am not revealing whole story because it is a new movie and people should watch it.

I see a few incoherencies in the movie and have my observations:

1. I think the movie should not have been made as a “sequel” of original movie ‘Sadak’, but it should have been made into a standalone movie and then it would have made much better sense. There is no continuance of the original story line.

2. It was not necessary to show Sanjay Dutt suffering from a mental illness. It was possible for him to hear his own thoughts, instead of “seeing” or “hearing” Pooja even after she was dead. Although the movie’s major theme is “anti-superstition” but Sanjay Dutt keeps seeing Pooja Bhatt and it looks more like her ghost than a hallucination, and hence is self-contradicting.

3. As per the prevailing trend of Indian movie industry, Hinduism is singled out for showing most of the evil things that happen in the name of God or religion. Although Sadak 2 avoids showing saffron color and chooses black color as a theme which tries to tone down its anti-Hinduism nature. But for a change, movie industry should also make movies showing “fake Fakirs” or “fake Sufis” or “fake pastors”; instead of making it “fake Gurus” which singles out Hinduism as a target.

4. Aditya Roy Kapur is an extremely talented actor; and shows a wonderful “switch” from a hero to a villain in Sadak2. But in the later part of the movie, his role is curtailed abruptly, which is noticeable and hence not nice. For example, during the press conference scene, when Alia says that evidence is in the form of Aditya Roy Kapur, he is not shown speaking even a single word. It looks unnatural. In the earlier part he played a much more prominent role.

5. Sanjay Dutt has played a very realistic role of Ravi who is disillusioned after his wife’s death and finds no purpose left for a living. He has experienced life, has achieved things but when he loses the person connecting him to the world (his wife), and since he has no kids, he finds no purpose in life and tries to commit suicide. That moment in a way is prophetic. As a society we have to think of ways in which we should avoid that situation.

Sanjay Dutt has played the best role in the movie. Alia Bhatt is at her best too, even though her character was not too strongly scripted. The villain “Guruji Gyan Prakash”’s role played by Markand Deshpande is not so powerful, even though Markand Deshpande is a genius actor, just because the character is taken straight out of evil Godmen shown in second grade TV serials. I think Sadak 2 could have been a much better film if it was made as a separate film instead of fitting it into a “sequel”. While the first part Sadak was a 'happy ending' story, the second part Sadak 2 has ruined everything: it shows that Pooja did not bear any child, dies in a road accident, Ravi suffers mental problems and in the end dies. This sad twist to everything is a grave injustice to the fans of original movie Sadak. 

Overall, Sadak 2 is still a good film which should be watched. And one should not get affected by political campaign against the movie by certain social media influencers.

- Rahul Tiwary

Need for Anti Media Trial Law

If you have been following news and updates on Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case, you must have noticed that Rhea Chakraborty is perceived to the prime suspect. But if you try to think what all hard evidences are against her, you would realize that there are virtually no evidence linking her directly to Sushant’s death! But why have we almost concluded that she is the “culprit” or “prime suspect”. It is because of the FIR filed by Sushant’s father where he suspected Rhea of being responsible for Sushant’s death; but it is also because of the manner in which media and especially TV News Media has been portraying her. It can be said that almost all TV channels have already solved the Sushant’s death case and also found the guilty person: Rhea Chakraborty. It is a textbook case of “Media Trial”.

Press Council of India (PCI) is a statuary regulatory body responsible to act as a watchdog and maintain adherence of press and media outlets in the spirits of Press Council Act. A few days ago, it had sent out a note to all media outlets against any “media trial”. You can read about it here: [Reference].

Taking strong objection to the coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput case by many media outlets, the Press Council of India on Friday said the media should adhere to the norms of journalistic conduct in covering cases under investigation and is advised not to carry out its own "parallel trial". The media should not narrate the story in a manner so as to induce the general public to believe in the complicity of the person indicted, the Press Council of India (PCI) said in its advisory.

But, TV News Channels did not pay any heed to the warning and carried on with the same kind of news handling. There are two reasons behind this:

1. The PCI has no power to enforce or impose any penalty on either the individual journalists or the publications [Reference] 
2. It is believed that Electronic Media, TV News channels and social media do not come under the purview of PCI. [Reference]

It can be easily understood that the government needs to empower PCI so that it can effectively handle situations like the current case where Rhea Chakraborty’s media trial is the ongoing norm. At the same time, the vilification of Rhea Chakraborty strongly demands for an “anti- Media Trial” law.

