DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

We Indians love our entertainment especially when it comes to Cinema and Television, to the point of extream passion. And this I say from experience, after all I am no different. But today somehow I feel we are treading more on the lines of stupidity. I mean what else you would call a group of ladies marching up to Star India’s office to protest against death of their favorite character (Mihir Virani from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi) and demand his revival.

For sometime now, Ekta Kapoor and her saas-bahu shows have been at the receiving end of many such useless dharnas organized by either utterly bored housewives or media attention desperate political activists. Either the audience is peeved by the inclusion of "rape" scene in primetime soap or it’s the enactment of controversial topics such as Euthanasia.

But to place the blame entirely on Ms. Kapoor would also un-fair. In 2004, the Republican Party of India (RPI) held demonstrations outside television channel’s office to vent their anger against Kyunki’s lead protagonist Smriti Iraani producer Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms.

The RPI activists were protesting what they termed an "insult to the Indian Constitution" (and by extension to Dalit icon and the man who penned this holy grail the late Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar) in an episode of Kyunkii which aired on 22 December. During this episode, Tulsi decried the fact that the Indian Constitution is ambiguous on the issue of marital rape. [Indian Television.Com]

Obviously in this case, RPI was only interested in generating some self-publicity because it is in-fact very true that in the Indian court of law for a woman to win a case of marital rape is practically next to impossible. So instead of demanding for relevant changes to be brought under the marital rape section, our leaders chose to harp around non-existent issues.

However such baseless controversies don’t just start and finish at family dramas, with the increasing popularity of Reality Shows, our madness rating has also taken a jump ten notches higher. First it was Shilpa Shetty and her famous cat-fight in the Big Brother house which instead was branded as loyalty towards one’s country. Racism by its true definition continues to take place in the corners of London City and many Indian metropolitans but seriously who cares, it only made Shilpa a house-hold name and gave Channel 4 the much needed TRPs.

Just couple of weeks back, Star News aired a report where a large group of old and young where burning effigies and shouting slogans against judges of a popular talent hunt show just because one of their favorites got eliminated. And I wonder how many more effigies will be burnt and public property be damaged by Amit Paul’s supporters over Prashant Tamang’s win in yesterday’s finale of Indian Idol.

Frankly speaking, I really find this difficult to digest. I mean, it’s absolutely fine to be rooting for your ideal one but taking it to the streets and that too for the very wrong reasons; is just way too ridiculous.

Rather than being played like pawns in the hands of various Television Networks, the so-called Creative Heads, in their never ending TRP games - it’s high time that we started investing our time and effort in dealing with concerns that actually do matter in the real sense.