More than a couple of decades ago, the Vice President (VP) of the US of A was a gentleman, Dan Quayle, from the Midwestern state of Indiana. A good looking guy, his political acumen was nothing to write home about. In addition, his intellect left a whole lot to be desired. People would never have known about his intellect had he not spoke out on variety of issues. Being the VP, he was always in the limelight and had many avenues to exhibit his intellectual prowess, or the lack of. Who can forget his speech at the NAACP, who’s motto is “A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste”, where he famously said, “What a terrible thing it is to not have a mind”, or misspelling the word “potato”, as “potatoe”, in front of a group of smart children. Sometimes, it is better to keep quiet than to speak up and dispel all doubts about the lack of intellect.
In this category, we have a few celebrities/sports stars that have started speaking up on political issues. While it is perfectly normal and acceptable to do so, one must realize that political leaning is supposed to be personal. Why reveal something so private and get ridiculed for it? Starting with the big gaff when two cricketing stars, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh, went to bat for a charity run by Shaheed Afridi, the Pakistani cricketer; a few days later Afridi was talking against India. Not even a few weeks later, Virat Kohli has, through his celebrity wife, landed himself in trouble. Just when the heat was picking up on Kohli, Irfan Pathan has opened up and landed himself in trouble. So, within the span of 4-6 weeks, we have seen people speaking up and landing themselves in trouble.
Back when I was a kid, we had sports stars like E A S Prasanna, B S Chandrasekhar, Sunil Gavaskar, G R Viswanath, Kapil Dev, B S Bedi and others who made headlines with their trade rather than their opinions about political happenings! To this day, no one really knows their political leaning; and that’s how it is supposed to be! After all, why reveal this part of one’s life and open oneself to ridicule? If I didn’t tell one what my leaning is, no one can ridicule me for whatever reason. I know this makes me sound old (I didn’t say I was young, did I?) but today’s sports stars are taking many more risks than needed and none of these risks has anything to do with their sport of choice.
Some of the current high-profiled celebrities have taken to supporting the Black Lives Matter (BLM). While there’s nothing wrong with this, do they even understand the issue at hand, or is this some sort of an elitist movement in their minds? We have had quite of few genocides within India and NOT ONE of these celebrities cared to talk about it! Stands to reason, since most of these celebrities are controlled by the left-leaning mafia that doesn’t give a damn about Hindus being murdered, but do somehow feel they need to voice their opinion on something happening 10,000 miles away in the US of A!!!
Bollywood is beyond redemption; after all, their masters sit in the middle east and Pakistan. If this was NOT the case, how is it that we are yet to see one (JUST ONE) tweet from the BIG stars about Kashmiri pandits? Yes, they have tweeted about BLM (when not one founding member of the BLM really knows them) but are yet to find the time to talk about things happening in their country!!!! Those that tried to talk about issues within India were ostracized and faced ridicule and rebuke. In this group, one can find Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Payal Rohatgi and a few others. What really irks people is that being nationalist has landed these actors in trouble! Really! Apart from India show me one country where being a nationalist, as opposed to anti-nationalist, would result in people not being offered jobs? Bollywood is ready to hire the two-bit actors from Pakistan but not talent from within India!! This is because of the paltry revenues that would flow in from across the borders!
Regional actors seem to have understood the left-leaning inclination of Bollywood. Regional superstars have not succeeded in Bollywood, not because of a lack of talent but because they were not backed by the right players. People like Rajnikanth, Venkatesh, Nagarjuna and a whole host of others have ruled the south, and yet, couldn’t make a niche for themselves in Mumbai. Was this because of a lack of talent or was it something else? Something like the fact that most South Indian actors are pretty vociferous about their political leanings? And that these leanings are not necessarily left of center!
Yeah, many of these actors were probably not cut out for a national audience but who’s to say? If looks were the only reason for success in Mumbai, we have SRK and Salman who belie that logic! If on the other hand, talent were the only reason for success, we have a host of people that are relatively untalented, driving around with multiple contracts.
Most of us seem to be fed up with the glamor that supposedly is Bollywood. Whether it is Deepika Padukone promoting her movies through supporting anti-nationalists or Swara Bhaskar or Kareena Kapoor talking selectively on issues, it is obvious that Bollywood consists of people that feel threatened by the thought of people, not conforming to the Bollywood mold, coming in! This has been obvious since the days when talented people like Vinod Khanna and the irrepressible Shatrughan Sinha had to play second fiddle!
Someone said “Opinions are like rectums! Everybody has one”. When one knows one’s opinion can cause controversy, the wise thing is to keep one’s opinion to oneself! Courting controversy is not always the best way to get publicity and I’m sure Deepika Padukone will attest to that!
उत्तिष्ठ भारत। जय माँ भारती
God Bless the USA.