The “Anti Media-Trial Law” which I am proposing should allow PCI or any other stationary regulatory body to effectively enforce the spirits of honest journalism. At the time where “Fake News” is widely spread and even the President of United States Donald Trump has been campaigning against it, India can show the way to the world by making such a law. Such a law should not be too harsh and should have enough checks and balances in place to avoid its misuse, because journalistic freedom and freedom of Press are very important and our first priority. 

I request our government to think about this proposal and bring a legislature to stop the unjust and vilifying episodes of “Media trials” in our country.

- Rahul Tiwary

About IPS Vinay Tiwari, SP, Patna - Bihar's "Singham"

 

Vinay Tiwari (full name: Vinay Om Tiwari) is a young IPS Officer who is currently in news due to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death related probe. Vinay Tiwari is Patna (Central) Superintendent of Police (SP). He is part of the Bihar Police team that went to Mumbai for investigation and was forced-quarantined due to inter-state travel and it created a huge controversy. Despite a wide media coverage, little is known about Vinay Tiwari as a person and hence I searched to find more facts about him. Here are some of the details:

Vinay Tiwari is a native of Lalitpur city in Uttar Pradesh. He was born in an economically poor family. He was bright in studies and has an impressive academic career. Before joining civil services, he completed his graduation in Civil Engineering from IIT-BHU, Varanasi and also worked with JSPL in the final year of his engineering course. After doing engineering, he began preparation for the UPSC examinations despite getting job offers. Vinay Tiwari cleared the UPSC exams in his second attempt and still offers tips to the candidates preparing for civil services through his blog - "dreamstrugglebepositive".

In 2019, he was appointed the new Superintendent of Police, City, of Patna. Earlier, he was posted as Sadar SDPO in Gopalganj (Bihar) where he was popularly known as "Singham".

Vinay Tiwari also has a penchant in writing and he is a poet. He writes poems in Hindi. Recently he released his poem recitation on Coronavirus which you can check on Twitter here.  

Vinay Tiwari is also a mathematician and is writing a book titled "Mathematics and Principle of Life".

If you are on Twitter, you can follow him at: https://twitter.com/IPSVinayTiwari

We can see that there is more to Vinay Tiwari than Sushant’s probe in Mumbai. We also come to realize that he is a versatile person and is a self-made man and an achiever. We are proud of him and wish him all the best for future!

- Rahul Tiwary

References: Ref1, Ref2

Nature: A Cow and A Leopard

This is an old real story from year 2002 which is going ‘viral’ again with a wrong location and time. Hence I thought to write about it. The original story can be read here, as reported by Times of India.

This happened at Antoli village in Vadodara district, Gujarat, around the year 2002. Every night, a leopard would enter the village from nearby maize fields. It would go to a specific location where a particular cow was tied. It would first watch the surrounding to make sure there was no threat. Then it would come near to the cow and both will play affectionately. The villagers would be able to witness this and sometimes the leopard would sooner if it noticed that the villagers were nearby. As part of their play, the leopard would put its one leg over the cow's head and makes a "purring" sound. Purring sound is made by many animal species. In cats, it is a sound of reassurance between mother cats and nursing kittens. Cats also make purr sound as a sign of contentment; for example, when being petted, becoming relaxed, or eating. In response to the leopard, the cow would also make a sound and lick the leopard affectionately. 

Here are some of their pictures taken together:

(Above) The Leopard arrives, watches the surrounding while the cow looks at it

(Above) The Leopard and the cow play together 

(Above) The cow would treat the leopard as its own calf 

Now the question would arise about why the cow and leopard developed such a friendship. The TOI article quotes Mr. HS Singh, Conservator of Forests, Vadodara, who said, “Sometimes animal behaviour can get modified. In this case, probably because the leopard which has passed the sub-adult stage, lives in a rural area and not strictly a wild environment.”

I searched for more articles and came across this one which described this event in great detail. It mentions that earlier, two leopards, one big and another its kid, were seen by the villagers who reported about them to the forest department. The forest department put a trap, captured the big leopard and released it in a nearby forest. This new leopard started coming to the village afterwards and it was perhaps the baby leopard who was now alone and missing its mother. Due to some strange reason, the young leopard developed a bond with that cow who started treating it like its own calf; and that explained their relationship. Although the article says that perhaps we shall never be able to know all details with 100% authenticity.

No matter what the actual reason was, I am sure that this special case of the cow and this leopard would warm your heart.

