i have never been a fan of bollywood in general, or amitabh bacchan in particular. i have found him, um... distasteful, and not the great superstar everyone says he is. anyway, forwarding this comment from a reader. i have not read amitabh bacchan's blog. caveat emptor.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Soniya
Namaste,
I am not normally a worshipper of Bollywood and certainly don't worship fillum stars like a vast majority of Indians do, but I thought this was pretty interesting. Secular journalists have constantly derided Hindus going to temples, donating money to religious causes, and following Hindu rites and customs. They raised a great hue and cry about how Amitabh and his family made Aishwarya marry a tree as she was Manglik; something that hasn't been proven to be true. Amitabh now has a blog (looks like a lot of them are jumping on this bandwagon) and has replied to several of them. He refuses to be apologetic for being Hindu and hits back at the journalists but with real grace. I wish we had more Hindus with backbones and had the kind of phenomenal public following like Amitabh does.
For example, just look at the first question by this reporter:
http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/04/17/ab-interview-with-mumbai-mirroranil-t/#more-7
"I guess you are feeling these days much like a section of the Muslim community is often made to feel in this nation: Keep providing proof that you care for Mumbai and Maharashtra"
Amitabh refused to be taken in, and minces no words when he says:
"Firstly, the premise of your query is something that I do not contribute to or believe in..."
I thought you might find this interesting.
Thanks,
Soniya
From: Soniya
Namaste,
I am not normally a worshipper of Bollywood and certainly don't worship fillum stars like a vast majority of Indians do, but I thought this was pretty interesting. Secular journalists have constantly derided Hindus going to temples, donating money to religious causes, and following Hindu rites and customs. They raised a great hue and cry about how Amitabh and his family made Aishwarya marry a tree as she was Manglik; something that hasn't been proven to be true. Amitabh now has a blog (looks like a lot of them are jumping on this bandwagon) and has replied to several of them. He refuses to be apologetic for being Hindu and hits back at the journalists but with real grace. I wish we had more Hindus with backbones and had the kind of phenomenal public following like Amitabh does.
For example, just look at the first question by this reporter:
http://blogs.bigadda.com/ab/2008/04/17/ab-interview-with-mumbai-mirroranil-t/#more-7
"I guess you are feeling these days much like a section of the Muslim community is often made to feel in this nation: Keep providing proof that you care for Mumbai and Maharashtra"
Amitabh refused to be taken in, and minces no words when he says:
"Firstly, the premise of your query is something that I do not contribute to or believe in..."
I thought you might find this interesting.
Thanks,
Soniya
9 comments:
I have liked Amitabh at one time, and dislike his overbearing presence in almost every movie that is made these days. He is a fine actor and a very hard working one at that. But there are very few movies of his I would take with me to a n island in hte middle of the ocean. I still think we haven't seen him at his best and he is capable of heckuva lot more than he has all htese years. He has changed considerably as a person, and his reverses in the 90s have made him a wiser and more sedate person. He has put his controversial days behind him and exudes modesty with every thing he says. He has aged gracefully and comes off as a very decent person. Raj Thackeray is playing a very dangerous game and is becoming like those DMK/DK punks. Not a good thing at all.
Isnt he the same actor who benefited from the friendship of Sanjay Gandhi?I read somewhere that Amitabh used that powerful friendship to snub Vinod Khanna who was a competitive threat to him at that time.
As far as his support to Hindusim etc is concerned...dont forget that he is a very close friend of people like Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh. Mulayam Singh is the person who asked why should we ban SIMI.
AB has every right to be close friend of Amar Singh and MSYadav because they are the people who helped him financially when he was bankrupt around 1997. All his so called friends deserted him when he was down. He is simply repaying their debt.
Didn't Karna use the same reason to justify him siding with Duryodhan against his own brother.
One simplicity about Karna is that, his chosed certain sphere where he was defined as a friend of Duryodhan.
Bhishma promised to remain celibate and be with the king all the time...
Sometimes I think These reasonings are different than the moral/ utilatirian reasoning. The morality was in sticking to it...
Supposing Amitabh was challenging the greatest, where his weakness was not his valor/business acumen...rather it is the extraneous factor beyond the mortal ...the caste of Karna...Then I think we would respect the logic mentioned by TambiDude....Again if these guys actually helped in such a way.
1- I think Amitabh failed in business...I wouldn't expect him to compare with Karna...Karna didn't ask duryodhan to be saved... Karna is important for his pursuit,wait... than celebrity.
2- The abhiman of Karna is not a chameleon or a whim...His rules were known...I believe the bollywood...Amitabh included will survive as Mahatmas/celebrities by constantly adjusting their "abhiman" to synchronize with new fashion/new statements and new version of to dos...
