It’s been sometime, since I watched a movie in the theatre. I knew
they were playing the national anthem in theatres, but was completely surprised
that I had to stand and religiously honour it. This is sheer non-sense. I don’t
mean to demean the national anthem, but I feel this is supposedly useless and
ill-thought of ‘calisthenics’ of the white kurtas.
Why should the general public be put to inconvenience? I go to a
theatre to get entertained, not to entertain anybody – especially not the
government, which hasn’t had the decency of offering me one single government
job so far. All it did was to stealthily put its fingers into my wallet and
pick my money in the name of taxes.
Well, if you think I haven’t applied to government jobs, you are
wrong. I had applied to several and a few of them called me for an interview
and few others didn’t even bother to. The ones, who did, asked me all the wrong
questions - deliberately. Later, I came to understand the jobs were handed out
to people who didn’t even appear for an interview. Perhaps I wasn’t into greasing hands except watching few snippets
of ‘Grease’, where John Travolta greased his hair so much, I lost all appetite
for greasing. You don’t believe it?! Believe it (Stole it from the Ripleys!
Sorry, it was too good to miss it ;))
Anyway, talking of government driven issues, the sliminess gets
even dirtier. I once wrote a PhD exam and the results looked a little tampered.
Later, the newspapers carried in the headlines that the pre-doctoral entrance
exam was all gobbledegook.
Worried about my future, I rushed to meet the Director. His
interest in what I was doing and why I was wasting my time pursuing a doctoral
degree caught me completely unawares. When I questioned what he was driving at.
He moved closer and whispered, “These exams are for time-pass. Most students
get into the doctoral stream so they can avail the university’s boarding and
lodging for at least five years”. I was gobbledegooked, again!
Cutting to the chase, why on earth does the government play the
national anthem in theatres?! The other day while surfing on the topic I
thankfully found a friend who aired similar views – Ram Gopal Varma, the notorious film director. Not all his views match with mine. Which incidentally is a good thing.
Ram Gopal Varma’s stinging remarks “If you plan to play the
national anthem in theatres, why not in bars? Why not in nightclubs? Why not
print it in the first page of the newspapers, everyday?!” created a quite an
uproar. But the point wasn’t really taken seriously for the simple reason that
it was Ram Gopal Varma’s opinion.
Varma isn’t taken seriously by anyone. Well, how can they?!
Especially, when he writes a book and names it ‘Guns & Thighs’! The
title is so horrendous, people from literature background wouldn’t know where
to hide?! And Nobel laureates would die of shame. Unawares, Varma shamelessly claims
the book has a terrific title and is selling like hot cakes. One can do nothing
but pity him at times!
However, with all his insanity, he shared one sane opinion ‘Ban
the national anthem from playing in theatres’. Finally, someone calls a spade a spade. Although never a fan of Varma, I for one wanted to hug
him on his perspective of this illogical and dim action of the government. May
Varmas of this kind increase in their tribe!
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