The Samay Raina and Ranveer Allahbadia’s India’s Got Latent controversy made it to the top news this week and several actions have been taken against the makers of the show, all the videos being deleted by Samay Raina, Ranveer Allahbadia’s apology and suddenly everyone wants to stop this show.
Today, I came across several notable social media ‘influencers’ who are accepting that what Ranveer said on the show was wrong. Still, suddenly people have been too harsh and blown this ‘out-of-proportion’ when India, as a Country, has several more grave issues to handle, like Air Quality Index, human trafficking, spitting tobacco in public, digital scams like Digital Arrests and so on. Why are we not talking about all those issues and only targeting poor Ranveer and this show?
Here is why.
There is something called priorities, sensitivities towards certain issues, and the scale. Let me explain. I, as a person, am very sensitive and had been subjected to a lot of bullying in my childhood – something which was just brushed aside by saying – ‘arre, s/he is older than you. S/He was just having fun’ but it hurt and had a permanent impact on my personality. People would always have some joke to make about my tomboy appearance. Nobody saw my creative side, until recently. For me, bullying is a very sensitive topic. I felt that many times, I was not heard out even though I have always been very logical. Not that depleting air quality does not impact me, it does but for me, body-shaming, bullying, abuse, unequal opportunities and treatment given to females just because of their gender, rape, sodomizing, road accidents, cutting down of trees, etc are of higher importance than maybe Air Quality Index.
Similarly, for my cousin, who is a classical singer and on her spiritual path, everything that has to do with insensitivity towards art & culture, spiritual learning and healing, ancient text, and reviving art matters. Again, not that she is not bothered or concerned about the air quality index. For my batchmate at MBA and now a good friend, working at the grassroots level to help women in their village and empowering them by creating job opportunities, educating less privileged children, sustainability, and bringing up an empathetic generation matters. He is doing all that while keeping in mind the impact on the environment.
So, while your concern might be valid, maybe for you, Air Quality Index is the top priority issue. For me, insensitivity and bullying (or roasting in the name of Comedy) are the top priority as these content are available for everyone to consume. I may not but my daughter might watch this. A few months back, my daughter and her cousin kept on making fun of my husband and when we tried to put an end to it, they said, ‘It is called roasting mummy, we are not making fun of him. It is just roasting’. It instantly boiled my blood and we made it a point for them to understand the difference between roasting and making fun of somebody and how roasting is the new-age term for bullying. The same girl, my daughter, last Sunday early morning had a very deep discussion with me regarding so much construction going around in Hyderabad when (a) several people live on roads, (b) Hyderabad and the world at large are facing a water crisis, and (c) what is the point of making so much of money by these builders and the mafia? For her, within these few months, the perspective had changed as she learned about these things in her school.
Samay Raina might be a ‘gem of a person’ (as per many TV celebrities who have come up in his support now) but brutally making fun of somebody is not a fun game. It needs to come to an end and it is not only Samay Raina. On one hand, we are running several campaigns to work on mental health. Programs like these, negate all these efforts instantly. So, maybe Ranveer’s comment got the attention because he is not that kind of a person and his fans were utterly disappointed in him but the overall actions taken on such crass content and people propagating it, are all justified. The huge number of Ranveer’s fans and Samay’s haters united together in this uproar.
Another important aspect is the scale of the problem. Believe me, all of us were amazed and happy to move from cycle to scooters to bikes and then to cars. Similarly, from hand fans to electric fans to coolers to Air Conditioners. And many more of these inventions. None of us probably realized the harm that we were doing to the air around us with so much emissions. While, huge factories were set up as part of the industrial revolution in the world, happily churning out some very important products for the human race, without realizing the importance of chemical waste management. By the time, some environmentalists could find any platform to bring our attention to these hazards, these problems had taken a mammoth size. Now we are so used to all these products that motivating a huge chunk of the human population to get into the streets to protest against all these factories, quitting cars, or Air Conditioners is an almost impossible task.
And yes, we are all happy to put an end to any such topic which takes our Country and humanity downhill. This time it was putting an end to India’s Got Latent. We can pick up something else next time. All it will take is one person to blow it out of proportion for a good cause.
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