Taking a cue from the Hollywood flick, we take you through different
events that made you cry for joy, react in disgust and anger, quiver in
fear and feel gut-wrenching sadness all through this year
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Sadness
While we celebrated some heart warming
moments, there were heart wrenching scenes and tragedies we just could
not escape from the floods in Chennai that saw more than 200 lives lost,
to the terror attacks that shook Paris, to the mindless killings in the
Charlie Hebdo incident to the collective helplessness all of us
experienced hearing about the mindless killings by terrorists
organisations like ISIS, the earthquake in Nepal and closer home the
lynching of a man on the suspicion that he ate beef/slaughtered a cow
and the continuing farmer suicides. All of these incidents had us unite
in grief mourning the loss of innocent lives.
Joy
This year many
Bollywood couples welcomed a new born into their lives, starting with
B-Town’s power couple Rani and Aditya Chopra and including Ritiesh and
Genelia Deshmukh, Mohit Suri and Udita Goswami, Imran Khan and Avantika
Malik, Nawazuddin and Anjali Siddiqui, Vivek Oberoi and Priyanka Alva
who were all visited by the proverbial stork. In other baby news that
created quite a buzz was of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
and Priscilla’s daughter Max and Ashton Kutcher
and Mila Kunis’ baby Wyatt Isabelle. In a world that’s increasingly
becoming intolerant it’s the little gestures that mean a lot. Harman
Singh, who lives in Auckland, New Zealand, heard screeching wheels and
ran outside to find that Daejon Pahia had been hit by a car. Without a
second thought he removed his turban to help an injured boy, a handful
of friendly strangers acted quickly to return the favour. Ahmed Mohamed,
the 14-year-old Muslim boy from Texas who landed in handcuffs after
having his homemade clock mistaken for a bomb at school, made news
across the globe after his wrongful detainment. The world
showed solidarity with messages of support. It did
not end there. President Barack Obama was among the many well-wishers
who reached out to the teen, making you admire how the world took a
stand to fix something that was so wrong. In yet another expression of
tolerance Google CEO Sundar Pichai took a subtle jab at Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump, over his recent anti-Muslim
comments. More power to a more tolerant world. Swiss champion Martina
Hingis and India’s Sania Mirza won their ninth title at the WTA Finals
in Singapore.The duo, crowned the best doubles team of the yearthrashed
the Spanish pair of Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro to clinch
the WTA Finals women’s doubles trophy. More power to this duo. Miss
Universe 2015 saw a lot of emotions onstage. A major gaffe by the host
Steve Harvey resulted in probably the most awkward, sad and happy moment
on stage.
Disgust
What do you call organisations
who try to make a profit when people are faced with a massive tragedy of
the scale of the one experienced by the people stranded due to the
Chennai floods? Many domestic airlines instead of reaching out and
helping people decided to make a quick buck by escalating fares to
exorbitant rates. The move was obviously slammed by everyone and had us
reacting with disgust at both the insensitivity and the complete
disregard for what people were going through at a very difficult time.
Unsuitable
appointments and the FTII protests had the nation divided. While some
questioned the student’s decision to protest the questionable
appointment of Gajendra Chauhan many alumni and sections of the liberal
society extended their support to the protests. And while many
acknowledged the fact that Chauhan was not the ideal candidate for the
job, the protests unfortunately did not achieve its primary goal —
Chauhan’s ouster. Another controversial appointment was that of Pahlaj
Nihalani, the present head of the Central Board of Film Certification of
India. Many people were dismissive about his appointment and it became a
source of disgust because of the haphazard way of functioning and
absurd diktats.
Anger
Animal lovers all over the
nation were appalled at the Kerala government’s decision to conntinue
stray dog culling despite protests. It had us seething in anger, even as
the government stood by its decision despite various protests.
Uncomfortable with a point of view — ban it, don’t like someone’s food
habits - ban it, uncomfortable with intimacy onscreen— ban it, don’t
want to hear abuses in films — ban it. It looked like the authorities
solution to every uncomfortable situation was to simply ban it, leading
to anger and resentment among many sections of society, questioning the
logic in enforcing bans as a solution time and again.
Political
parties absurd diktats —Whether it’s protests against expressing
one’s opinion freely or resorting to appealing to people to boycott a
film simply because the actor chose to donate to one cause. The
absurdity and illogical reasoning had us fuming in anger wondering why
an actor was being picked at for having a contrary opinion or for
choosing a cause.
Fear
The Dadri lynching, the
overall hostile comments and picking on religious minorities has created
an atmosphere of fear. Actor Aamir Khan voiced that fear and was ripped
apart for it. Instead of examining why a certain section of people were
feeling threatened, many jumped on the bandwagon to target
the messenger than hear him out.
Governments may change, but
women in India are constantly living in fear. The increase in attacks on
women, add to that the news of the release of that
the juvenile accused in the December16 gangrape and murder of
paramedical student, had women feeling very unsafe, questioning the
authorities on measures being taken for their security. |
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