Abhi: This is from Ahmedabad’s today’s Gujarat Samachar. An old fashioned school established in Ahmedabad few years ago called “TAPOVAN”. Middle and elementary school kids decided that TV has been a bad influence lately, so they decided to have “Funeral” for the TV on the street and took a TV to the cremating place and burned it. Only in India.
The scene above looks quite Lord of the Flies-ish to me. I would not want to cross the path of this bloodthirsty mob. My contacts on the Indian Street (our family is from Ahmedabad) inform me that this violence was precipitated in part by frustration over the plot twists of this season’s ALIAS. My sources in the State Department tell me that, as of now, it looks as if the Prime Minister will call upon KPS Gill once more, to end this before more blood is shed.
I think this whole affair is especially depressing in light of the latest “research” proving definitively that television makes you smarter. When violence such as this breaks out it’s important to keep things in perspective. Just because you see a picture of yet another brown mob DOES NOT mean that brown people are naturally violent. This simply shows that the cut-throat competition that is considered “education” in third world countries does not allow for these kids to have enough time to know the joys of good tv. I am convinced that given a choice, free from an opressive regime, all men/women would choose to watch t.v. God wants this even. Do you think this scene would have unfolded if Nanny 9-1-1 or the Surreal Life aired in India? I will let you think about that.
The silver lining here is that all of us TV loving Americans can breathe easy knowing that this wave of violence won’t spread here. These kids will surely have their Travel Visas denied if they come to preach their hate here.
Oh don’t be so dramatic yaar. Everyone appreciates a good effigy, and an effigy of an inanimate object is as non-threatening as it gets.
But in all seriousness, just take a look at the motu kid on the left side wearing the yellow orange and blue shirt. Part of a bloodthirsty mob? Hardly…Its just a symbolic gesture and the kids are just having a good time. Chances are they’ll go home and turn on Channel V right after the parade.
Plus, I don’t blame the idea behind the procession. We all have little cousins and relatives who sit around watching the boob toob all day and night (or Instant Messengering nowadays). Excessive TV is more likely to lead kids to perform poorly in school. So even if they’re somehow smarter by IQ…they probably have worse grades….which lands them in worse colleges….which leads to mayhem and satyanaash as we all know (at least in family parties).
I’m bringing these kids over to ABC studios 🙂
Start of rant
I agree with you vurdlife. I went to India and visited my relatives and they were spending all their evenings seeing “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki” and the like. I hate the serials and also felt “Am I crazy to come all the 16000 miles to sit in front of your stinking serials.”
Believe me noone talks until these crappy serials get over.
End of rant
Dad: go outside and play us: but it’s like…-30 and there’s a blizzard… Dad: tho? you kids need fresh air. India we have open-air houses. now get outdoors and don’t come ringing this bell for 2 hours. us: but what are we supposed to do for that long? Dad: not my problem. click (locking the front door)
Hey, at least we weren’t sitting on our butts playing XBox and eating junk food & sodas…
But on the serious tip- Is it just me that find it curious that the article in the Mirror references the intelligence of British shows? I doubt watching Gastineau Girls, Strange Love, or Temptation Island is really going to make anybody one single brain cell smarter…
Dad: not my problem. click (locking the front door)
Umm, DesiDancer. Just out of curiosity before your father kicked you out into the blizzard for two hours and locked the door did he happen to turn on any potentially romantic music? Also am I right in guessing that your mom was home at the time? I hate to break it to you but it might not have really been about getting you away from the T.V. 🙂
abhi- EW. Pops was all about hating on the TV
There is a thin line between Kill Your Television Because It’s Nothing But A Mind-Numbing Wasteland and Television Is The Evil Purveyor Of Immorality And Must Be Burned At The Stake.
Hope they didn’t cremate a CRT TV, which has been known to explode violently under high pressure and temp conditions. Seriously.
See, I thought the TV was getting married, and they were carrying her on the palanquin.
I totally thought the same thing of DesiDancer’s father, Abhi! =) We all pretend, but don’t you know, Aish has taught us that Indians are sexual creatures behind closed doors.
Speaking of Alias, at the end of this season I will burn my tv if something good doesn’t come out of it. I’m frustrated w/JJ Abrams.
That boy, vurdlife, is too cute for words. He is SO excited to be part of the crowd burning his only source of recreation. love it…
p.s. where are all the girls? weeping away, i suppose.
So did I, Theo, but then I noticed there was no color on the palanquin, just white. Clearly, a funeral.
“p.s. where are all the girls? weeping away, i suppose.”
Only “men” go the cremation right?
The fat kid is there for the free candy and soda. We all know that he has no will power. He’ll be back watching Pokemon and munching on samosas in no time.
RE: the subject name…..why is the TV feminine?
Noelle, I simply took a quote uttered by the kids in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and changed the word “pig” to “TV.” See here.
There are people here really criticising people for watching Kyunki Saans ? Come on … I agree that you won’t catch me watching that ever 🙂 but then let people watch whatever they want, is it upto us to judge them based on their interests?
and vurdlife..I didn’t understand why an effigy of an inanimate object would be harmless. So to speak an effigy in itself is inanimate. in that case, people shouldn’t be angry if a national flag is burnt.
Yeah, I am trying to pick on you people tonight 🙂
Ahhh. For the record, I wasn’t accusing you of misogyny, just curious.
I was supposed to read LotF in the sixth grade. I let someone with a crush on me do it for me (obviously.)
agreed.
I let someone with a crush on me do it for me (obviously.)
I had a lot of crushes and consequently read a lot of books 🙂
Ahhh, those crazy Gujaratis, gotta love ’em….. 🙂 lived in Surat when I was a kid and saw people worship TVs (as in garlands and the whole deal while the Mahabharata was playing) and now we have the casting out of television…. chaos and beauty, India’s constant bedfellows…. 🙂
True say, Nikhil. I was born in Porbandar (bred there for 2 mths a year for 10 yrs), in an area known as Wadi-plot (number 2, take right at veggie market). Gujarat is a pyro state. The ‘fire department’ is non-existant in Porbandar (so are its policies), this greatly aids the need to burn stuff. Need a yagna? Just do it in the master bedroom, don’t forget to open the windows. Want to burn some Kali image made out of poo? Here, use my courtyard! Effigies are not a novelty item there though they are great fun…
Having said that, it is too bad they’ve started burning TVs. In Porbandar, I am forced to have someone (usually my cousins) escort me around. Why? Because otherwise that mafioso dude who spends his time riding around town in his Tata Sumo might lift me off the street and noone would know. Or the elderly lady next door (distant relative a.k.a. Porbandar Broadcasting Network) might start up some nasty rumor about how I like to meet boys who buy me candy at Chowpatty. The list of reasons to not roam about town on my ownsome is quite endless. During my last visit, I gave up the fight. Decided hang around the house. So what did I end up doing? I watched Kyunki. Every day. With my Nani-ma. Every day. Ain’t NO SHAME! There. I said. it.
Alternate title : In which Abhi demonstrates that he lacks a sense of humor, and that he has no clue as to what a mob is or what what violence is.
This is the biggest issue in myhouse right now. Hubby loves the noise in the background so it is always on – and I hate it – especially when the baby is around. In India it is really terrible. The commercials are worse than the serials and they occup a great deal more time and space than here in the US. I agree. Kill the TV.