- Rahul Tiwary

Sushant Singh Rajput and the "First Love" Concept

After actor Sushant Singh Rajput's demise, there has been excessive media coverage about all aspects of his life. His family members including sisters, friends, relatives, co-stars and ex-girlfriends, everyone has spoken about him. From their statements, we are not only able to judge Sushant as a person, but we can also understand a lot about the people who are making those statements. Much have been covered about Sushant Singh's two ex-girlfriends, Ankita Lokhande and Rhea Chakraborty and we can make impressions about them too.

Based on the media reports, if we have to make mental images of Ankita and Rhea, I guess most of us would rate Ankita as a much better person than Rhea. Ankita speaks straight and from her statements, a genuine affection for Sushant is clearly visible. I would rate her “emotional quotient” not less than Sushant’s sisters. Rhea, on the other hand, looks a bit cosmetic, although I accept that I have not much read about her. But many of Sushant's friends have said that Ankita was a better match for Sushant and Sushant used to regret getting separated from her.

This brings us to a point: Is it true that our "first love" is often our "best match"?

I never had a girlfriend and I directly entered marriage. Therefore, I am not speaking anything with personal experience in this case. But with age, I can understand things much better now and hence I am making these comments. You can always use your own judgements and need not agree with my observations or opinion.

If we think of "first love", typically it happens at a young age when we just follow our heart without caring for the "practicalities" of this world. At that age, typically our parents take our decisions or else we seek opinion from our peer about what is right for us. And that is tricky. Even if we were right, it may happen that others would see things differently for us. For our parents, our career may be of a higher priority than we getting our "perfect match". For our friends, having a beautiful or a rich partner may have a higher priority over getting a good hearted but simple person as our partner. In that phase of life, it is simply impossible that our peers or our parents would have same vision for us which we would have for ourselves. This leads to a "repenting" situation which we also saw in the case of Sushant. And believe me, if I have understood one thing about relationship in my life, it is that relationship is the single most important thing which is going to make us happy in our life. We must rate it much higher than money, career, fame, or anything else in our life.

I think what should happen with the second girlfriend or next partners is that we would always compare them with our first girlfriend at the back of our mind. That would make the whole experience a bit emotionally "tampered"; and also it would feel a bit "artificial" since we know the "drill" now. Long story short, a second time will never be the same as the first time.

Now, if a person got his first match as a good match, it does not make sense to let her go. But if one is not satisfied and there are issues which are disturbing us, we should always have the courage to move on.

There is an old story about a lady who wanted to find a best match for herself and prayed to God. God gave her 7 choices; with a condition that she won't be able to revert her decision once she makes it. She saw the first person, liked him but thought to check the next. She liked the next person more; hence she decided to carry on. She got much better match but then she thought, "why to miss seeing all choices". By the time she went to check the seventh choice, it turned out to be a bad one! Therefore, as per the condition along with the boon, she missed it and remained single. This story will always remain as a universal guide when it comes to the way "greed" makes our judgments unstable.

I won't say that there is such a universal rule that our "first love" is always our best one; but I believe that in many cases it is so and I think many of us take our first match very "lightly" merely because it was our first match. Therefore, as a general advice I can only say that you should move on only if there is a serious need to move on. And if you are happy with your "first love", then you should never take her for granted and decide to move on just to explore more options.

Relationship with a good partner will be the most fulfilling experience you are going to get in your whole life. In the long run, money, career, fame or anything else will not matter as much as having a good partner. If you are blessed to have one, never think further.

- Rahul Tiwary

Why Male Plasma is Being Preferred for Covid19 Related Treatment

I received a ‘forwarded message’ in Whatsapp which contained a list of plasma donors related to Covid19 treatment with their blood groups and contact details. It was a long list with more than 60 volunteers and the message asked to forward it to more people so that the needy can benefit. I forwarded it to a few people.

After a few days, I saw a message from someone which said that “male” plasma was being preferred instead of females. That got me wondering if it was a kind of “gender bias” or if there was a real medical reason behind that. I went back to the plasma donor list shared earlier and I found that all were males! Hence, I searched on the internet and found below article from BBC:

Coronavirus: Male plasma contains higher levels of antibodies

23 June 2020

Studies suggest men are more likely to become seriously ill and therefore produce higher levels of antibodies than women. This means their plasma could be more useful for saving lives. Of the donations from men, 43% had high enough levels of antibodies to be used in trials, compared with 29% of those from women. Higher antibody levels were also more often found in older patients, Asian patients and those who had been treated in hospital for Covid-19. Prof David Roberts, associate director for blood donation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said, "More plasma donors are needed. But we would especially want to hear from men."

