Is CNN-IBN's FTN The Most Enduring Stupidity on TV?

Guy on the street says “over the years we celebrate it more for the sake of celebration than for any religious connotation”. He’s sort of explaining why Diwali is being celebrated. If you have an ignoramus anchoring a TV show you are bound to have a poor beat reporter (titled Smriti Advani) asking someone silly scripted questions. It’s a natural rule. Hinduism has been open to question and criticism down the ages. Hindu icons have also appeared in movie comedies and have been the subject of humour and jokes. But it takes an extreme moron like Sagarika Ghose to ask “Is the legend of Ram the most enduring in India, was Ram a bad husband”? (November 13). The journalistic-bimbo thought that would be a good question to ask on Diwali night on her show ‘FTN’ on CNN-IBN. I must, of course, mention that CNN-IBN and its editors have been traditional Hindu-haters. They fail to put up that disclaimer on their screen when they do shows like this. It didn’t occur to the Cacofonix that she’s asking the question after almost 6000 years of the Ram legend.  

In just the previous post (The holes in the mint) I talked about another extreme moron called Priya Ramani of Mint who has consistently abused Ram for no rhyme or reason. You know, I wouldn’t consider criticising, poking gentle fun, even ridiculing a bad thing but abuse and hatred for Ram or Hinduism seems to come naturally to these ladies. Sometime back the SocialGenius wondered if Ram was a “Divine encroacher”, so you know where she comes from. She also claimed she came from a devout Hindu family because her unkill joined the Ramakrishna Mission. I know of many of many idiots who say “geeze” in their conversations without knowing what that even means. It’s sort of hip. I am willing to bet these ladies say geeze quite often.

After the older guy, the beat-woman picks up a younger guy and asks him if Ramayana is relevant and she herself concludes “Ramayana is not so relevant for the younger generation”. What the younger guy did say was that Dusherra is like Diwali, when Ram destroys evil Raavan and Diwali is more of a family celebration. I know how the street specialists are picked by TV channels and so do most people watching the shows. And what triggered the question and discussions? Oh that Ram Jethmalani (RJ) said something like “Ram was a bad husband” for the way he treated Sita. Haha! That comes from a guy with two wives at the same time. Never mind. Does the comment of a mercurial lawyer, frequently hated by CNN-IBN for his defence of various characters, warrant a full-fledged discussion? No! But since it was something negative about Ram it’s like lighting the fuse for a bomb for the journalistic-bimbo.

Then the bimbo wonders if people know what Diwali is about or if they remember Ramayana or Ram’s story. No matter which faith you belong to in India it is unlikely that kids have never heard of Ramayana or Mahabharata. Being two epics it’s not possible for everyone to remember the epics from start to finish. Most remember the essence of the stories and probably many incidents from each. These epics have not just been widely discussed, told and retold in India but across many parts in the world. Ram’s life has been far more public and far more discussed than say a Gandhi or Nehru. So when Sagarika suggests Ramayan doesn’t resonate with the younger lot she is probably speaking from her own life experience. Maybe her parents didn’t tell her those stories or maybe her kids never heard those stories. Your guess is as good as mine.

So the discussion is all over a statement of RJ. Alright! This moron Sagarika is the same one who once interviewed RJ over his defence of Manu Sharma, the killer of Jessica Lal. Her absolute ignorance of law and legal procedures were total exposed by RJ. The bimbo believes if the media and public opinion holds a person guilty then no lawyer should defend that person. Trust me, there’s a moron like this born every minute in our media. The thrashing she got at the hands of RJ was far more severe than the off the cuff remark by RJ on Ram. He called her rant all “bullshit”. He called her a “chit of a girl” trying to advise him. Of course, she honestly carried a show on FTN with the question “Is Sagarika a chit of a girl & a load of bullshit”? You remember seeing that, don’t you? I do, and I remember 99.93% voters saying “YES”! The bimbo asks a lawyer if he is “defending the indefensible”. Forget the Ramayan, no school, no parents, no spouse, no unkill ever taught this extreme moron that every accused has not only the right to defence but a lawyer refusing to defend his client may be guilty of misconduct under the bar rules. If she can decide the case of Manu Sharma in her filthy studios you can imagine what trial Ram would go through on CNN-IBN in absentia. (See the RJ interview on Youtube)

RJ has often said quite a few things about others too. His most recent pearls of wisdom have frequently been on the one Great White Hope of our media morons; the one and only Rahul Gandhi. Yeah! He’s the same guy that CNN-IBN awarded “Indian of the year” in 2009. Even Ram doesn’t have such an award from that channel. So what did RJ have to say about RahulG? Let’s do a count:

* RahulG has black money stashed abroad (Here).

* RahulG is good for nothing! He is useless! (Here).

* There isn’t even a quotable quote from RahulG.

* RahulG is illiterate.

It’s unlikely RJ’s epithets for RahulG is going to end there. Now, how many times have you seen CNN-IBN or Sagarika Ghose have a discussion or debate on these statements of RJ? Ummm.. I counted and it is ‘Zero’. It’s only when the old man had something negative to say about Ram that CNN-IBN has massive orgasms. You see Ram pays for the TV channels through serials which news channels can’t carry. But RahulG’s Congress is a paymaster for CNN-IBN all the time. So I doubt you’ll see a discussion titled “Is RahulG the enduring fool of Indian politics”? Quite unlikely!

What these “secular and fiberal” experts and Hindu-haters consistently demonstrate is their total lack of understanding of Hindu culture itself. Unlike Muslims or Christians the Hindus aren’t bound together by religion. The greatest Hindu scholar of recent history, Swami Vivekananda, told his American audience that in the West a ‘woman’ means the wife or girlfriend; to Hindus, a woman means mother. He also explained that Hindus aren’t bound as a community by religion but rather by social customs and traditions. Holi (which for Priya Ramani is a festival of “molestation”) is a festival of harvest and thanksgiving celebrations. So too is Pongal. A deeper look will tell everyone that kite-flying on Uttarayan or Makara Sankaranti has nothing to do with religion. And the shocker, even a Hindu wedding doesn’t have much to do with religion. New Year among Hindus varies with regions. Not much of it has anything to do with religion. Diwali too, has precious little to do with religion. It’s a celebration of return of the rightful king to his throne, a celebration of the victory of good over evil, the lights symbolise new beginnings, knowledge and celebration too. The only time these media celebs find the need for light is when they support a candle-march for some protest.

Hindus worship and adore light. Ask any of the media morons what darkness is, I’m sure the best answer is you will get is “absence of light”. That isn’t really an answer is it? That’s like saying hate is absence of love. Hate is the outcome of lifelong prejudice born out of value systems built by families among their children. The ones who discuss Ram or Hindus with so much hate need to wonder what values they were instilled with. Their hate comes from prejudices built over years. It’s not easy to define darkness but you can tell darkness when you see it. You can tell the prejudices of our TV hosts when you see them.

Forget Ram and Diwali for the moment. The right question for people would be “Is CNN-IBN’s FTN the most enduring stupidity on TV”? That’s a poll they won’t conduct but we will. So do cast your vote in this poll on the top right margin of this page. Happy new year!