A fleeting glimpse of an elderly couple desperately trying to peep through the cracked open gates of the infamous Arthur Road prison just minutes after Body guards with packs in multiples of six swooped a celebrity kid (kid? No, not anymore, but will refer to him as that throughout this piece due to his naivety) from the very gate into a swanky shiny Range Rover made me write this piece. Fortunately, that image just caught my eye for a fraction of a second as the byte hungry media vultures were packing up and getting ready for their flight to keep pace with the horsepower of the Turbo Charged Range Rover.
Now, let me make it clear, this is not about taking a stand on
the case and analyzing the rights and the wrongs, this is just a rant on the
two malaises that haunts the Indian society, the Judicial system and the celebrity
sycophancy. The rate at which the celebrities are being pulled up for drugs and
other related offences, it makes sense to open an Arthur Road Annex in Bandra or
Juhu as that would spare the commoners using the Artur Road and the infamous prison
the inconvenience of road blockades etc.
Call it vendetta, targeting, framed, stereo typing etc. I believe
in the old adage there is no smoke without fire, pun not intended, as these
days you don’t need a smoke to create that ecstatic fire. It’s a fact that he
was picked up under suspicious circumstances and was in jail for a good 28
days. Given the power and money involved, had it been a framed event it would
have been exposed much earlier. But again, if the framing was as good as Plan B
of ‘Casa De Papal’ then I have no arguments nor did the former Attorney General
for two full days. I’m not sure I can call it a travesty of justice as the
matter is Sub-judice. If it was a mistake to call it that, I hereby render my
unconditional apology as I cannot afford the former Attorney General to bail me
out. It is here, that my heart goes out for the elderly couple at the gate of
the Arthur Road Prison. I just hope and pray whoever they were waiting for and
whatever their crime was, he or she was out to celebrate the festive season
with them today. Hopefully Justitia’s (Lady Justice) Blind fold has not gone loose
nor have the scales tipped due to the winds of change!
Heart goes out to the father, for whom I have huge respects,
as someone who made it on his own in an industry flush with nepotism and
familial rights. He was truly an embodiment of the great Indian middle-class
common man making it big in the glitzy world of Bollywood. His affluence to get
his son temporarily out of legal trouble might not compensate for the pain he
might go through at the guilt of having been partly responsible for it to
happen. Sadly, the father fell into the
trap like many middle-class parents of his generation, and it was very evident
from the interview he gave when his son was hardly 3. He did mention a lot of things
in jest, that are being attributed to the situation his son has found himself. However,
I will definitely not concur to those nor hold that interview against him, as
some are doing today. But will certainly hold him responsible for one statement
he made in that interview. ‘He should do everything I have not done!’, this is
one statement from a parent that spells doom for many a kid of this generation.
If this case can become a case study on parenting
irrespective of, if you are a celebrity or not, the one statement you should refrain
from when bringing up your children is “He or she have/should do everything I did
not have / have not done”.
The celebrity sycophancy is another malaise that needs to be
dealt with in this case. We had Bollywood divided right at the middle on this
case. Virtually vociferous statements of support from people appearing ‘close’ to
the celebrity, followed by a few journalists and media houses who rode on the closeness to
the celebrity went all out. The noise was, as deafening as the silence from the other half which
included the erstwhile Kandhans of Bollywood (not to be mistaken with the Khan-dhans
of Bollywood who came out in full support) who refrained from making a statement /
tweet of support of the celebrity.
I just hope and pray as the kid made his way back home, the name
of which meant a Solemn Vow or a Pledge, made a vow / pledge himself sitting on the leather
upholstered seats propelled by an 8 Cylinder engine to not to let his offspring have or do what he did not.
While the intention of the statement from a parent might be
good, the execution of that will is not in their hands, just as it was not in
the hands of the Super star father who saw stars before he saw his soon-to-be
star son after an entire Lunar Cycle of 28 days.
A celestial disorder of sorts!