Source: BBC

I noticed a few things from the above article summary:

1. Males are more prone to become infected with Corona virus and I have read this in many articles before. So far, I have been believing that this may be due to the fact that males are more exposed to outside environment since they have more compulsions to go out of homes in order to earn or support their families.
2. Since males are more prone to become infected, they also exhibit higher resilience and generate higher levels of anti-bodies to fight Covid19.
3. The difference between males’ and females’ proportions of higher anti-body count is not much: it is 43% for males Vs 29% for females. I doubt if it is so significant that even doctors and hospitals should start openly saying that they would prefer male plasma donors. But I am not an expert and hence I won’t like to conclude from scientific angle.
4. There are more categories of people who develop higher levels of anti-bodies, e.g. older people, Asian people, and those who recovered at home and never visited a hospital for Covid-19 treatment. But mostly, only “males” are being highlighted as “ideal donors”, perhaps due to gender related cultural bias.  

I don’t know if the higher proportion of males having higher anti-bodies is really due to some inherent gender-specific advantage because the same article mentions that it is so because males are more prone to get serious illness from Covid19. But I can see that with doctors, hospitals and media clearly preferring male donors, it means that a lot of eligible female donors would not be coming out to donate their plasma. This will be a loss to the cause at an overall level. In fact, in many such cases whenever media or government make something a “gender issue”, it harms the cause at the overall level.

I would want the medical professionals to stop spreading a message of “preference for male plasma donors”. Blood plasma has no gender and let it come from whichever gender of donor chooses to volunteer. Hospitals are not in the state of luxury that they need to differentiate between "higher level" vs "not so high level" plasma; since plasma is in shortage. The fact that there was not even a single female plasma donor’s name in the list I received on WhatsApp proves that this open gender preference is leading to female recovered patients not coming out to donate plasma. Hope our hospitals and government would be more aware and sensitive of how their actions and messages lead to unfavorable results and would be careful in future.

- Rahul Tiwary

Justice For Manav Singh

Pictures: Manav Singh Source: Twitter

This is going to shock you, so please be prepared. I came to know about this only yesterday and I searched to read newspaper articles about this case before writing this. I have mentioned references at the end of the blog post.

Manav Singh was a 17 year old boy from Gurugram. He was a student of class 12^th at a prestigious school in Gurugram. He was a member of an Instagram group; along with many other boys and girls. A girl, perhaps of same age or younger to him, made false allegations of molestation and rape against him in that Instagram group and other group members started abusing and threatening him. The boy got scared, tried to explain but no one listened to him; then some boys told him that the police would arrest him and hence he jumped from the balcony of his 11th story flat and ended his life.

The boy did not leave any suicide note but chats and messages on his phone showed that other boys had warned him that the police would arrest him and hence he was scared.

The sequence of events from what I read is as follows. This was the time when "Me Too" campaign was floating on social media where women from all over the world had started making allegations of sexual or other harassment against men. During that controversy, another controversy broke out in Delhi. It was called "Boys Locker Room" which was a "closed chat room" on Instagram where teenage boys from elite families of Delhi were talking ‘dirty’ against girls. Someone revealed screenshots of the group in the open and it created a big controversy. Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) lodged a formal police complaint against those minor boys and the DCW chief tweeted publicly to Delhi police for taking stern action against the boys. (Later on, it was found that the posts about "rape" were made by a girl who had created a fake ID of a boy!) This was being reported daily in the media.

During this time, the above incident happened in an Instagram group where a girl made a false allegation against Manav, claiming that he had "raped" her 2 years back when he was only 15. She did not provide any evidences or supporting facts and it was assumed to be a false case but the boys in the Instagram group got an opportunity to harass Manav. After Manav committed suicide, the girl who had made allegations against him posted another message that if Manav could not tolerate her allegations, he was "weak-hearted" and it was his problem, not hers. It is shocking to see this level of insensitivity seen in teenage kids now a day.

We have many takeaways from this case:

1. Social media usage is already officially restricted for those below 18 years of age; but this is not being seriously monitored. Parents should discourage their kids from joining social media and should also not talk about social media in front of kids, since they will get curious after hearing about it.
2. Public “naming and shaming” has its own downside since no one verifies the claims. Our society has a general tendency to blame everything on the “boys” and consider girls as virtuous (since they used to be so in the past) and this has caused a very unfair environment for boys since they feel they won’t be trusted even when they are right.  
3. The police or the national commission of women should have traded caution in this case since the boys were all minor and there was no urgency of action. But in these times when a lot is being done for publicity, perhaps caution is a tragedy.

