I'm just thinking aloud...

It is the age of reality shows. While the debate on how real these shows are continues, they seem to rule the leading channels, entertaining a huge chunk of the ‘aam janta’ who find pleasure in eavesdropping into the iron curtained territories of the likes of Big Boss and Big Brother.

Shilpa being at the receiving end of a ‘racist’ becomes as hot a topic as Saddam’s execution! Governments react, Leaders clarify, Nations empathize, Minorities roar, Apaches and Rushdies retort…AND, alongside, TRPs soar, Participants rise to fame, and Shilpa, epitomizing the ‘victimized Indian on English land’ becomes a small- time desi star- turned- international celebrity worth millions, overnight!

I did not think she deserved the attention she received. My otherwise patriotic self didn’t experience goose bumps on witnessing the Indian beauty bag the prize outsmarting her ‘white- skinned counterparts’ (Apologies in advance for sounding racist!). But I felt relieved that it was not as silly as the news that ran into pages, through weeks, about the Indian descent of Sunita Williams! It was amusing to note that the intellectual strata of the Indian society which dismissed Shilpa, as a cunning li’l Bollywood belle, who manipulated the show to her own gain, strained to trace the Indian roots of Ms. Williams to feel proud of the country! She doesn’t qualify to make India proud just because she carried samosas to space. She’s indebted to America for what she is today and since India has not done her any good, we Indians could spare the rhapsodies of praise for her.

Are some of us bitter towards Shilpa because she ‘abused’ her Indianness? Are we tending to be hypocritical because Big Brother is one of those cooked up reality shows that’s too mean for a ‘thinking Indian’ to waste time on? Well, isn’t it equally demeaning to glorify the estranged Indian roots of a successful woman and to unrightfully partake of her fame?