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What if we reflected upon our conditioning where “going on” and "keep going” even at great personal cost is encouraged, regarded, and even rewarded, right from early childhood?
What if: a BIG question all of us are pondering on.
I don’t think anyone of my generation could have been unaffected by the tragic news of singer KK passing away in Kolkata. For me, it was no different. I didn’t just love KK and his music. I fell in love with it. From his initial music, which was a part of my college life, to his later forays into Coke Studio, his music was integral to my playlist, especially when I needed a calming mixture of soulfulness and nostalgia.
And, I don’t think any of us are unaware of the equally disturbing news fragments. The ones that sporadically but consistently tell us about the obvious discomfort that the young icon (yes, 53 is young) felt, the alleged lapses by the organizers, the prevailing conditions.
So before we give into our ritual of reducing absolutely every tragedy to a social media thread, or a media circus and then letting it slip into oblivion, a few questions for us to ponder on:
So, while everyone is trying (and failing at it) to imagine a world without KK’s songs, I want you to try and imagine a world with these what ifs:-
What if we didn’t have such a strong culture of breaking rules, both at a society and individual level? We are so proud of this jugaad, ho jaayega and chalta hai mentality right? (“It’s ok, happens” kind of mentality!)
What if we reflected upon our conditioning where “going on” and “keep going” even at great personal cost is encouraged, regarded, and even rewarded, right from early childhood? What if we believed in stopping or pausing? Didn’t equate taking a break with quitting? Didn’t think of quitting as a bad word?
What if instead of creating a potpourri of a blame game throwing in authorities, politicians, conspiracy theories, we actually had a system for fact finding, and finally course correction?
What if we stopped broadcasting few second clips from his last moments (a public figure too deserves his dignity and privacy, especially in death), and those parts of the postmortem reports.
What if another senseless, possibly preventable death finally started to make us value human life?
The last one above is almost wishful thinking… will we become human enough?
As “Pyaar ke Pal” streams on loop for so many of us, I leave you with this: Don’t let the lyrics from that song be the only lesson from this tragedy.
Shalini is an author and a practicing doctor specializing in respiratory pathology. Her book Stars from the Borderless Sea (2022) was longlisted for the AutHer Awards 2023 (Debut category). Shalini was awarded a Jury Appreciation read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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