Justice for Manav

Manav Singh’s father has filed a police complaint in this matter and he is waiting for action taken. I read that the girl moved to Punjab after Manav died and the boys who threatened Manav switched off their phones. But this should not stop the police from investigating the case. Proper justice as per the law should be done. 

If you are on Twitter, you can join Manav’s father at https://twitter.com/justice4manav and support his cause. Otherwise, if you see young age boys and girls in stress, try to bring them to perspective and never let them get misled by believing in rumors. Also, we should try to protect kids and teens around us from excessive exposure to media and adult content. These would be true tributes to Manav.

With hope and pray that Manav gets justice and no other kid suffers like he had to.

- Rahul Tiwary

References: TOI, Zee, STP, TMF, FPJ, OpInd

Reasons Why Sushant Singh Rajput’s Death Caused Unprecedented Frenzy

After Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput died last month, everyone was shocked. He was at the height of his career, his last released movie had done Rs 100+ Crores business, he was in the pink of his health and about to get married. No one could come to terms with his untimely death. But his death was not the first such “shocking celebrity death” we had seen. We have had a long list of actors, actresses or celebrities, like Divya Bharti, Sri Devi, or Sunanda Pushkar, who died mysterious deaths when they were perfectly fit and healthy. So, what made Sushant’s case different?

I am thinking about Sushant’s death being “different” because the grief, shock, and mass hysteria we have witnessed after his death have been truly unprecedented. Even Sri Devi’s death shocked one and all, but the mass grieving did not last so long and with so much intensity. Why could not people move on and why are they still stuck in the first stage of grieving process: denial?

Let us go into the details to understand it better.

After news about Sushant Singh Rajput’s death came out, the first thing which shocked everyone were his dead body’s pictures right from his bedroom and a red scar properly visible on his neck. Whoever released those photos out in the public within a few hours of his death needs to answer to his/her conscience about why he/she did that. We had never seen such death images before and after we saw those pictures, we could not forget anything. It was going to haunt us for a long time.

Second, I remember the first day of his death. Most people were able to get it that his death was a case of “suicide”. On that day, I was among the few people who immediately suspected that his death was not a suicide but it was a murder. I wrote about it in a blog post titled, “Reasons Why Sushant Singh Rajput's Death Looks Like a Murder Case” and it was a tremendous hit, getting 1200 views on day-1 and by now it has got 9000+ views and 25 comments. None of my blog posts in the recent past have ever got such a response. One of the reasons why my blog post was a hit was because I was one of the first who started talking about the “murder angle”. And within a few days, everyone was talking about it.

Why did this suspicion that Sushant’s death was a murder and not a suicide become so popular? I think it was mainly because of those leaked photographs which showed Sushant’s well composed face to us. Earlier, most of us had even believed Sri Devi’s death to be a case of murder, but no one pursued it beyond one’s imagination, forget about starting a campaign for its proper investigation. We treated Sushant’s case so differently, even though Sri Devi was much more popular pan-India and in all age groups, as compared to Sushant. I think those pictures made a huge difference.

Then, within a few weeks after his death, autopsy, postmortem reports, initial investigation reports, all pointed to the fact that his death was a suicide and not a murder. But we did not believe any of such evidences. And here, I shall come to the second reason why people reacted to Sushant’s death in an unprecedented manner. It was because “people wished it not to be a suicide”.

Yes. I think that deep inside, everyone wanted his death not to be a suicide, and that was the reason why we have not yet come to terms with his death. We are still in the “denial” phase.

To all people, Sushant looked like a perfect specimen of a “son” or a “brother” most people aspire to have. He was bright in studies, he was good natured, he was a family person, he worked hard and achieved his goals. What more do we expect from our sons? Everyone saw his/her brother or son or friend in Sushant: he had that universal charisma. It made coming out of grief even more difficult for us.

I wish that at some point of time, we all have to move on from this episode. Sushant Singh Rajput is dead; and no fact can change it. Whatever happens to anyone or the other will not impact his soul. The police are already investigating his death and we should allow them time to come to a conclusion. We need to have faith that if there was a foul play in his death, it will eventually come out, as most secrets come out sooner or later.

To conclude, I think to a large extent the initial photographs of his dead body made a huge impact on the minds of people. And then, Sushant had a universal appeal in the minds of most Indians and we desperately wanted his death not to be a suicide. These factors caused us not to accept the postmortem report, or any medical report about his mental health condition. But, we cannot live in denial forever. At some point of time, we have to come to terms with his death and the sooner we get, it will be better for our own mental wellbeing.

Future will tell more about how our country comes to terms with his death. But Sushant Singh Rajput’s death will always be remembered as an unprecedented event where our masses showed empathy and sentiments like never before. We should always be proud of this fact.

