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at 07:52:41 am on December 1, 2008
I don’t want this to be another report on what happened in Mumbai, as I think we have been bombarded with (and rightly so) every Indian writing about their emotions on this incident. I have refrained from writing my saddest moments on this, and more importantly I have refrained from writing my strongest anger about this. I travelled a lot since the terrible incident and spent more time in airport lounges, and all I did was take control of my emotions, write and re-write this piece, but no matter what I was going to review the biggest canvas I had ever witnessed and my God, this was not on reel, this was real. It should never have been this. Never!!
This is me bleeding about the reels looping on my television set, slapping my life with real visuals. These were real heroes, real mothers, real lost brothers, real bangs and destructions. Where were the reel life heroes? Where were the hypocrite leaders? Where were the self proclaimed celebrity ‘children of the soil?’, where was the control to make sure that certain media folk were not glorifying the incident?
Leave aside all of the above, my piece here is that tomorrow morning, are you and I going to wake up and still idolize the likes of the Khans, Kapoors, Bachchans or will we now wake up and actually look up to and forever make heroes in our lives, the likes of Hemant Karkare, Gajendra Singh, Sandeep Unnikrishnan? Wake up brother, wake up sister!! This is the moment that will make that connection within us to be real and not reel.
Real Life – a group of people came in and took over our homeland and held us to ransom. They killed our brothers and sisters and we watched in shock. The news channels put on priority exclusive footage, exclusive interviews and we watched – completely focused. Wow!!! ‘These guys are talking to a hostage in the hotel?’. ‘Oh my God, that hostage must be dead, as we cannot reach her anymore!!!’. Back to the studio – cut. ‘We have, we have managed to contact another hostage and we have him online’. The audience watch, wow! Somewhere is the son/husband/mother of this person, crying and praying that they come back to them. The audience though just watches, listens – like seeing another frame, like listening to another line. None of us even think about the actual hostage from their prospective.
Our very impressive and courageous troops arrive and risk their ‘real’ lives to rescue people they do not personally know, BUT they do it to rescue another brother / sister / mother or father. They do not know their names, but that does not matter. They never once look into the camera and show their own tears of leaving their own family, wives, parents or kids back. They are here to rescues to fight for what is RIGHT!!! We the audience do not see that, we do not connect to that. We connect with SRK and his colleagues, going out to ‘fight’, but the emphasis which is centred on their tears as they say bye to a glamorous doll is what we connect with. Our hearts soften for the ‘reel’ hero. In the ‘reel’ scripts, these so called heroes who we idolize go into a scenario and if they are killed (harf harf) we come out with heavy hearts, stating for hours and days that the ‘hero’ should not have died. We talk about that with friends, colleagues etc. Who has been talking about Hemant Karkare and Gajendra Singh?
Apparently the terrorist wanted to blow up the Taj hotel. The audience reaction is ‘really???’, the thought is ‘God what would that visual be like?’ and the hypocrite comment is ‘no please, it is such a landmark’.
Hemant Karkare and the other heroes who died are real, who fought a real war. The war was glorified by the new channels and once it was all over, the channels have new angels to keep this alive. Paying tribute to these people, they get our bollywood folk (yeah the same cowards who were no where in site to even make comments or come out to the street to help control the crowds, to help influence a peaceful environment) to come on talk shows to discuss ‘what next?’. Mr. Bachchan stated that he for the first time slept with a loaded gun under his pillow. This was new making material???? In the midst of Hemant-ji and his death, we were served this useless piece of information. Barkha Dutt (mrs. drama queen) went on TV and stated how she sms-ed him for an interview and the humble man said that he couldn’t talk about it as he was so disturbed. Barkha’s facial expression had more sadness that Amithab was feel this way than any other time she was reporting this entire incident. I love Mr. Bachchan, but who gives a damn about how he slept in the midst when a certain Hemant Karkare had died to protect the likes of you and I? Wake up India, and I mean this to you the audience and not to the greedy media and celebrities who come into the lime light putting on emotions for the camera.
I hate myself and I hate you all. Starting today let us stop giving any importance to these damn stars (who are not even actors most of the time) and teach our children to look up to real heroes.
The likes of the Khans and the Kapoors and the Roshans and the Bachchans get crores for faking an act, while the real heroes get merely tens of thousands. Wake up India, wake up. We need our products to be endorsed by the real heroes, not these bi-sexual, morally unethical folk. We need our children to be influenced by real heroes and not closet-gay folk who make movies which cannot even tell a real story of a gay couple, instead make one mocking a gay relationship. We have let these people influence our society and made them very rich on the way, and ofcourse never let them accountable for any of it. The time has come to look up to the real heroes, real men and women who will make a better society for us and our children.
The Security forces were brought to the site in BEST buses!!! While third rates actors dive in BMWs and Mercs on those very streets. Is this real? Also along with Raj Thackeray, where was SRK, Salman, Aamir, Akshay, Amithab and idiot film makers like Kunal, Farhan, Madhurkar etc?
Cinematically – the camera work was amazing wasn’t it, because the channels didn’t care about how they got it, but hey gave us great footage and we? We watched in awe. The dialogues? Never before emotions and reciting of dialogues but the reporters. They should all be dialogue writers? Sorry I cannot remember what the music was like, but yes very good and intelligent product placement in the form of advertisements here and there!!!
Finally – I have nothing against our cinema and our stars. I have the deepest sorrow that we are not looking up to the ‘real’ heroes. Come next week it will ALL be about SRK’s next film, Aamir’s next film etc (which is fine), but we will just flush out of our systems the ‘real’ people who rescued our bothers and sisters and our motherland. This is what this article is for – for us not to let that happen anymore. If we first get our own priorities right, we will create the right society, the right government etc.
