The rate at which days move past, even before you could say Merry and complete it with Christmas, you are facing New year’s eve and before you could contemplate switching over to writing 2018 instead of 2017, you are already into the first weekend of the next year. Travelling within such superfast time period wonder for how long the fixation on the first date of the first month will continue as against specific cultural celebrations of new year, be it Vishu, Utkal, Gudi padva, Tamil new year or the lunar cycle of the Chinese. With ever increasing commercialization, anything that doesn’t have its roots in the right place is bound to get displaced. That applies to rituals and festivals and customs as well.
2017 ended with Rajini announcing his arrival into political scene. Nothing could’ve been more sensational and confusingly stupid as that declaration. He claims his arrival was due to the imminent nature of the present situation in TN. But its crystal clear that he finally relented to the pressure from his legions of fans, who wanted to have their share of what they felt was long overdue – a chance to cash in on the political mileage that, they believed, came with his image ala MGR and J. Many of them where vocal few years back, when he constantly baulked on entering the political fray that its high time he “did something” back for his fans, who have stood behind him. Nowhere in India or rest of the world you can witness such a scenario where an actor is propped up, his image cultivated and incubated with careful PR and pushed into political setup by his fans. All this for whose benefit? If the hapless public are lead to believe that, this guy, whose family is notorious for their misdeeds, even when he is restricted within his cinema industry, is the magic bullet for all their issues, there is nothing more gullible and idiotic. Just as the rise, the fall of Rajini would also be accredited to his fans for sure. For a person, who seldom project himself as perfect, it’s the way people go over the top to paint him as a saint that makes one wonder their true intentions. Public service have long gone extinct alongside dinosaurs and looting money has quick become the only reason and motivation for entering politics.
There has been so many scandals involving god men and perceived good men, fights and killings within same sects as to whose way of worshipping is correct, that people are getting disillusioned with the concept of faith and belief. If at all 2018 and coming years can grant a wish for people, it would be to resurrect that opiate of “hope” with a caveat that it shouldn’t just be in the form of a single person or messiah. We’ve forever been looking at the skies and mountains, awaiting for some wise man (why is that never a women?!!) to lead us. With artificial intelligence and robotics filling up spaces where humans once jostled, Asimov’s zeroth commandment for robots could never fit for humans as ever before – A human may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Now that would be a goal everyone can aspire to uphold and achieve, not just in 2018 but in coming decades as well, right?
2017 ended with Rajini announcing his arrival into political scene. Nothing could’ve been more sensational and confusingly stupid as that declaration. He claims his arrival was due to the imminent nature of the present situation in TN. But its crystal clear that he finally relented to the pressure from his legions of fans, who wanted to have their share of what they felt was long overdue – a chance to cash in on the political mileage that, they believed, came with his image ala MGR and J. Many of them where vocal few years back, when he constantly baulked on entering the political fray that its high time he “did something” back for his fans, who have stood behind him. Nowhere in India or rest of the world you can witness such a scenario where an actor is propped up, his image cultivated and incubated with careful PR and pushed into political setup by his fans. All this for whose benefit? If the hapless public are lead to believe that, this guy, whose family is notorious for their misdeeds, even when he is restricted within his cinema industry, is the magic bullet for all their issues, there is nothing more gullible and idiotic. Just as the rise, the fall of Rajini would also be accredited to his fans for sure. For a person, who seldom project himself as perfect, it’s the way people go over the top to paint him as a saint that makes one wonder their true intentions. Public service have long gone extinct alongside dinosaurs and looting money has quick become the only reason and motivation for entering politics.
There has been so many scandals involving god men and perceived good men, fights and killings within same sects as to whose way of worshipping is correct, that people are getting disillusioned with the concept of faith and belief. If at all 2018 and coming years can grant a wish for people, it would be to resurrect that opiate of “hope” with a caveat that it shouldn’t just be in the form of a single person or messiah. We’ve forever been looking at the skies and mountains, awaiting for some wise man (why is that never a women?!!) to lead us. With artificial intelligence and robotics filling up spaces where humans once jostled, Asimov’s zeroth commandment for robots could never fit for humans as ever before – A human may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Now that would be a goal everyone can aspire to uphold and achieve, not just in 2018 but in coming decades as well, right?
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