- Rahul Tiwary

Nupur Sharma and Live TV Debate Controversy

I had become a fan of Nupur Sharma after I first read about her. Her name was announced by the BJP as its candidate during Delhi Assembly Election 2015 against the big name of Arvind Kejriwal. I wondered who she was and searched the web to read about her. She had got splendid credentials. Born and brought up in Delhi, she studied Economics at the Hindu College of Delhi University and later completed her law degree (LLB) from faculty of law, Delhi University. Then she completed her Master of Law (LLM) from London School of Economics (LSE). This was enough to understand that she was a woman of great talent and intellect. But why was she in politics?

I read that she was involved in student politics from her Delhi University days. She was a member of ABVP and became President of Delhi University’s Student Union (DUSU). That was some feat. She has since then held several positions in the BJP, being associated with BJP’s youth wing and a member of state executive committee of the BJP Delhi.  

Way back in 2009, she was featured among the “Top 10 Most Inspirational Women in India” by the Hindustan Times. If we look at above credentials, it was a place well deserved. You can read more about her here on Wikibio,  or check her profile on LinkedIn. If our country has to become a developed nation and a nation of our dreams, we need well educated and honest people like her in politics too.  

Now I will come at the reason I am telling about her. Yesterday, I got to know through News that a fellow politician from AAP shouted at her and verbally abused her during “Live” TV debate. You can read about it here or here. The leader from AAP was claiming that the BJP was using Shri Ram for political gains; when Nupur Sharma intervened and then the man lost control and started abusing her. Nupur Sharma has said that she would be taking legal action against him for defamation and character assassination. This episode “broke the internet” and last night, #WeStandWithNupurSharma was trending on Twitter as #1 trend in India.

These days, I have been increasingly getting annoyed with the needless “controversies” breaking on the internet and on the TV news media. Anything and everything become prime time news and discarded after a few days once another controversy-worthy news comes out. This is a never-ending trend and creates unnecessary stress in our minds.

I was thinking about how to end this “media mess”. I think we have too many TV News channels and they are continuously fighting among themselves for “breaking news”. In this competition, truth becomes a tragedy. I was reflecting on yesterday’s controversy and wondered how to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. I noticed that this issue happened because the debate was a “live” debate. Had this been a pre-recorded debate, the TV channel could have edited and cut out that portion when the man went berserk. You may ask what the benefit is of “hiding” things and an abuse is an abuse, whether it is shown on TV or not. If the channel hid the abusive portion, would it not be unfair for victims like Nupur Sharma? I think, even if the clip is cut out from being aired to the viewers, the portion would still be recoded and hence if the victims want to take legal action, they could still do it, because they were defamed and abused in front of a larger panel and their peer and that amounts to insult. But it would at least avoid bringing out the controversy in front of the public, save them from some stress and avoid wasting their time hearing or discussing about it. Overall, it will save productivity and energy of the viewers if we ban such content.

Therefore, I was thinking that all TV channels could avoid “live” TV debates. If channels don’t do it, government should ban live TV debates because all such programs become too risky to air. If the show is “live”, anyone among the panelists can always abuse the platform for fulfilling stupid or evil goals. “Live” debate can be misused to spread a false anti-national propaganda, or to defame and harm the image of an important person or organization, for example.

Apart from the risks involved in airing “live” content, this controversy on social media also highlighted how "online abuse" is often tolerated by the same set of people, but if the same incident happens on TV, those people are furious. It proves that TV as a medium is still so powerful, perhaps since it is more "personal" and online content is still taken lightly. If you are on social media platforms, you would notice that people use abuses very frequently while commenting on famous people’s tweets. No action is taken against such people. But if something of that kind happens on TV, it has serious repercussions.

I think that at some point of time we should start making such controversies as “examples” to make real systematic changes in our country. One Nupur Sharma filing a legal case against one stupid man won’t change anything. But if TV channels are made responsible and held accountable for showing bad content to the public, that may be a really beneficial change. The ideas I shared in this blog post may not be perfect. But if we start trying to find ideas and solutions to fix systematic problems, we may create a better future for our country.

What do you think about it?

- Rahul Tiwary

Chandrashekhar Tiwari "Azad": Jayanti of the Great Indian Freedom Fighter

Today (July 23rd) is the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter Chandrashekhar Azad.

Late Chandrashekhar Azad's real name was Chandrashekhar Tiwari. He was born in MP and his father was Pandit Sitaram Tiwari. He later took the symbolic name "Azad" meaning "Free". He also used a name 'Balraj' while signing documents for his revolutionary organization.

