The celebration or the celebrities ..where is the problem ?

          Movies and Politics have always been something distant  for me .. not that I don't watch movies , I occasionally do , but I wouldn't bat an eyelid if by some miracle there was not going to be single movie made for the next thousands of years .....

    Yet ,this blog is revolving around it, as suddenly I noticed issues brewing around  Amir Khan's statement about him not feeling safe in our Country or Salman Khan's so called ''expected release'  , and followed by  public out leash, ( which is what drew my attention than the original issue itself ) . I went to our dear google out of curiosity . Not only do I personally feel that many movies are socially irresponsible by glorifying violence,alcohol, teasing etc, but many times this social irresponsibility flows very much from reel to real. Though there is always the argument that , violence or alcoholism would happen even without movies, for sure movies compliment the scenario to a large extent .

 There is or there could be a political angle to all these issues or the issue could be woven from a suttle reality , which I am neither interested in digging into nor do I want to debate on why Amir Khan made such a statement or why Salman was released.. my thoughts are with the  same public which is justifiably outpouring its irritation today and is the  one who also celebrates them.....

 ......and my biggest question is ' If these actors were not celebrated upon to such an extent and the public did not make their movies hits allowing them to amass exorbitant sums of money , would they be in a position of power ? Would their statements matter in a political scenario or will they be in position to  buy their freedom ?   Even from an angle that an actor's  statement could have been misunderstood ( his intention being completely something else ) , would it still be used for 'dirty politics' if he were not celebrated like he is today ?

.....There were times when people used to drop everything to watch movie being shot at . Then with the advent of  cable TV, the world of movies just moved from the silver screen to the small screen , only escalating the craze....it still incomprehensible to me on why on Independence day , they have to interview on TV, an actors and actresses.... does really India have nothing else to boast of, after Independence except movies.......? Irrespective of the negative impact , movie starts are put on pedestals.

   Movies are just for entrainment , nothing more nothing else. It is  an industry which does host a lot of talent and nothing wrong with person's decision to to take any career in movies ....what I find uncomfortable is the to the level the common man celebrates the celebrities. Let me be very clear when I say that  its each individual's wish  in appreciating a person in the entertainment field, but are we stretching the appreciation tooo far ,,,,,,and that is the wave which is used to make millions today ..in advertising , in politics , in court cases ..name it.

    So am closing with an open question ?  Does the problem lie with the celebrities or the celebration  ??

Hoping to feed your thoughts..... .......................

Luxury..in the midst of Chennai floods

     Well.. as you read this , you know I have been connected back to the internet ( and that has been since yesterday evening )., and I guess it would not have penetrated my mind even if the broadband network had not been restored. During and after the Chennai floods, the bursts of little signals we got in the terrace , to convey our safety to my dear ones through single sms after so many attempts  , was for me the best network connectivity.....

    Many a time over the past few years I keep to reading up on why the climate cycles changes , but once the North east monsoons  were to set , I guess I got addicted to seeing weather forecasts , not the rain , thunderstorm sunny pictures you get as a summary but the details reports on how the rains are actually going to move. The sound of rain would make me grab the mobile , even at the middle of the night to check the weather reports , Insat pictures and websites which track cyclones across the globe.

 The next reflex action on seeing heavy rains , was me storing water at home. We live in a gated township , where during heavy rains,the water supply and power is stopped... as result once during the initial heavy rains ( I have lost track of how many times there have been heavy rains in the past weeks : -(  ) , we had not much water except a bucket or so .. and hence the reflex action.

     After the loooong holidays , Monday, Dec 30th both my kids went to school and it started as a sunny day . Being to hooked to weather reports which were forecasting rains  , I did land up buying all the food required for the house.....but bang monday evening,  the sky unleashed itself. Five roads crashed to form mammoth holes in Chennai.
Tuesday , was a day of no mercy from the Rain God ( who insisted on showing his power in North Tamil Nadu ) ..

     By tuesday evening , enough warnings kept pouring in, from individual weather bloggers ofcourse, not from the IMD which stuck to its forecast of isolated heavy to very heavy rain fall in coastal Tamil Nadu and Pudcherry ( before a flood !!! ) ........and there was an instinctive fear . Whatsapp was already buzzing with messages on which roads where blocked, where water levels were rising ..and next came calls from relatives and friends that water had started creeping inside their houses. I will never forget that night, where the priority was knowing their safety and roads leading to our township were already getting cutoff with water.

     In spite of all this , that night took us by surprise .... our township itself was flooded as a near by lake overflowed.....all the individual villas were in water. We were in the first floor and water had crept till the fourth step ( with cars already in the water ) . We packed a few bags and were ready to move the fourth floor, in case water levels kept rising. .....and then the rains stopped ( Rain God must have got tired ! ) .

   Neighbours started chipping in to help out and those from flooded homes were already evacuated to the in-campus school. Gas supply was also cut......no power , no water , no gas but believe me none of that mattered. We were in a dry place , had food , water and kids did not panic...... only issue was no network to convey our safety to my parents and sisters. We even had our own entrainment channel in the evenings because around 5 pm when I used to light the candles, my three year old daughter will start her singing ..and she used to go on non-stop. It was her way of handling the dim candle light nights

  During the four days before the water receded and all the basic supplies were back , believe me, not one moment made me feel bad for the situation we were in. My heart went to those who had lost everything and they way human hearts were rising above Chennai waters....

Once connectivity was back , and when I mentioned  those four days were luxury for me , one person remarked as to how I can call this luxury....if this is not luxury , what else is    ?????

Chennai will emerge from this also !

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