I pray here for all those who died in that terrible incident, I pray for strength and prayer to the families, I pray for the men who gave their lives so that you and I can live without fear.
On a separate note, I once wrote a poem when I was innocently and stubbornly fighting with my precious God, and here is a modified line from there, so that we all realize that we need to pray, we need to connect.
And in this world of ours, where more children are killed than are born,
I have to ask you Lord, what are you and I doing to stop this from carrying on?
I ask you all to pray for the world and our children and to never forget the folk who died for us.
NSG commandos , police are the real hero es. no second doubt.
That doesnot mean you will compare reel hero with these persons.
I feel the editor is so much carried way with cinemas that toady after the incident he realises what is cinema and what is reality.
The person full of hate is not credible enough to write article about peace and love. All emphasis was on putting down Shahrukh khan. The name of amitabh, kapoors, roshans etc was merely there to take the anger on SRK. Go to rediff.com and people are actually cursing muslim actors and appealing to stop watching their movies.
hatw will not kill hate. If you are really burning then use cold cream underneath.
Tagore, u wrote a beautifull article but whts the diff??? its just like a story told in a movie. u r no different. have u did or said anything that would stop the future terror? is ur story eye opener? and the ans is no! the muslim terrorists r proud of wht they did nad our muslim brothers n sisters are also proud but non will come forward and say so. they are all happy as they killed the nastiks. my question is, why such incidents dont happen in gulf?? HUH?
as you say, these people cannot even potray a fulfledge gay story, did u open up urself against the terrorist? no! you all spoke is about the indian people and how they reacted. have u said anything about stop hiring these people in the key places? no? it’s very easy to influence their brains cuz the relegion needs a revesion as how Dr. Wafa Sultan said. unless they stop preaching to kill, there is no end to terror and what surprises me is, the parents themself push thier kids right from the childhood into those studies. they dont want the kids to watch movies or sing songs, but to learn more about how to kill. cuz they will find a place in heaven itsm. i really dont know what kind of heaven it is. please find it for me and write an article about it. thanks’
I thought u indians are heartfull,But u people in charge of radiosargam website as proof to me that indians are heartless.You people are idiots,When u indians are critizicing your stars like this,then what about we outsiders.This is unfair,don’t discriminate,there is no where or place u can push them.And u people in RADIOSARGAM u people says bad words about people alot and u people think this will bring more fans to u…Its unfair.If u people don’t like the effort ur actors are taking then come to NOLLYWOOD (nigeriafilms.com)and experience bad actors,U idiots…1st it was bollywoodhungama.com,now ur lovely actors…why?Cos of this stars,ur site became porpular.If u people hates ur stars so much then why don’t u people stop using their names in ur sites.ADEMOLA FROM NIGERIA
The Article mirrors my feelings, I agree with you my friend.
I would like to add more:
We need answers for the following from our Govt.:
Why did India’s Intelligence team failed to gather information on this attack?
Why did Indian Navy failed to locate them?
How did they manage to enter Mumbai coast?
Why there was a security lapse at India’s important City’s important Hotel?
Why did it took long time for NSG commandos to arrive?
Why can’t we have a special team of NSG commandos to protect Mumbai and Maharashtra?
Why the media was allowed to show live coverage on TV channels?
NSG commandos , police are the real hero es. no second doubt.
That doesnot mean you will compare reel hero with these persons.
I feel the editor is so much carried way with cinemas that toady after the incident he realises what is cinema and what is reality.
SHUTTTTTTTTTTTT UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
Tagore Almeida
The person full of hate is not credible enough to write article about peace and love. All emphasis was on putting down Shahrukh khan. The name of amitabh, kapoors, roshans etc was merely there to take the anger on SRK. Go to rediff.com and people are actually cursing muslim actors and appealing to stop watching their movies.
hatw will not kill hate. If you are really burning then use cold cream underneath.
Tagore, u wrote a beautifull article but whts the diff??? its just like a story told in a movie. u r no different. have u did or said anything that would stop the future terror? is ur story eye opener? and the ans is no! the muslim terrorists r proud of wht they did nad our muslim brothers n sisters are also proud but non will come forward and say so. they are all happy as they killed the nastiks. my question is, why such incidents dont happen in gulf?? HUH?
as you say, these people cannot even potray a fulfledge gay story, did u open up urself against the terrorist? no! you all spoke is about the indian people and how they reacted. have u said anything about stop hiring these people in the key places? no? it’s very easy to influence their brains cuz the relegion needs a revesion as how Dr. Wafa Sultan said. unless they stop preaching to kill, there is no end to terror and what surprises me is, the parents themself push thier kids right from the childhood into those studies. they dont want the kids to watch movies or sing songs, but to learn more about how to kill. cuz they will find a place in heaven itsm. i really dont know what kind of heaven it is. please find it for me and write an article about it. thanks’
I thought u indians are heartfull,But u people in charge of radiosargam website as proof to me that indians are heartless.You people are idiots,When u indians are critizicing your stars like this,then what about we outsiders.This is unfair,don’t discriminate,there is no where or place u can push them.And u people in RADIOSARGAM u people says bad words about people alot and u people think this will bring more fans to u…Its unfair.If u people don’t like the effort ur actors are taking then come to NOLLYWOOD (nigeriafilms.com)and experience bad actors,U idiots…1st it was bollywoodhungama.com,now ur lovely actors…why?Cos of this stars,ur site became porpular.If u people hates ur stars so much then why don’t u people stop using their names in ur sites.ADEMOLA FROM NIGERIA