Chandrashekhar’s family wanted him to become a Sanskrit scholar, so he went to Kashi Vidyapeeth, Banaras. He got agitated hearing about Jallianwala Bagh massacre and joined freedom movement.

He first took part in Non-Cooperation Movement under MahatmaGandhi at the age of 15 and he was given "15 whip-lashes" by the British police as punishment. When the police asked about his details, he replied that his name was ‘Azad’ (free), father’s name as ‘Swatantrata’ (independence) and his residence was ‘Jail’.

After Gandhi ji suspended the non-cooperation movement in 1922, he joined the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) formed by revolutionaries Ram Prasad Bismil, Chatterji, Shachindra Nath Bakshi and Sachindra Nath Sanyal. He rose in ranks and later took charge of the organization. He successfully led many revolutionary campaigns and was counted as one of the foremost revolutionaries or freedom fighters in his time. 

Chandrashekhar Tiwari "Azad" sacrificed his life at the age of merely 29. 

- Rahul Tiwary

Shri Lalji Tandon - A Great Leader of A Gone Era

Shri Lalji Tandon, the Governor of Madhya Pradesh, has died at the age of 85. Born in 1935, he was certainly a politician from an era which has gone past. After getting news about his death, I tried to read more about him and his life, to reflect on how typical politicians have changed over the time.

Shri Lalji Tandon was a stalwart leader of the BJP. He was a politician belonging to the era of Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani. His stature can be understood from the fact that after his death, 3 days of state mourning has been announced in the state of Uttar Pradesh in his honor. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the following about him today, "Shri Lalji Tandon will be remembered for his untiring efforts to serve society. He played a key role in strengthening the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. He made a mark as an effective administrator, always giving importance of public welfare."

Lalji Tandon was born in Lucknow on 12^th of April 1935. He graduated from Lucknow University and married Krishna Tandon. The couple had three children. During his initial days, Lalji Tandon was associated with RSS as a volunteer (Swayamsevak). He met Atal Behari Vajpayee during his stint at the RSS and made him his life-time friend and guide. He started his political stint in the year 1960. He was two times member of UP legislative committee and 3 times MLA. He took part in JP Movement against Indira Gandhi. Lalji Tandon is known for many innovative experiments in politics. He is also known to have played a key role in BJP's alliance with the BSP in Uttar Pradesh. He also served as a minister in Uttar Pradesh at more than one occasion. When Atal Behari Vajpayee left politics, his Lucknow Lok Sabha seat was given to Lalji Tandon and he won it easily. And in his later part of life, he served as a Governor of two states: Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. 

What makes Lalji Tandon different from the current crop of leaders is his life and his approach to politics. He was born in Lucknow and remained associated with it for his whole life. He was a very popular figure in the city and derived his strength from the community. He was also well educated and had written a book on the history of Lucknow, titled "Ankaha Lucknow" (अनकहा लखनऊ). He made several new points in his book, including how although the city of Lucknow derived its name and legacy from “Lakshman” (Brother of Lord Ram), later on Mughals and Nawabs had changed the city’s impression and identity to an Islamic one.

He was known to have a good nature and he used to get along with everyone very well. He had a completely clean political tenure with no controversies or charges of corruption, which is now a day seen rarely.

If we think of Atal Behari Vajpayee and then think of his associate and protégé Lalji Tandon, we can easily understand that these leaders constituted a “class” of politicians. These leaders were highly educated and intellectuals in their field; associated deeply with the society; had dedicated their whole life for the cause; and never took shortcuts to success. These leaders had morals and principles and lived by those during their entire life. They achieved success not because of any “accident”; but because of the strength of their character. If we look at the current crop of leaders who are constantly into the “mess” of the things; where they are often seen raising provocative slogans, polarizing voters, or stooping to any level just to cling to the power, we shall realize the importance of having leaders like Lalji Tandon; which I think is important to keep the faith of our future generations in the politics of our country.

Om Shanti.

- Rahul Tiwary

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PETA India’s Save-Cow Ad on Raksha Bandhan: An Avoidable Controversy

PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) recently put out ads for cow-protection, making reference to Raksha Bandhan (Rakhi) festival. Here is the ad (Source: Twitter/Swarajya):

The above ad created a huge controversy on social media where people started questioning PETA about its intention to target a “Hindu festival”. Since PETA’s slogan had said, “Go leather free”, people started making jokes that perhaps PETA thought that Rakhis were made of leather (this imagination was weird to begin with; whoever started it). As it happens on social media, people spend little time in reading more about topics and immediately start making memes and jokes. It is a competition: those who tell jokes earliest, get maximum ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. And those who can sacrifice truth and facts for quick publicity and fame, earn more ‘followers’.

