Prince of Clowns

The prince of clowns is dead, and so are 4 other clowns. When I first heard this news, I was saddened. A part of my sadness was because a popular actor had died on natural causes, but a major reason for my sadness was that a whole city was hijacked due to this expected event.

The prince was neither in the best of his health nor was his death caused by some accident or evil intention. It was plain natural death due to heart attack, nothing fishy about it. But still the whole city was hijacked. Businesses were forced to shut down, shops looted and offices closed. What the hell people want by doing such acts of vandalism. A busy day of work in the IT capital of India was converted into an extended weekend.

In older times India used to have SATI system, where wife used to accompany her husband in his last journey. Well is this a new type of SATI system where the fans and followers of a popular person are to follow him in his last journey. If that is the case what will happen when people like Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan started their last journey. Half of India’s population will accompany them. What will happen to our economy if the whole country were to close down for a weekend or whole week? All the progress we have made in these years would certainly do down the drain. What is the message are we sending to the people across the world, or as a matter of fact people like me or you who are not in Bangalore or are not a fan of the deceased.

Who was Rajkumar? As far as my memory goes, he was an actor, an entertainer. Anything else? I don’t think so. I could never understand the urge of Indian especially the south Indian to “DIE” for some one they love. And what struck me the most is that it is not the first time such thing is happening in the country. From a post in Telegraph article I found out that hundreds of people had already died in hero mourning like the one which happened the other day.

While going through some stuff related to Rajkumar, I found out that he didn’t even passed out from high school still he used the title of Dr. Rajkumar. Just like our Dr. J. Jayalalitha. How on earth do you award an honorary PhD, an academic title, to a movie superstar? Rajkumar has won a national award for singing, a padmabhooshan and a dadasaheb phalke award. (The last 2 are lifetime contribution awards). No acting awards! It clearly indicates that he was a popular actor, not necessarily a good one. E.g.: Mohanlal has 4 national awards, Shabana Azmi has 4, Mammooty has 3, and Naseeruddin Shah has 2-3, and so on. None of these actors have honorary doctorates. Among singers, Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar doesn't have an honorary PhD! Neither do we ever hear news about Dr. Amitabh Bachchan or Dr. Mithun Chakravorty.

So why am I saying all this. Well I don’t want to sound rude, but am I one of the few people who are finding it odd, or as a matter of fact stupid. Some people might think that throwing dirt on someone who has died is not a good thing, but I don’t think that he being dead makes it any less stupid. All I wanted to say is that death is a time for mourning and not the time for playing violent games as who is the (I mean who was the) biggest fan of the deceased. In one newspaper I read that while in majority of the world people show their love for film stars by writing letters with blood and other such stuff, killing themselves and looting shops have become the trademark of southern India. Had he been some political leader or a religious one and had he been murdered by opposite party or community then such rioting would have been rational if not appreciable. But being just a movie actor does make my mind spin.