The price of annoying the establishment is steep, as Khan knows, it’s perhaps easier to compromise — a simple answer to the question of why we don’t have our Meryl Streep.
A sure way of knowing when a superstar is about to release a film is by seeing how accessible he becomes. Voila, suddenly, there he (or she) is, popping up on television, in newspapers, on social media and, if you happen to be Shah Rukh Khan, at railway stations too.
The price of annoying the establishment is steep, as Khan knows, it’s perhaps easier to compromise — a simple answer to the question of why we don’t have our Meryl Streep
People gather at the Nizamuddin railway station to meet actor Shah Rukh Khan, New Delhi, January 24(PTI)
A sure way of knowing when a superstar is about to release a film is by seeing how accessible he becomes. Voila, suddenly, there he (or she) is, popping up on television, in newspapers, on social media and, if you happen to be Shah Rukh Khan, at railway stations too.
But Khan’s edit page piece in The Indian Express, excerpted from an interview to Alaka Sahani , goes beyond trade practice to answer a question heard this past fortnight: Why is there no Indian equivalent to Meryl Streep?
The reference is to Streep’s courageous, elegant take-down of Donald Trump while accepting a lifetime achievement award recently. It was a speech that prompted some in India to ask where were our conscientious objectors.
It’s ironic that Shah Rukh Khan chooses to answer the question because it was he who waded into the intolerance debate in 2015 with an interview to NDTV calling it the “worst thing” that “will take us to the dark ages”. It was a touchy subject at the time with writers and artists returning awards and the backlash against Khan was not unexpected.
BJP functionaries compared him to terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed and noted that his heart was in Pakistan. There was vicious trolling on social media and when someone started an online campaign to boycott his film, Dilwale, the actor quickly apologised.
So, it actually took a great deal of courage to take a stand seen to be critical of the government. But instead of answering the question why we don’t have a Meryl Streep, or ignoring it, Khan proceeds to bash everyone’s favourite target — journalists. Of all of media’s many flaws, he picks three: Journalists talk over each other, are in love with their stardom and create a “point of view”. He uses the phrase nine times in his article and why it is wrong is unclear, unless what he means is “hidden agenda”. The whole point of an opinion piece (like this one) is to have a “point of view”.
An article by Rana Ayyub on the fact that the characters played by Khan in his last three films have Muslim names is singled out as an example of “point of view” peddling. Ayyub’s article praises the actor for his “strong message” that “it is as cool to be Tahir as it is to be a Rahul”. It’s an innocuous article that seems to offend Khan who says he did not even know the name of his character in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Perhaps, but is Ayyub wrong on fact?
Khan is silent also on the controversy preceding the film’s release when Raj Thackeray’s MNS threatened to vandalise movie halls that showed it because it features Pakistani actor Fawad Khan. Film-maker Karan Johar then had to publicly proclaim his nationalism and declare he would never hire Pakistani actors again.
Some might call this a sell-out, but Johar pointed out that holding up the film would affect so many Indians who had worked on it. Who could judge him for that?
Media exists beyond TV’s shouting matches but Khan does not dwell on those at the frontlines of development or reporting out of Bastar or calling out sexism. A serious media critique might look at Paranjoy Guha Thakurta’s report on paid media and the collusion between political parties and media companies. Or much of entertainment media’s PR-driven coverage of the film fraternity. Or proprietorial oversight and the erosion of editorial independence. Or even media’s docile compliance with the new regime.
It’s a compliment when governments of the day abuse media because it means we’re doing our jobs. But at a time when so much of good journalism is under siege, it’s ironic that someone who has himself been subjected to a lynch mob seems to have joined another type of lynch mob. The price of annoying the establishment is steep, as Khan knows. It’s perhaps easier to compromise — a simple answer to the question of why we don’t have our Meryl Streep. But if everyone shoots the messenger, who will tell the stories?
At a time when opinion and ideology are sharply polarised, when a rant is what passes for news debates and large sections of mainstream media are under attack for a litany of sins including loss of credibility and openly aligning with one or another political party, when social media is patrolled by paid trolls and post-truths, a website that reaffirms what is good and decent in society might seem like an anachronism, but is in fact a successful growth story
Heard about the former railway clerk from Nellore station who put the kids he found begging on the platform into school? Well, one of them ended up becoming a scientist and another is now a professor.
What about the vet in Kaziranga who rescues orphaned and injured wild animals — including, once, a pair of baby clouded leopards — nurses them, and then sets them free in the wild?
The man who invented a bicycle that runs on water and land? The one who makes preservative-free edible cutlery from millet?
If you’ve been reading The Better India (www.thebetterindia.com), you would know these guys — Sarath Babu, Bhaskar Choudhury, Mohammad Saidullah, and Narayana Peesapaty. They are what the blog-turned-website calls India’s “unsung heroes”.
“Every morning we would read the newspapers that were filled with gloomy stories,” says Dhimant Parekh, a computer science engineer, and B-School graduate who founded the website along with his wife Anuradha Kedia, also a B-School graduate and civil engineer. “And yet, we found that right in our neighborhood there were amazing stories that never got reported.”
Seven years ago, Parekh and Kedia took it upon themselves to become the chroniclers of a better India where ordinary people do extraordinary good. The idea was to focus on positive stories and, in the process, inspire change, says Kedia.
By 2014, Parekh and Kedia had chucked up their jobs to work full-time on the website. Today, The Better India has, after a round of angel investing, 15 employees, a network of 600 people who pitch stories and ideas, and 40 million unique readers a month, says Parekh.
The positive news isn’t a new concept. One of the oldest good-news-only websites is Positive News, which also publishes a 25,000-circulation quarterly print magazine from England. Other sites include The Good News Network (lead story: Mall opens doors for stray dogs during a winter storm). Is this journalism? Not really because what you get is only a part of the picture — the pretty part.
And yet, it’s an important part. Why do these websites work? Partly it’s the reprieve from the general pessimism of mainstream media news where it’s the warped, the scandalous, and the unsavory that propels the ratings and the business.
At a time when opinion and ideology are sharply polarised, when a rant is what passes for news debates and large sections of mainstream media are under attack for a litany of sins including loss of credibility and openly aligning with one or another political party, when social media is patrolled by paid trolls and post-truths, a website that reaffirms what is good and decent in society might seem like an anachronism, but is, in fact, a successful growth story.
The Better India tells us that heroism is not dead. The people it profiles may not make headlines, will never be sought for selfies, and in all likelihood will never win even a local Rotary Club award; yet they are, nevertheless heroic in their single-minded belief that they can in some tiny way make the world better.
A website packed with good news has the effect of empowering its readers. A young visually impaired girl learns from the website about a photography club that is run by other visually impaired people and it opens up a world of opportunity for her. If they can do it, so can she. Someone else reads about a childcare center run by a 96-year-old freedom fighter in West Bengal and what follows is Rs 5 lakh in donation. Still, other stories create jobs for the differently abled, solar lamps for a village without electricity, and countless offers to volunteer come tumbling in. “People want to be a part of the change,” says Kedia. The website enables a belief that each one of us is capable of doing good.
In a post-Brexit and post-Trump world where growth slows, xenophobia rises and borders close, a website surges ahead in the belief that it can tell great stories and inspire change. Sometimes just knowing there’s a silver lining can dispel the clouds.
