'Thackerays' - A case study on the trait of Insanity!

The other day I was reading some literature on the history of Maharashtra and I came across something really interesting, it said that the greatest Maratha warrior of all times ‘Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’ had this strong vision of seeing a united India and he always fought for this cause with lot of pride. Ironically few of the terror outfits aka political parties attribute the cause of their inception and existence to the great Shivaji but they have smartly twisted the great man’s ideology, remixed them and packaged them in a new avatar and are using it for their own benefit. Although I still wonder how is it actually helping their cause because they are by no means in power by doing so. Still what they have done is, they have picked up bits and pieces from the maratha warrior’s life and projected it as ‘This is the land of great Maratha warrior and only Marathi Manoos has the right to live and use the resources of this land’. Epitome of stupidity! Ironically also the word MAHARASHTRA neither has Marathi in it nor has anything like State/Pradesh or Rajya in it, rather it has a strong word RASHTRA in it, that emphasizes of only and only Nation. But understandably these political parties don’t have any other agenda on which they can rely upon for their survival. Ever heard Shiv Sena or MNS using words like ‘Development’, ‘Progress’, or ‘Nation’ in their efforts to connect with the common man? I doubt anybody has ever heard them. But this is certainly not a new phenomenon, even a national level party like BJP fights every election with the same old agenda of Ayodha temple but they miss out on an important trick, that in today’s scenario people don’t even remember that such a cause still exists and they aren’t much bothered about celebrating the cause of a temple in Ayodha but they are much more concerned about employment and security issues. And no wonder such parochial thinking has led to the downfall of these parties both on a national and a regional level.

Now spare sometime for a conversation between a Mumbai couple –

Wife: Honey, I am leaving for airport in next half an hour...

Husband: Darling, why are you leaving 3 hours before, for a 20 minute taxi ride...

Wife: Oh...dumbo...see…half an hour buffer, half an hour ride, one hour for check in/security/boarding and one hour for interviews....

Husband: Interviews...at this hour????

Wife: Oh Darling life is too tough these days, you got to spend so much time checking for the domicile letters, fluency in Marathi and other important stuff before you actually decide upon one, among the prospective taxi drivers.

Husband: Oh yes I forgot…Its better you leave now rather than waiting for another half an hour...

Trust me if we go by the current attics of our super smart leaders this will turn into a harsh reality very soon. I laughed my heart out when I first watched this piece of news that ‘To be a taxi driver in Mumbai/Maharashtra, you ought to be well versed in Marathi and should have been residing in the state for at least 15 years’. Wow, ironically we are truly moving very fast towards achieving an ambitious goal of resurrecting our beloved city Mumbai on the lines of Shanghai. With whole of the world striving hard to give a global look to all the major cities of their country by raising the standards of administration, facilities and opportunities to the outsiders, we in India are traversing a downward spiral by further complicating the lives of our prospective foreign guests in the cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai and in turn their vested interest in our beloved nation which might have surely strengthened our economy by leaps and bounds.

I find it really funny and at the same time annoying that people have to offer an apology to the likes of Thackerays for using the word ‘Bombay’ instead of ‘Mumbai’ in a movie. Come on guys, it’s a movie built on an imaginary concept and an imaginary world, how is it affecting the economic development of our nation? It is utterly sad. If this is not enough, a bunch of national icons like Sachin Tendulkar, Mukesh Ambani and Shahrukh Khan also have to face the wrath of these insane politicians for the very reason that they have called themselves as Proud Indians when what was expected of them was to feel proud about just being in Maharashtra. On the contrary when the Thackerays party with the Miandads its fine but when somebody else wants our neighbors playing in his team, he is a traitor, I guess we can’t get a better example of double standards and rowdy behavior than this. But the worst and the most shameful of all these dramas was the one when these bunch of miscreants badly thrashed and hit out on an elected member in the state assembly for the very reason that the minister was taking his oath in Hindi and not in Marathi. Goodness, gracious me, this is India and Hindi is our National language and every body is entitled and should be proud to exercise it.

And even though the whole of nation is unanimous on the fact that Mumbai belongs to all of India or for that matter every part of India belongs to every Indian, Thackerays feel otherwise and whosoever goes against them will have to face violence or the screening of his Movie will be banned in the state. I have no words to express how cheap, how irrelevant and how horrendous are the acts and ideologies of these political parties. I don’t understand what is stopping the central government to impose a ban on the communal newspapers like ‘Saamna’ and may be also a strict ban on all of these political parties for the reasons of inciting violence, communalism and hooliganism by means of such baseless issues. Infact I doubt they will ever be able to do so, but I was really excited when another extremist group RSS came forward against Shiv Sena and said that it will safeguard the victims from Shiv Sena’s baseless and nonsensical violent shows. But unfortunately after this statement they disappeared from the scene, probably they didn’t had any good orators to take on the verbose Thackerays.

I personally believe the likes of Shiv Sena, MNS and VHP are doing more damage to the sovereignty and integrity of our nation than the external terror outfits because being the part of the same nation these political parties are dividing the people of our nation on the basis of language they speak and the region they belong to. This is totally unacceptable and should be abhorred by all means. Who are they to decide what should be done and what should not be done? Neither are they the Chief Ministers or the Prime Ministers of this country, nor are they army majors or commissioners of Mumbai? So why do we give so much importance to what they say, why do they decide whether we can celebrate Valentine Days or what we can wear and what we should not? If we start ignoring them and their nonsensical issues, life would be so different. Same applies to the media too; I believe media is an equal partner in crime with these political parties because media gives these parties the footage, exposure and mileage they are seeking for. And the very day they also start ignoring this nuisance by not showing those minute by minute ‘Breaking News’ story on what the Thackeray clan vomits, 99% of the problems will get solved and probably the existence of these toothless parties will end but by doing so probably the existence of media i.e 100s of 24*7 news channels and newspapers will also come to an end. Because we are living in an era where extremism and rumors soothes our taste buds more aptly, whether it is genuine and morally correct or not comes much later or at times never comes at all:).

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