People often talk about inspirations. Usually they get inspired from another person. The common list of inspiring persons probably has Mandela, Gandhi and MotherTeresa. These people are someone they look up to. Someone who gives them the confidence that anything is possible. Someone who will allow them to dream. Someone who makes them think that they can achieve a life higher than their current state. When one cannot find such people in real life, they look beyond at those around them for such inspirations.
If Ramayana and Mahabharata are for the sake of argument considered to be fictional, then Rama and Krishna would become the first “Hero” for a lot of people. They are treated as gods. Their values are preached and practiced. Their good deeds are told as stories. There are undoubtedly different levels of people who look at them for inspiration. If one were to term them as “fans”, there would be those super fans who get hurt if someone were to say something wrong about their god. There would be others who may hear something negative and brush them aside. Fortunately, both these “Hero”s have pretty perfect principles and ideals(barring a few examples, of course). So those who follow them, worship them and look up to them would on the majority try to emulate these same qualities they see in their heroes. Again, depending on the level of fanhood, the emulation would vary by different degrees. But it is not common to have a sense of belonging to these “Hero”s as their own. As part of their own family.
So far. So good.
These fictional tales though are a thousand years old. These role models, these “heroes” are outdated. People started looking elsewhere. While in real life, there were still a few good men, there always remains a disconnect about larger than life real people.
Enter Cinema. The larger than life reel good people are now behind the camera. In an imaginary world.
Hundreds of years ago, India was a prosperous country. Rich, Happy, content and secure. These people did not require their “heroes” to be aggressive, against the system, larger than life. Just simple good men were enough. The new India is different .It is poor, unhappy and most importantly insecure. A small majority of such people(remember our population? yeah. small majority.) started looking at reel people in cinemas for inspiration. These reel people were doing stuff that was the common mans aspiration. He was beating up the bad guys. Winning girls hearts. Getting rich. Doing everything and losing nothing. These “heroes” started winning hearts. They started getting followers. People became their fans.
So far. So Ok.
Unfortunately, these reel characters were not always good. They did not only preach good stuff. Their qualities were not unblemished. They chased girls, they got money through crooked ways. They did not always give out the right message. But once a person looks up to you, it becomes difficult to draw the line about it being a “reel” person. Like with Rama and Krishna, people started looking at them as their inspirations. They ran away from their own real problems, sorrows and insecurities to look at their reel heroes do amazing things that they aspired to. The connection grew stronger. The bond strengthened. But the bricks were laid with mixed qualities. Not all good. Not all bad. There was no Bhagavad Gita to explain and differentiate the good and bad.
Krishna did not gain by having a million fans. The current heroes did. Rama did not have an effect by what his fans did. The current heroes films had a direct effect. There would be no Bhagavad Gita to explain anything. It was upto the fans themselves to behave any way they deemed fit. These fans now became super fans. They started owning their heroes. Started treating them as their own. Like their father, mother or brother. It was now personal.
A negative word against their heroes saw these people enraged. Unfortunately, as explained before, their fanism was not based on good qualities so they could not differentiate criticism between reel vs real. For them everything became personal. They could not stand that those people they looked upto could do anything wrong. Those heroes who were always very secure, confident and winning had to remain like that for them to dream. Bringing them down would mean crashing their own dreams. To protect their own aspirations and dreams it became important to protect their heroes. Fight for them. For them to remain in the imaginary bubble, the bubble surrounding their heroes could not burst. Their aura had to remain. So any attempt by others that was seen by them as reducing that aura had to be fought back. They fought anyway which they could. Unforunately, these fights often become ugly and bloody. But when their own heroes did ugly bloody fights who would tell them this was wrong in real life? How would they know that not respecting a women is the right thing to do when they see their own heroes stalk, chase and then win over the same women? Who teaches them anything?
At this point we need a Bhagavad Gita from these heroes. They need to talk to their fans and tell them where to draw the line. Would they do that?
