'Yeh' Reel 'hai ya' Real?

Parents are scared these days. Chances are they might call up their children from work and ask “where are you, beta?” and the reply could be “just hanging, ma!”

This might sound like a cruel joke on the suicide spree amongst kids. But what could be crueler than a tragedy being trivialised as inspired by a movie?

Almost everything that’s wrong in this country has been blamed on movies, posters or TV commercials!

So now we know the real reason for rapes in Goa are the bikini-clad women in its tourism commercials! This startling revelation by the government will be followed by commercials and posters showing fully clothed people enjoying on the beaches and swimming pools of five-star resorts in Goa. And then there will be no more rapes in Goa! It’s simply the practical application of the “out of sight is out of mind” adage whereby potential rapists will stop thinking of sex if they don’t see a bikini babe on a Goan tourism brochure!

A couple of months ago, Kareena Kapoor’s bare back on movie posters offended some people more than corruption within the civic administration which has led to the prosperity of water mafia and builder lobby - apart from the pathetic condition of our roads with potholes larger than craters on the moon and a fragile traffic signal system that’s sensitive to a gentle breeze or a slight drizzle!

It seems a recent movie led to the rediscovery of ragging — which until then had been non-existent in our college campuses! Not surprisingly, the education ministry has decided to deal with ragging effectively once and for all by deleting the scene from the film! Just like how our health ministry dealt a telling blow to the tobacco industry by banning smoking in movies — and then, as an afterthought, got real and banned smoking in public places!

In all probability, the problem of student suicides will be solved by deleting similar scenes from cinema! So that students don’t think about suicide until they grow up and discover all that they learnt in school - like the Pythagoras Theorem or Vernier Calipers - will not help them get into a crowded local train during peak hours! Guys will discover that scoring high marks in Chemistry doesn’t improve their chemistry with the opposite sex! And girls will discover that all those theories in Economics make no sense when they are out shopping in a mall!