Friday, January 12, 2007

the gandhi controversy

yet another one, this seems to have become a norm, recurring every once in a while. Well to be honest, it is 'us' who add fuel to the fire in such contentious issues and then isn't it our right? to voice our opinion to take on whoever we may please be it Gandhi or Martin Luther King and as always there seems to be a very thin line in all that is done and its consequence. Sounds confusing already?

NDTV caused me to look it up, it ran a headline story in which the link somehow didn't seem to work, after a couple of vain attempts, i just gave up. Going back to the main page i realized the story itself was taken off! as quick as a cheetah darting across on the TV screen(if ever it did), was my mind playing tricks on me?. With the very few details captured from that one glance, I ran a search and somehow
it didn't yield any useful results. Fortunately or unfortunately my next news doze TOI ran the story. Gandhi on you tube

I did watch the so called offensive video, yes, it is offensive also i thought in bad and silly taste. The following is listed in the description section of the video
"The following video portrays Mahatma Gandhi in a way that many people feel is offensive. Please do not view the following video if you may be offended. Furthermore, I sincerely apologize for any offense this video has already caused".
Amazing!!!

A complete publicity gimmick, it is a wonder tho, this video was posted on Youtube in early December of 2006, and all this sudden frenzy, comments running into pages posted only since the last couple of days, a couple of news channels back in India telecasted this video! (what were they thinking)...another controversy!. Like i did, a whole bunch of people are going to visit his website, increase traffic to his site... with what purpose. Has he become famous?. Who can dwell into his mindset, into his aim. This controversy will last a few days and already there's talk of banning Youtube like they was the talk of banning Orkut when the 'Hate India' community sparked interest.
No amount of legislation is going to solve the problem if at all there is one and while the censorship battles rage on, this video is worth watching.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

madam you too added to the publicity to that video....

Roweena D'Souza said...

Yes, i did and that's what we all do...
I haven't made your job easier either!... search look up and add to the publicity if you may...

On a lighter note, this is why we are all on time, as their 'person of the year' ;- )

Anonymous said...

I really do not understand the people of India.. they do not have any sense of freedom of speech.. the same people will laugh on the cartoons of others (race, religion or country).. but when it comes to their own ppl. they start shouting and causing disruptions to their own property.. !! I feel that these so called 'Guards of Indian Pride' are the people who are letting Indians down...
In this whole word if someone made a video or picture and you start making hue and cry on that.. you don't even know who that person is.. or from where he comes... whats the intention.. and does it really matter.. these videos or pics are not going to change history and portray Gandhi as a rock and roll dancer.. then why to bother..!

Anonymous said...

Hey Rzd, what about a blog on the col d days in Houston??

Anonymous said...

Hey, what do you think about a blog on Shilpa Shetty controversy?.... :)

Anonymous said...

I think that there can be positive portrayals of Gandhi and inappropriate ones. Here is an example of a positive one:

http://pugettown.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/reincarnating-gandhi/