Ram Jethmalani has courted controversies yet again. But on a wrong issue. The credit for this goes to the media - who by television culture is surviving or thriving a corruption a day.
Jethmalani's remarks that Lord Rama was a 'bad husband' should be taken in the spirit he is said.
In an interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN, the ace lawyer has rightly said that the media has lost its sense of humour too.
Thanks to the culture of the 'idiot box' - that is the television channels - the intellectual sense is just not around in media today.
I cannot agree more with Anita Pratap of the famous LTTE-Sri Lanka reporting in 1980s and 1990s that:
“The fallout of modern television coverage is that it has made journalism superficial, unnaturally fast-paced and entertainment oriented, and it comes with inherent, embedded distortions”. (Courtesy:
B G Verghese: ‘Breaking the Big Story – Great Moments in Indian Journalism’)
It is worth mentioning here that the Hinduism was never understood to be what it is today. Of course, the Sangh Parivar is to be blamed for making our grand Hinduism - one God religion.
Even in the past humour on Lord Rama and other characters of Ramayana have been around.
In Bengal, noted comedian the Late Bhanu Bandyopadhyaya had a satire record-player (audio) drama: 'Nava Ramayan' -- where jokes like Rama being a bad husband or Lakshmana being 'manly' only with women had surfaced.
Please note Bhanu died in 1982 and this was prior to BJP-Sangh Parivar era. We did not have Shah Bano case nor Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' was banned yet.... in other words, the country was more tolerant --- or in effect 'unmindful' to silly jokes or genuine jokes.
I am sure people never doubted Bhanu's faith in Hinduism, because that's never an issue.
This is new secular India and the media which will allow a so called great painter to paint Goddess Saraswati naked; but will make life hell for a BJP leader like L K Advani for saying Jinnah a 'secular' -- vis-a-vis one of his speeches as founder of Pakistan.
The same media latched on the remarks by Jethmalani....but forgot the joker in a 'crown prince' when he compared Kargil cnflict with FDI retail.
Here I am also tempted to talk about famous Bengali poet Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, who had described Lord Rama as 'bikari raghav' in Meghnad Badh Kavya.... In 2012, Michael would have been dubbed an ISI agent... over to you.
