Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Rajkumar’s death and Rioting Bangalore


I discover that we Indians have an unique way of mourning a death.

This is how an average Bangalorean (who also happens to be a rioter) must have thought:

“Oh! God! Rajkumar died. I am angry! He died a natural death, so what? When Indira Gandhi was assassinated, they had their revenge - they burnt up 4000 Sikhs. Even I am entitled to such a revenge! There has to be someone responsible for our beloved Rajkumar. Whom can I blame? Let me roam the streets of Bangalore and find out!

Ah! There is this small hotel serving food to workers. I do know that these workers and bachelor engineers do not have kitchens and eat out daily. So what? Do I care? This storekeeper has no respect for our great Rajkumar, our Kannada leader. He has to close down his shop, otherwise we will break the chairs, tables and break glasses. Ah! he has agreed to close, but that is too easy. I will bring down his shop anyway.

Ah! I am satisfied, having broken so many chairs, and beaten up the waiters and the owner, I am just getting started. I am still angry though- angry at this world; Angry for being miserable and poor; Of course, I know that I don’t stick to one job for more than a month- I am lazy, and spend most of the time at local store smoking cigarette, spitting paan, teasing girls, and watching cricket game at nearby electronic store.

Rajkumar died. I will miss him. In fact, everyone should miss him. If they do not miss him, I will make sure they miss him. I will teach them by torching their cars and stores. I know that he hasn’t acted in a very long time. But who cares? He was a great actor, and he died, and I want my revenge.

Let me go see his body. Man! What a big crowd! And this police is trying to stop me from seeing my beloved leader? Let’s beat the shit out of them. Oooh! They started to fire at us. I am furious now. Let’s vent our anger somewhere else. Let’s get into this five star hotel and burn it up. Yeah! Maul up these foreign tourists! How dare they enjoy staying at a nice hotel while we are mourning? Burn these nice vehicles as well. Good! I like it. I can go home now, and break few things up on my way. Who knows, when I would get this freedom again?”.
--

I saw a news item that says Rajkumar’s eyes were donated to two different people. There is a good chance that they might stand for elections and one of them could become a chief minister. After all, they have the same ‘vision’ and ‘foresight’ that Rajkumar had for Kannada cause.

13 comments:

  1. May not really be representative of the true Rajkumar fan's views. I believe a lot of it was politically motivated and perhaps even orchestrated. I really suspect how you can have 15-25 somethings who are fans of an artist from a bygone era. They might not have connected with him at all...

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  2. I agree. They may not be the 'true' fans. My intention is not to ridicule 'true' fans of Raj Kumar. But who will decide who is a 'true' fan?
    People fight over issues concerning Prophet, Babur, Rama, Subhash Chandra Bose, and other historical figures whom they never met.

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  3. Got some photos of the attack on Talisma office. Blogged about it here.

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  4. The worst part was for the bachelors who didnt have any food or water to drink the two days. I searched in vain for two days before i got one!

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  5. This is how an average Bangalorean (who also happens to be a rioter) ....

    WTF do u mean by that statement!

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  6. This is how an average Bangalorean (who also happens to be a rioter) ....

    which includes u as well,u motherfucker.how can you over generalise?
    you have not listed the areas in which the riots took place.a small part of bangalore is rioted and you extend it for the entire city.

    and @some idiot who wrote:
    i didnt get food to eat.well,there was a news flash abt bangalore bundh,the previous day dumbass.

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  7. although i do not agree with the generalisation regarding the avg bangalorean presented in the post.

    @Anonymous .. quite clearly u
    are acting like a rioter here ...
    praise me and my city and if u dont do that be prepared for the abuses that i hurl at u ...

    The riots showed Bangalore in really bad light, and again corrected the misconception that Bangalore is better than any other city in the country.

    @sujai
    agree with u on most points .. although i feel that Rajkumar set a nice example by donating his eyes .. no need of mocking that.

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  8. Thank you 'randramble' for pointing this out. I put a comment on his page to rectify the situation. Hope he does.

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  9. Dear Mr.Anonymous...
    i would definitely expect more decency in the comments tat you write; because unwanted words & expressions serve no purpose and carry no meaning to this dicussion here.

    @Sujai..
    I agree with you when you take a particular example of a few people who dont know how to react !! As Ramya says: a lot of it was politcally motivated.
    Even otherwise; people need to get mature while handling such things. Targeting the unwanted things due to some frustration is totally wrong. So i agree with you.

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  10. Lol.. LOL!! That's one of the funniest things I've read.. Nice! I like!

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  11. I am an average Bangalorean, and please, I want the above Anonymous person hurling abuses to know that I am certainly NOT represented by him. He should realize that HE is the one who is not only misrepresenting Bangaloreans, but also tarnishing our image. Unlike him, most of the Bangaloreans I know are NOT narrow-minded and intolerant.

    That having said, Sujai, I do want to voice my opinion that your sentence that consisted 'an average Bangalorean' is certainly not an accurate point. However, its obvious that your entire post was satirical and a reader stressing on those few words does not make sense. Yet, I would have liked your post better if it didnt claim that the rioter was an average Bangalorean. This is just my opinion.

    Atrocities happen everywhere. Even such stupidity such as this Rajkumar's death riot. I wont be surprised if the same happens in Hyderabad when Chiranjeevi dies or in Chennai when Rajnikanth dies. Cheap politics and anti-social elements exist everywhere in the world. I am not saying we should start (or rather continue to) accept such atrocities as normal day-to-day behavior... ofcourse, we should fight against it, preferably with law, words, ideas and intellect. Atleast I try to. But, we cant judge a place based on the anti-social elements residing in the place. Because that would be an oxymoron. The rioter who claimed to love the land of Bangalore were obviously acting against Bangalore, because he was causing damage to Bangalore, not any other place! Now, I am not saying that you passed a judgment on the city! I just wanted to make these points and so I did.

    Now being pragmatic, I think those rioters should have been shot in the ass!

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  12. How dare you mock our beloved city! i'm so offended right now, i gotta vandalize some shops and damage a few cars!
    if only i could find few more of those anonymous guys to support be in my noble effort to make my feelings known :p

    sarcasm aside, nice article!

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