Of Jumping on Bandwagons, Rajkumar Hirani, Charlie and Others

And then disappointment struck. I must admit though to being the architect of my own doom, falling prey to my lassitude and the charms of all the TV shows available for download on the internet. I sunk my face into the bucket of popcorn and dallied too long, for the next thing I knew, the burning topic of debate, the bone of contention that had captured the attention of the entire online community, my meal ticket, was no longer relevant. It was replaced by a new tragedy, one that prompted thousands of followers to admit to being Charlie without having any idea of the meaning of the words they were re-tweeting.

So although the battlefield and the warring factions were the same, the battle itself had changed. No more were Aamir Khan and Raju Hirani being denounced for bringing shame onto a glorious and ancient culture in their blind quest to rake in the dollars. Now there were cries about the terrible tragedy and how it would cause even greater retribution on an already persecuted faith and some people just not ‘understanding’ the true meaning of that faith and further maligning it. There were volleys from the other side about how such a thing was only inevitable and how these people never learned. And there were other groups of people who talked about how this incident had taken away attention from many other more barbaric events happening in the less-glamorous parts of the world. There were re-posts of the old cartoons from the newspaper and exclamations about how the attack had only served to increase its circulation and reach and cause even greater anguish to the faithful. And there were the customary arguments over the freedom and strength of the pen vs it being the servant of the powerful and their guns.

So my bandwagon-hopping plans were foiled. Thus thrown athwart in my devious scheme of narcissism, self-aggrandizement and excessive verbiage, I now sit brooding, wondering what else I can do to create a pandering, inane piece that serves to mildly both provoke and appease without really standing for anything. Or maybe I just did exactly that.

-  Nadeem

Nadeem is still trying to make sense of Life, the Universe and Everything now coming to the end of his wonderful MBA journey.  You can read more of his work at nadeemraj.insideiim.com

He's an amateur storyteller at 42shadesoctarine.wordpress.com

Drop him a line on Twitter or Facebook. He doesn’t usually bite.