INR, Chennai Express And The Choices That We Make

So INR breached the 63 mark. To be honest, we should not be surprised with the way things have been going since last couple of months. Sad thing is, in a cynical way I get this feeling that UPA-3 or even worse a third front led by some Mulayam or Mayawati will be thrust upon us next year. And perhaps we deserve this as a nation. Because most of us have stopped thinking, stopped contemplating about the choices we make in our lives. We are more concerned about momentarily joys, don't bother about things happening around us unless we are impacted at personal level. But then in that case there is not much we can do about that except just fretting over it. We have stopped appreciating good things and let ourselves buoyed by hype.

For instance, we have films like Chennai Express breaking all the records. And we still crib about the lack of quality in our movies. Success of these movies or anything in that genre in a way illustrates what majority of we Indians are in our choices that we make and our sensibilities. ‘Some Chennai Express’ rules the box office, ‘A UPA-2’ after decades of proved failure gets re-elected and rules country to take it to abyss and still has the audacity to say 'Ho Raha Bharat Nirmaan' shamelessly, corruption rules, ‘An Anna’ fails, ‘A Kejriwal’ is scrutinized for no reasons, anyone showing promises of good governance is doubted as 'foreign agent', ‘Some Khemka and Durga’ are transferred and suspended for taking on the big corrupts hands in gloves with reins of power and corporates control the government and hence in the process our lives. And one main reason behind these kinds of events is the wrong choices we make when we ought to make a correct one; be it electing a good Government or watching a better movie. Yes the truth is our standards have become like that only. It’s because we have lost the ability to distinguish between genuinely good and the fake things.

Ironically and in a strange way, any movie falling in the category of Chennai Express and enjoying similar success just proves it in a very simple way. It symbolizes what we expect from our lives, enjoying brainless junk and being mute spectator to stupid and intellectually deprived things. And trust me, there are people out there who are laughing at us because they know that we are happy with the rubbish being served to us and we can easily be brainwashed and mobilized with false agenda.

It makes me remember these lines I read recently:

“Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult…. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And when they become discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontentment led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.” – George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four