Even in Throwing Shoes We Indians Only Imitate

I have lost the count of number of shoes that were thrown at various public figures in India over last several weeks.

My 15-year-old son recently observed: Even in this we are copycats.

Wardrobes of India’s glamorous ramp-walkers began to malfunctions only after Janet Jackson incident.

The most popular programs on Marathi TV are often where young singers, even school-going kids, sing old Marathi songs, just imitating the original singers.

Muzaffar Ali (The Times of India, May 3, 2009):

“…The West invaded India with technology and ideas through multinationals and their hidden persuaders, the advertising agencies. With this came a new form of entertainment — the movies. Hollywood began to make inroads in the metros and small-town India and Bollywood emerged as a hybrid product — aping the West but with one eye on mofussil audiences. In the process, we created one of the world’s largest markets for the Hindi film product. This became more and more formidable, more monolithic, typecast, formula-based and predictable. It promoted obscurantism, violence, vulgarity, vengeance and ultimately, a male-dominated one-dimensional and over-the-top form of celluloid expression…

… First, we need to universalize ourselves. We need to find our roots.”



Artist: Jack Ziegler, The New Yorker, May 11 2009, Cartoon Caption Contest #192

My caption:

“Has a guest on his show kissed Jay Leno on the lips or had a wardrobe malfunction?” (A question that was asked on India’s talk show)