Everything is good, everything is just right...

“Theek hai theek theek sab kuch theek hai

 Paas hai sab kuch rab nazdeek hai

Hey Rab ke hazur mein kasmein bhi kha li

Duniya ki auni pauni rasmein nibha li

Phir bhi na maane koi to dafa kar

Maane jo maane na maane to bhala kar

Duniya na maane khasma nu khaye

Khasma nu khaye marjaani”

These are the lyrics of a popular Bollywood number written by Gulzar. I tried to translate it as follows (I hope the translation is somewhat close):

“Everything is good, everything is just right

You’ve got everything if God’s in sight

We’ve kept promises to Him,

Followed the itsy-bitsy whims of this world

If people still don’t agree, shun them

They accept or not, it’s all well

If the world doesn't care, don’t dread

Let the damn thing go to hell”

I like this song a lot because although it has been comically filmed, has a loud score with exaggerated dances but it’s still philosophical and highlights a sad truth of life – How so ever hard you may try you cannot keep everyone happy. So the best thing is to do your best and forget everything else.

All that said and understood it pains me no end when people who have accomplished little in their own lives tend to question the greatness of people like Sachin Tendulkar and A R Rahman and criticize them. Just read the comments on the recent CWG song controversy or the chat logs of a cricket website when Sachin is playing, it will make you sick to the stomach for the way people tend to spew hatred, bile and total disregard for the accomplishments of these two. Not that Rahman and Sachin have been infallible, they have made their mistakes, but their greatness lies not in their mistakes, but how they have outgrown them and set new standards every time.

My concern is not just the criticism that these two have been receiving, their records and awards speak for themselves; but I am more concerned with the general cynicism and negativity that is engulfing our everyday lives. Just open any news website and go through the news headlines; even worse try reading the comments on the news items you will understand what I am saying. Is it that the common man suffers so much in his daily life – in his quest of getting the very basic things ( roti, kapda and makan) – that he is left with little choice but to vent his anger at public forums? Is that the only way he feels he will be heard?

For a nation that got it’s independence using Non-cooperation as a main weapon along with non-violence; probably the only way we know we’ll be heard is by not cooperating with the law and government – hence the pride in breaking the law in our everyday lives and a ‘band’ or a ‘hartal’ for every other non-issue (and of course, we forgot non-violence and discarded it as soon as we had milked it’s benefits). Sometimes I think Gandhi got us independence through ‘Asahyog’ or ‘Non-Cooperation’ which was great but in the event paralyzed the Indian mindset for ever. Now that is the only way we know of getting our demands met, add to that the general apathy that the administration has towards the issues/problems of the common man – you get what we have today- Chaos. In other countries they wear black arm-bands while working as a mark of protest or work over-time, in India we stop work, shout slogans burn buses and later brag about it.

So in a way it is good that we have so many News (Shout) Channels and the internet now, it gives common man a platform to vent out their angst and is way more preferable than burning public property. Public opinion is a strong force in any democracy and these are excellent tools that help us form, strengthen and propagate beliefs. And the media, as much as we hate it for sensationalism and cheap publicity, plays a very important role in the whole process as is evident from whatever little that has been achieved in the criminal cases against the rich and the powerful and of late in case of the urgency shown by the government to get the CWG preparations completed on time despite all the corruption and delays.

I understand the power of the medium and fully support and endorse it but still don’t understand when we act like thankless morons, when we try to bring down people who have achieved so much over the years, proved themselves time and again.

Let me know your thoughts on the topic?