Three things defined 1975.
-- Making of the film 'Sholay'
-- Emergency by the Congress party
--- And assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh.
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| Thakur giving 'assignment' to Jay-Veeru duo |
Now 50 years since then -- the world has changed and so had Indian subcontinent as a unit, India/Bharat as a country and also the media world we are in.
Let us break things one by one -- 'Sholay' left a long lasting impact on youngsters of my era -- in every sense practically. Some of it got linked to those teenage days - when we knew --
** who should be called 'sheru ki maa' (Dharmendra tells Amitabh - "I have already thought how I should I address Basanti (after marriage)".
Well - every young man must have rhymed their children's name smartly enough !!
Then came a time - I was in Delhi ... Parliament Street and the 'MEDIA' organisation -- where "trust" did matter a lot. Just a few weeks -- and some of us discovered and re-discovered .... how the world moved !!
Here came -- angrez ka jamane ka jailor (One senior editor/ex-manager declined to use computer) ... He would punch his stories/articles on old Ramington type writer and send it to the creed room to be put in 'software' format.
Time lost was precious !! Energy lost -- did not matter much as there were many office-comers who had no work. And many years later -- some of them played guards in the generator rooms.
The relevance of workforce in Indian news agencies always haunted me and left me puzzled !
Journalists were meant to be manipulated as non-journos would thrive. Can journalism really grow up ?
My friend Sanjay was a flying bird from Lucknow. We became friends and one joke used to be around --
"Ek galti ki Thakur sahab hamey Delhi dikha di ...
*** Reference - when musclemen planted by Thakur (in the film) fight and get thrashed by Jay and Veeru -- Sanjeev Kumar says "meine dekha tum logon ko yeanh bulake meiney koi galti nahi ki ... (I was not wrong in hiring two of you to get hold of Gabbar Singh).
Our story was - the 'training' in Trust institute - close to Parliament building - coming to an end and on the last day 'Kashmiri thakur' would tell us - "Congrats.... go back to your centres (I/blogger was supposed to go back to Kohima)...
You all did well, and I was not wrong in calling you all here with the job and the training".
Sanjay and I would say (jokingly) .... never to his face of course -
"One mistake you did sir, you showed us your head quarters and that's your greatest weakness".
'Mediocre and below-mediocre' dominated the scenes and Sycophancy - at times much stronger than the Congress party - thrived.
I even did a piece - Flattery works !!
My days were naturally numbered !! Sanjay also quit and after many many years ... our common Mizo friend Ruata was also out !!
It is not to talk about one trust-institute only. Many years years later - in another news agency in Nodia region - I hit upon another 'angrez ke jamane ka jailor'. He would decline to change himself. But he had height of superiority complex.
Actually he had full of inferiority complex and thus he would discourage hardworking mid-ranking colleagues stick or do well. jai swamy-narayan ... no he did not survive for eternity as well.
There would be many things written in coming years on journalism. So nothing more to add today except .... my gratitude to those from whom I learned a lot.
I found several highly talented and efficient editors and senior colleagues in news agencies (all three) and elsewhere -- from whom I continued to get support, advice and occasional thrashing !!
But, yes -- 'Sholay' and the dialogues remain iconic and close to one's heart and I can apply them easily in day to day life to the extent that the Marxist father-in-law's daughter at home also knows about my fascination about the 1975 block buster.
Occasionally I tried teaching her the art of using pistol ... now, oh dear -- stop imagining !!
2019 - Two Indian scribes and a Pakistani journo posted in Beijing (centre)
Now comes Emergency :
The Congress party that imposed Emergency and suspended fundamental rights of citizens and scribes are these days talking more about the Constitution.
No wonder - people of India are not much impressed by the children of dynasts trying to influence voters mind. The latest episode from the 'chief' of nepo child of Indian politics is hilarious.
But others -- pampered children and nephews etc are not seeing all that.
Columnist Tavleen Singh has a mild teaser -- "... it is ridiculous that 40 per cent of our MPs are dynasts. This time, as I watched them march towards the Election Commission shouting slogans and behaving like schoolchildren, I noticed that it was as if they were on a family picnic instead of making a political point.
This family picnic mood was heightened by the presence of the mummies and daddies of some of the sloganeering younger ones."
In the ultimate, as I see the voters are happy with Narendra Modi and more so after Operation Sindoor and a Trump-directed Independence Day speech on August 15.
Over to Bangladesh
On August 15, 1975 -- the founder of the country Mujib Rahman was assassinated in a military coup.
In 2024-25, a supposedly US-stooge Yunus is in power in Dhaka.
The new dispensation has redefined the history of that nation -- born typically with Indian help and paradoxically a large number of Hindu and Muslim Bangldeshis keep coming to India --- adding to our own national, economical and social problems.
Politically - they are vote banks and 'precious' to Indian Sickularism gang !!
The tragic fable of Bangladesh in 2025 is well summed up in an article in 'The Telegraph' -- published from Kolkata--- where Bangladeshi citizens and film stars are having a gala time .... as a "price" India has to cough out for its minority appeasement politics.
"There is a loss of faith in the interim government but, at the same time, a refusal to go back to the Awami League. And hope, but no real conviction.," - the article runs.
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| Blogger at Mujib memorial - 2017 ::: Now all must have been destroyed !! |
“The interim government’s ban on all activities of the Awami League inherent to the functioning of a political party, including public communication, gatherings, and its registration, mirrors the repressive tactics that were used by the very regime it claims to reject,” Smriti Singh, South Asia regional director of Amnesty International, tells The Telegraph Online.
No visible action was taken by the caretaker Govt when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Dhanmondi-32 residence was demolished by a mob in the presence of men in uniform.
The rape of a married Hindu woman in Cumilla in June 2025 brought into focus how insecure minorities are in Bangladesh.
A sharp rise in violence against Hindus since the deposition of Hasina in August 2024 has raised serious questions.
Pathetically, the pro-American regime has created an ecosystem that will only add to the goondaism of Islamic radicals.
The Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), a pro-Caliphate transnational radical Islamic outfit, had played a key role in the ouster of Sheikh Hasina and are now seeking the pound of flesh.
JMB is also hyper active and the presence of over 1.5 million Rohingya refugees, could be easily recruited by terrorist groups.
While the US sleeps and China is busy making inroads -- things are more than serious for India in the eastern front.
ends
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