As we can see from this ad, PETA tried to send the message of “cow protection”. The Ad shows picture of a cow, who apparently is herself saying, “This Rakshabandhan, please protect me: go leather-free”. As you can see, there is a colon after “me”. It is obvious that most cows are killed for leather industry apart from being used for beef. But since Rakhi is a Hindu festival, it is obvious that PETA won’t speak about “beef” since Hindus do not eat beef and hence PETA spoke about leather instead, since Hindus still use leather products.

We can realize that the intention of this ad was noble and fine. But it still ended up creating a huge uproar on social media. These days, social media is like a place where land-mines are installed; no one knows when and where one would explode. Could PETA have avoided this controversy? I think yes, if it did not target a specific festival, or if it used more text on the ad. Perhaps it is a PETA strategy to target festivals, since it catches people’s attention, and hence the strategy works fine. But if PETA had used a better catch phrase, it could have saved the day. For example, how about below quote from the cow:

“You take a vow to protect your sisters on Raksha Bandhan. Please protect me too by boycotting leather products.”

The above slogan would have been much more acceptable. Or there may be other better ideas.

After the controversy, PETA India clarified too. PETA said, “We didn’t say Rakhis are made of leather. We said Raksha Bandhan is a good day to extend protection to cows who are our sisters under the skin by taking a pledge to go leather-free, for life. That’s a message all kind people can get behind.” [Reference: Swarajya]

This controversy is a reminder that people should not blindly trust whatever they see on social media, but they need to search the credible news sites like newspapers to read the complete news. Also, they should not react “immediately” if they see a controversy; but wait until more facts become known. Social media users should also not promote “rumor mongering” by some popular channels through their mindless likes and retweets.  At the same time, this controversy is a reminder to PETA that they need to plan their campaign better. This controversy did make a huge impact, but all in the wrong direction. No one is talking about the cause of “cow protection” after this Ad and its related controversy. PETA won’t like to waste such opportunities into wasting money, time and energy.

- Rahul Tiwary

Life: The Most Touching Holi of My Life

This year, I was at my ancestral village for the festival of Holi. Holi is the Hindu festival of colors and happiness. Children wait for it for the whole year and enjoy it like anything. No one stops them from making a total mess playing with water and colors on that day. But as we keep growing older, we are not able to enjoy it thoroughly in the same manner as we did in our childhood. Still, we remember all the fun we had during childhood and the memory is a kind of consolation in itself.

I do not recall if I was at my ancestral village earlier for Holi since I grew up. It was a new experience for me this time. I noticed the difference in customs in the village with respect to how we celebrate Holi in cities. There was one incident which touched me deeply.

As per the village custom, children of poor villagers make a visit to our extended family on the day of Holi. They touch the feet of our elders putting abeer (gulal) and go back. I did not know about it and they caught me unaware.

I was just finishing my lunch when I noticed some noise at the door of our house. I saw children. Dozens, perhaps they were 50-100. All of them were small, from 3-7 years of range. They would not recognize who was whom, but they knew important people lived in this part of the village. They started putting abeer at the feet of my parents and once they noticed me, they also started coming at me. It was complete ruckus. I had never seen so many little kids together in my life. They were all also laughing, talking, playing within themselves. They were all happy. They competed and pushed each other to reach us. I did not feel I deserve their honor. I had not done anything for them to deserve it. But children won’t know. I noticed that the innocent children were not cutting any corners and made sure that they were putting abeer properly. One particular kid made my heart stop. He came, bent down completely, and put the abeer with so much care that I drowned in guilt. He reminded me of my son who would be only slightly older than him. He got same soft skin, same child like cuteness; perhaps all kids resemble each other in some ways. My heart stopped beating and I started feeling chocked. The kids returned like they had come – like a gush of wind!

I asked my mother and she told me that every year she used to keep coins and toffees for the kids; but this time she could not manage to collect in time for the occasion. That pained me more; since the children had returned empty handed.

After that incident, I have been collecting small coins in a small box for next year, if I can happen to be there again.

Whenever I remember the incident, I feel a bit overwhelmed with emotions and guilt. If there are goodness, purity and innocence in this world, those kids embodied all of those. Kids are called closer to God because of that reason.

I am not sure if I shall be able to see them many times in future, but perhaps I shall never forget them. This year’s Holi was special due to this reason. 

- Rahul Tiwary