I was told to watch less TV so I decided to get a BV instead of a TV [wink]. Actually, the TV was owned by my roommate and he had to move to a different city altogether so I am now TV less since last 3 weeks. Moreover, I haven’t watched TV actively since the starting of 2016 itself as I was involved in some life altering activities one indulges in when one comes of age or there is nothing else left to be done. Sigh.
But believe me, life has been a lot better without TV. Life without TV is like being in a super heavy traffic jam but without the noise. It is like standing beneath a hand dryer and the dryer is pumping out cool breeze softly and someone is shooting this scene for a energy drink commercial. It is like an ice cream cone in which the chocolate part at the bottom of the cone never ends. It’s like speed of download increasing instead of decreasing even if you keep on staring at it/jinxing it by staring. But then you can run away from TV but you can’t escape news coming at you if you happen to be on the Internet.
There has been a lot going on around our country and as usual TV and Social Media has got stuck on a couple of things worth outraging only. So let me put my point across as someone who was spared of these events due to lack of TV and had no reaction to it whatsoever but now everyone is peddling their views so why shouldn’t I?
Well before I start my rant, let me digress for a second: It always brings the best out of people when they vent out of their feelings on Social Media on issues which they feel something about. By best I mean worst. Since last few years, you can easily classify people (and also fail at it miserably) based on their inclinations politically and socially. You can succeed if a person is relentlessly posting about some cause they care about and you know that they truly believe in it (or are they just jobless venting out stuff because free time). And you will fail if you just assume a person’s political inclination based on a vague number of posts just because it helps you to be more biased towards the cause you care about and your favorite pastime is to judge people and assume yourself as morally upright. On TV you still try to present yourself decent as much as possible, but online you are the Hulk and your keyboard is Loki.
Anyways, a lot of things happened on (for) TV lately, the one involving a case of sedition on few gentlemen and ladies from JNU, Delhi. Some things were said. Some things weren’t. But the videos went viral. Viral to the extent that police had to intervene and arrest one of the student leaders. Then some people thought that they could teach that student a lesson and act as the sole saviors of the country. And then you know what and all happened.
Now my point of view on it.
For most of us, we who have average IQs, we tend to be an emotional bunch. TV for us is like a family member. We might live alone, but we still want to have a TV in front of us. Even if we want it in our room just for the sake of aesthetics of the house. We might keep our heads soaked into the 5″ screen of our mobile phones but we must have the sound of TV going into our ears. Even if one doesn’t own a personal TV of their own but in some way or the other, one would get attracted to it. We must have our dinner with Prime Time TV as one of the dishes otherwise the meal seems a bit incomplete. TV makes a house, a home.
When it comes to News on TV, that also happens to be a major prime time event. Most of the things happen either in the evening so that Prime Time is ready to pounce on it, or on a weekend so that everyone can watch scenes of disasters from their drawing rooms with the comfort of their sofas. Unless you are too saintly and watch saas-bahu still in 2016, people watch News on TV and base their primary opinions from it. This is also important that TV is one of the major opinion making body because one, newspapers are dying and second, people don’t have time to spoil their eyes on a paper which has static text and images when they can spoil their eyes on, you know what. And Internet is an extension of the TV. A tool from which we can re-affirm our social and political beliefs. Although we could totally get opposite views from the Internet too but who goes beyond page 1 of Google.
So what the news about latest events in JNU told me, is that TV is trying desperately hard to gather your attention. By keeping it colorful and then taking colors off it. And then painting it red, saffron and what not! It is trying very hard to make nobodies heroes and make heroes (who were also nobody sometime ago) as nobodies. It is, holding your collars, pulling you to watch it, get outraged, enrage your senses and take the blood pressure of yours to newer heights. It is up to us now to decide on how and what do we want to comprehend from it, although we can’t do a thing about it beyond a certain point. Because we need someone to spoonfeed us. We want some leaders who die for our cause. We keep seeking someone, some messiah, some demagogue to tell us that our lives are going very bad. We need someone to remind us that emergency is just lurking around the corner. And TV gives us all that fodder. But if you just come out of the room where TV is sitting, you see mostly everything is just fine. People say that politicians are fools. No sir, you are a fool. Politicians know how to use TV (or say the most prevalent media of the time) to make a fool out of you. They saw few words and you start clapping. They tell you that your life sucks, and you nod your head in sombre agreement. TV is not an idiot box, we are idiots sitting inside a box believing everything on it.
I am not asking you to be indifferent. I am just asking you to learn to move on. Just go outside and switch off your TV for sometime. Or watch Saas bahu serials.
P.S.: And one more thing. We live in a huge country where each and every day, something happens which tries to break the social accord. Do we need to fuel the fire which wants to break our society or do we want to work together to make it better? If someone says even a single bad thing about our family, at least half of the recipients will give it back verbally, some will resort to violence. Some will move on and actually all of them should move on but what’s ideal in this world. It is not that our country is so fragile that it would break into pieces just because of some slogans. But it is prone to suffer some bruises in other parts too surely if one side gets amputated, either from within or due to some external factors. Do we have to encourage those who want to cut off our arms from the outside or do we, join hands, and make internal organs work better and be more immune?
