For the record, I genuinely despise Times of India. It’s a
third degree torture to an intellectual mind. At the same time, and I know I am
offending a lot of you; I don’t have any genuine respect for Deepika’s roles in
her movies either, barring a few.
Thus, this episode gave me a great opportunity to vent my
anger on Times of India in particular and actresses in general. Moreover,
seeing the humongous response against TOI, I believe that I am not the only one
sharing that “special feeling” for TOI, though the part about actresses are
sure to bring some ire in the on line communities of fans.
So, everything was going as usual. TOI was continuing with
its garbage and actresses were portraying what the “character wanted them to do”
(basically the producer’s knowledge about commercialisation). Suddenly, Ms.
Padukone complains and there is one hell of an uprising. It was great to see
people rising against such things. Respect for women must be the pillar of a
civilised society and TOI must be really ashamed, and ashamed not just for this
episode, but the plethora of garbage which it daily publishes. I was shattered,
like everybody else. But then I said, Hang on, is this only about TOI or is it
the collective responsibility of everybody involved. I don’t know the magnitude
of what Ms. Padukone does to portray her character, but some of the character
she portrays should not be acceptable to all those who are up in arms with her in
this episode. The same people should go against her when she does the kind of
roles which portrays women as nothing but objects of entertainment (movies like
Race, item songs etc.) I mean, each of us know item songs add nothing to the value
of a movie, but an add-on to work on the base desires of people, attracting
them to come to the theatres and watch the movie.
This last line may be offending to a few of us, but let’s
not take it personally. The reach of these bollywood movies is not just to the
educated class of people like the one reading these who are smart enough to
make calculated decisions, who understand that these are just role plays. But,
India is more about people who are less educated, people who are unable to make
a distinction. Education doesn’t reach them, but movies do. Yeah, and most of
us are unaware or rather have shut our eyes of the fatal effects these are
having. The rising rates of crimes against women are part of these. When Ms.
Deepika Padukone does an item number to get money and portray the character, at
many places, women are being harassed by their husbands, not living up to their
expectations, of which the bar has been set very high.
Now let’s come to how we are participants of this. In spite
of everyone rising against the TOI, nothing has changed. TOI will remain one of
the leading dailies. Everybody knows what its city times contain, yet we are
taking these. They only provide what people want, so if we don’t want it, in
this competitive business world, either TOI will change its ways or lose
business. But, I don’t see any changes in the patterns of viewership of TOI.
Today only, I got to know about the Bang-Bang poster and TOI ‘Priceless
comments’. Same way, there hasn’t been anybody standing up to Deepika how her
movies portray women and affect the self-respect of women.
So, unless a collective responsibility is taken, these
incidents will just grow. For all we know, this might be a marketing gimmick,
considering that it coincides with the launching of her new movie and for TOI,
any publicity, good or bad, is acceptable.
