Lockdown certainly amped up our entertainment quotient - the time I spent on commuting, fitness, and chores was significantly spent on rooting out old entertainment content on Amazon Prime Video (APV) and You Tube (YT). Bollywood became like a close aid during these times since I was spending so much time watching stuff and contemplating on impressions these things left.. When you are homebound, you do also end up watching a lot of mainstream entertainment like Tarak Mehta and Kapil Sharma, where actors put their best foot forward for promotional activities. Unfortunately, such things form your opinion and selection of content for future..
When the news of Sushant Singh Rajput's (SSR) suicide reached me, I felt really uncomfortable deep inside, despite not being a fan of any actor per say. I thought it was an impact of prolonged lockdown, which left people depressed - which was Trump's argument for not locking down USA! As a person fond of watching documentaries and extremely unbiased content - rare on even APV and YT; that I need to first sift through the unbiasedness of any new content before daring to watch it so I wouldn't feel stolen of a certain 'mood threshold' or time, finding Bollywood consistently superficial at the intellectual level! I still watched Paatal Lok and Four More Shots initially - one of which was biased and the other extremely below average. Inside Edge was extremely intriguing, but Richa Chadha was annoying and out of character.
This was how I viewed content before SSR opened my eyes to the reality of Bollywood and the wickedness of the business and reasons that compelled the beautiful, hardworking and extremely intellectual person to take this step - the more I read and watch SSR-oriented content, the more I fell in love with the innocence and honesty of this man who I wished just found an outlet to express himself! We needed him more in this industry of facade just like I realised and feel grateful for having actors like Kangana Renaut, who is opening public eye to the injustice in Bollywood along with gems like Vivek Obroi. Sorry for poor spellings of the actors!
I realised how there is a divide between star kids actors and those who struggle to get success. This was just like nepotism in any other industry - politics, business, lawyers etc. and how favouritism gets kiths and kins more opportunities - like how the rich and powerful of India only give further opportunities to their own bloodline before anyone else. For instance Ravi Shankar Prasad's daughter who I interacted with at MIT, was leading projects at BCG and BMGF in India, the opportunity that never percolated down to a super qualified person like me, because these "so called star kids of politics" were absorbed there first and perhaps these were only created for them! So if Bollywood has its very apparent curses, so do all industries have and perhaps the sensible people are pushed to follow the difficult path of accepting the reality, keep working harder, give up or fight back aggressively. As a country to become more transparent, merit-oriented and "truly developed", we would need to have anti-nepotism awareness, rights backed by a legal provision that allows people in all industries to compete with fairness and fearlessness.
It has been disheartening to know how SSR was bound by anti-competitive contracts, which gave undue advantage to his mediocre peers like Ranvir Singh, who thrived in Bollywood out of frivolity. The concept of "Roasting" other actors by failed star kids and using abuses was extremely indecent at one point of time, but a culture introduced and made "cool" by the alleged mafia king of Bollywood, Karan Johar. His show had a cult following in India, relying on gossip and making personal judgments about talented stars like SSR and Kangana Renaut - for which people like me are responsible because we found this brainless content as entertainment.
Going back to some YT interviews of SSR, I observed how he paid attention to his dressing sense along with every word that came from his mouth. As an Indian and Hindu, I felt so proud of seeing him sport Kurtas in a number of events, followed by a Shiva T-Shirt to his citing reading old Hindu scriptures and texts as they give wisdom in terms of similarity of human lives existing now and centuries ago! Such a brilliant mind has gone away from this planet and he had to teach so much more to each one of us - through more meaningful films like Byomkesh Bakshi that I started watching on DD, then on APV as well a touching biopic, Dhoni...
The incident and loss has made me even more cautious about choosing my content. I wish this backlash does not die down - those who are part of each industry fight back harder like Kangana Renaut, while making each one of us in other industry aware of their battles against groupism, nepotism, favouritism, bullying, cornering, shaming, and compelling a hard-working person like SSR to take this extreme step. I wish he had lived to tell his story.. in a novel.. in a film.. in a blog.. or even in YT video...
When the news of Sushant Singh Rajput's (SSR) suicide reached me, I felt really uncomfortable deep inside, despite not being a fan of any actor per say. I thought it was an impact of prolonged lockdown, which left people depressed - which was Trump's argument for not locking down USA! As a person fond of watching documentaries and extremely unbiased content - rare on even APV and YT; that I need to first sift through the unbiasedness of any new content before daring to watch it so I wouldn't feel stolen of a certain 'mood threshold' or time, finding Bollywood consistently superficial at the intellectual level! I still watched Paatal Lok and Four More Shots initially - one of which was biased and the other extremely below average. Inside Edge was extremely intriguing, but Richa Chadha was annoying and out of character.
This was how I viewed content before SSR opened my eyes to the reality of Bollywood and the wickedness of the business and reasons that compelled the beautiful, hardworking and extremely intellectual person to take this step - the more I read and watch SSR-oriented content, the more I fell in love with the innocence and honesty of this man who I wished just found an outlet to express himself! We needed him more in this industry of facade just like I realised and feel grateful for having actors like Kangana Renaut, who is opening public eye to the injustice in Bollywood along with gems like Vivek Obroi. Sorry for poor spellings of the actors!
I realised how there is a divide between star kids actors and those who struggle to get success. This was just like nepotism in any other industry - politics, business, lawyers etc. and how favouritism gets kiths and kins more opportunities - like how the rich and powerful of India only give further opportunities to their own bloodline before anyone else. For instance Ravi Shankar Prasad's daughter who I interacted with at MIT, was leading projects at BCG and BMGF in India, the opportunity that never percolated down to a super qualified person like me, because these "so called star kids of politics" were absorbed there first and perhaps these were only created for them! So if Bollywood has its very apparent curses, so do all industries have and perhaps the sensible people are pushed to follow the difficult path of accepting the reality, keep working harder, give up or fight back aggressively. As a country to become more transparent, merit-oriented and "truly developed", we would need to have anti-nepotism awareness, rights backed by a legal provision that allows people in all industries to compete with fairness and fearlessness.
It has been disheartening to know how SSR was bound by anti-competitive contracts, which gave undue advantage to his mediocre peers like Ranvir Singh, who thrived in Bollywood out of frivolity. The concept of "Roasting" other actors by failed star kids and using abuses was extremely indecent at one point of time, but a culture introduced and made "cool" by the alleged mafia king of Bollywood, Karan Johar. His show had a cult following in India, relying on gossip and making personal judgments about talented stars like SSR and Kangana Renaut - for which people like me are responsible because we found this brainless content as entertainment.
Going back to some YT interviews of SSR, I observed how he paid attention to his dressing sense along with every word that came from his mouth. As an Indian and Hindu, I felt so proud of seeing him sport Kurtas in a number of events, followed by a Shiva T-Shirt to his citing reading old Hindu scriptures and texts as they give wisdom in terms of similarity of human lives existing now and centuries ago! Such a brilliant mind has gone away from this planet and he had to teach so much more to each one of us - through more meaningful films like Byomkesh Bakshi that I started watching on DD, then on APV as well a touching biopic, Dhoni...
The incident and loss has made me even more cautious about choosing my content. I wish this backlash does not die down - those who are part of each industry fight back harder like Kangana Renaut, while making each one of us in other industry aware of their battles against groupism, nepotism, favouritism, bullying, cornering, shaming, and compelling a hard-working person like SSR to take this extreme step. I wish he had lived to tell his story.. in a novel.. in a film.. in a blog.. or even in YT video...