3- The philosophy of India was quietly adjusted decades before the independence. These connections survived...when the secularists needed to build up against BJP in 2000s.
[All of above is my subjective opinion ].
Amitabh Bachan's father has written a Madhusala poem describing hindu muslim sameness in a Madhusala...This poem appears radical...The stupor of Madhusala was to be avoided in old culture...Therefore from where did this "humanistic" idea of Madhusala came from...Generally the people who were politically humanistic turned to "secularism" defense in 2000s...Mulayam, Lallu etc claims legacy of humanist socialist...SO they were seckular...May be Bachan found something as part of his father's legacy [ For example, was he close to any socialist such as R. Lohia?] , to which the sickularists of 2000 claimed heritage... and Bachan therefore was actually comfortable with sickularism as part of his heritage - Just like he think going to temple is his heritage.
My personal opinion is Bachan ditched the hindus when it mattered...he could have asked for a debate on the issue of rowdy seckularism .
These connections survived...when the secularists needed to build up against BJP in 2000s.
dhara,
Who are the secularists you talk of? Why is being secular (non-religious) by itself bad? Why do you get agitated by it? Do you mean that you oppose someone like Richard Dawkins just because he is secular?
Arvind:
You defined secular as non-religious...This is a deception. Religion is a mosaic in the secular universe...It is difficult to locate the non-religious..
Secularism should be presented as it is and could be allowed to compete from there. Instead it is waging jehad from invisible platforms such as non-religious...
It is bad because of its gutter facing temptations, some times painted in neutrality...
In 1930s, a later published in the Hindu news paper about absurdity of MaxMueller's linguistic construction, and deviding Indians into races. in 2003, a secular linguist ( trained in maxMueller's methods ) was assailing the orthodox hindus of old era for not understanding the languages they worked with and developed. Which part is anti-religious, and which one is pro religious here ?
Indian secularism is defending colonial british narrative of India of races, fighting and gutter. In 2000s, nuts like DN Jha were not positioned to define India...they got help from west to throw gutter on Bharat once again.
dhara,
I think the problem with your usage is that you equate Sitaram Yechury with the secularists in the West. Now you use the term "Indian secularism."
So if you mean to say pseudo-secularist, say so. Don't help them out by scrubbing negative terms and assigning neutral/positive terms on them.
The problem is not with the term. The problem is with you. You can't blame the term of being deceptive when you feel extremely diffident about using words like pseudo-secularist.
Aravind,
You have raised so many issues in few lines.
I think the problem with your usage is that you equate Sitaram Yechury with the secularists in the West. Now you use the term "Indian secularism."
First two stanzas of my previous reply was impersonal, no comparisons were made. The issue of avoiding the word 'secularism' is to pretend as if all the secularists in the western academics hear the maoist warfare for the first time. During the saffronization debate, NY Times got two marxists and Pankaj Mishra ( Neheruvian? Marxist Secularist?) to endorse the racial description. Are the west really so innocent in terms of their impact? Each of the thrust to describe Indian in terms of races has come from west...either directly or through inducements...So I am puzzled when you insist a rigid distinction.
I would join Comrade Prachand tomorrow, if I get convinced that it was his charisma that silenced the cantankerous indian media from ignoring 12000 deaths of Nepalis...I don't believe slaves like Prachand operate as angels, getting their network right and efficient even when they are buried in mountains of Nepal. So who else was supporting their network? Could there be at least a single western secularist with Prachand?
When SABHA reported the alternatives registering the maoist website for Dipankar Bharacarya, the maoist activity was not existing in vast areas of India. Whoever manages alternatives, must be western secular !
You say:
So if you mean to say pseudo-secularist, say so. Don't help them out by scrubbing negative terms and assigning neutral/positive terms on them.
In my first two lines of previous post, secularism was criticized without comparisons with Yechuri. Secularism exists as a positive description, rather than being equal to religions...For example, I think diverse uses as 'secular progressive'...'secular bull run' stock market are not random uses... you couldn't say the bull run in stock market is Pseudo secular. So when somebody becomes a secularist, the answer doesn't have to be a pseuso-secularism....Though I like the word for simple consistencies.
The problem is not with the term. The problem is with you. You can't blame the term of being deceptive when you feel extremely diffident about using words like pseudo-secularist.
The problem is not with the term - fine...But why should be the problem be with me? instead the problem should be with the secularist ? ...By Nature( or lack of it) of secularism..one should be finding all pervasive secularism without a single secularist. Where did it went wrong ?
It is a big issue, and I do understand one of your criticisms.....I created a post on secularism in my blog http://smokeyright.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/secularism-pseudo-secularism-etc/ if you would like to continue discussion on this subject....
Thanks
Hi , for all
and...............
i want to say that i a fan of bacchan ji
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