DNA Celebrity Column: Mob vs Individual, writes Ayushmann Khurrana

June 26. This day in 1284, the Pied Piper of Hamelin lured 130 children. This actually happened. True story. In 1498, toothbrush was invented in China using boar bristles. In 1807, lightning hit a gunpowder warehouse in Luxembourg. 230 died. Even today people are dying not just because of natural calamities, but man-induced mob lynchings. Whatever happened in Kashmir with the designated DCP and five men around the capital is completely despicable and unacceptable. Violence has accomplished nothing. It has created nothing. It is pure destruction. It’s anti creation. No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet. Riots and civil disorders have not corrected anything. A mob is the voice of madness not the voice of people. Lynching has become our country’s national crime. Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the upswing of totalitarianism. Masses, on the other hand, can only be lured with propaganda.

I’m not here to make a political statement. I just want to question the moral consciousness of our people. Last month, it was a poor rickshaw driver from the majority community and this time around the victims are from the minority community. Fear psychosis has engulfed us. There’s fear from both sides and that fear is for both sides.

All the communities work together. Eat and travel together. They’re friendly with each other in their core environment. But they’re scared of the mobs of the respective communities.

It’s not just about religion. It’s also about sexual preferences. I had a homosexual classmate in my college. He was bullied in the hostel by burly Haryanvi men. He tried his best to hide his sexual orientation in such a scenario. But he was treated like dirt by the inconsiderate testosterone boosted all boys’ college mob.

“My dad was a homicide cop in a gay neighbourhood in the city when the gay neighbourhoods were desperate, depressing, sad places run by mob. The only gay people he had met when I came out to him were corpses.” — Dan Savage

As an artiste, too, you get scared of a mob at times. In the beginning of my career when people didn’t know me, they never cheered for me when I walked on stage. I used to win them over. I’d make them believe that I was one of them. The best jokes and songs and one liners came in the first 20 minutes. Then they’re with you. When you give them the trust, your PJs are also treated as PJs (perfect jokes). Then you become their darling. That’s fine, I guess. But don’t let that darling transform into a manipulator. Even if you are a harmless one. And when you become a star, the same mob that you feared because of a lack of recognition overpowers you like they have a right on you. That’s the irony of life. We live in strange times where even pickpockets operate in a mob (group).