मैं चार्ली हूँ : #I’mCharlie : Je suis Charlie

We all must stand with those killed brutally in Parish yesterday…

It is always so tragic to witness a life being snatched away… It is more painful if a human life is wasted knowingly by another human being… and it is extremely appalling if this act is done just because the killer do not agree with the victim’s point of view.

Well if all the nature’s creations, human and animals decide to follow this rule of killing someone just because you do not agree with them, then I guess none of us would be able to survive more than one day.

A movie was released in India last month, its called PK (‘peekay’ in hindi language is a slang for someone who is drunk/ alcoholic/ under the influence of some kind of drug). Within week it became the highest grossing movie ever…it has made close to 1 Bn US$ till now!!!

The movie is a satire on religious nature of Indian people, specifically focusing on Hinduism and ridiculing close to 1Bn population majority of whom follow the Hindu faith related acts in their day-to-day life, challenging these acts as blind-faith and making fun of Gods/ Goddess/ Preachers, etc. Many of us, including me, follow many of the acts which were ridiculed in the movie, like going to a temple, offering donation there, praying to please the god/goddess to fulfill our wishes, requests. Still the movie is the biggest hit as mentioned above, I watched it with my family – young kids and elders – we all laughed at the jokes, got bored a little in the last half an hour when it became a preaching session, with sugar coated long dialogues and the usual happy ending where the lovers come together and an alien finds the way to reach his home (only to come back after some time with more aliens for carrying out further research on earth through – specifically in India). Well its your regular Bollywood entertainer with many songs and dance sequences, slap-stick comedy, a human-like alien – both physically and emotionally. Some people got offended by the movie, they asked the autonomous movie certification body (which is incidentally headed by a hard-core christian lady) to remove some scenes which were objectionable to them, where they felt the movie seems to be crossing the line. But nothing happened, the movie still continues to make money, no body has censored anything. By the way an interesting fact is the hero of the movie who is making fun of Hinduism is one of the biggest super-star of Bollywood – Aamir Khan – a Muslim by faith, who has proudly is proud of his own religious belief system!

I have nothing to say to the left-leaning liberals of India who never let go of a chance to demean Hinduism, make fun of cultural heritage of India, the ancient Knowledge base of our country and everything that this country stands for. Their Idea of India would require stripping off Hinduism from everything. Hinduism/ Hindutva is a bad word, they use it as an abuse for those they do not agree with.

We talk about Islamophobia, well if you really wants to see a phobia look at the Hinduphobia of these left-leaning so called liberals of India – majority of them are Hindus only, yet they hate their own cultural heritage.

My faith is my personal belief, and it is strong enough to survive any number of movies or songs or cartoons or paintings or books or jokes or satire, etc., it was strong enough for my ancestors to withstand the persecution by foreign invaders (though they had to migrate from the North Indian plains to hard to reach Himalayan terrain to save their life during the mughal rule) it is nothing compared to what it was in those dark centuries…

So I watched PK, still like Aamir Khan as a great actor, admire M F Hussain as a great artist (despite all the controversial things he did) and am against any kind of ban or restriction on movies or books or people.

Freedom of Expression, something guaranteed by the constitution of India, it is my Right, and it is the right of all who live in India and considers it as their own country. I stand with Charb today who said ïn 2012 “I’d Rather Die Standing Than Live on My Knees”… We all must put up these sketches on our blogs, share on through social media and give a fitting reply to those who wish curtail the Freedom of Expression. Lets make Charb and Charlie Hebdo more popular than every before. Right to offend you is within the limits of Freedom of Expression, you may not like me for doing so, but you are not suppose to kill me for that.