The
first thing that one notices when one enters Mahalunge village is its beauty. I
had visited it during the monsoon in 2011 and hence the beauty was doubled!
This board stood in the middle of the village and somehow it felt apt there.
And that’s when the Dish antenna
caught my attention ( towards the right of the picture) and then I knew I would
be carrying back not just memories but some really valuable viewpoints of
people who are away from the mad rush of the city but do have an idea about it.
They might not be familiar to the actual situation but they surely would have a
fair share of inputs to present (just like every human being!)
Me and my group of friends walked
towards the door of that roofed house. And that’s when I met Baburao Rane, the
head of the house. A not very tall man but with a thick moustache, probably in
his early 40s, there he was holding a can of Asian Paints and painting the
already neat and pretty walls of his house. He called his wife out seeing us
and continued painting.
His wife, Sushila Rane came out.
She was beautiful and slim- clad in a cotton sari with her jet black hair
secured in a neat bun. She smiled at us and asked us to sit. We gladly did.After a small chit-chat, we got
to know about their two daughters and a son and daughter-in-law who stayed with
them.
When Baburao Rane was asked
whether he would allow their daughter to go out of Mahalunge and work in a city
like Mumbai his answer was a straight no. “I want my daughter to study but I
will certainly not allow my daughter to go out of village and work in a city
like Mumbai where girls are misled very easily. Girls stumble and fall to
depths from where rising up again is not possible”, he said.
His wife joined in to say- “ We
have seen the film where Rani Mukherjee leaves her family and goes to Mumbai
from Banaras and then eventually turns into a tramp” (Laaga Chunari Mein Daag).
There are numerous such films
which show young girls leaving their houses for earning big money and ending up
entering cities like Mumbai & Delhi and taking one wrong turn and
endangering their lives.In the movie Fashion, the protagonist Meghna (Priyanka Chopra) leaves her
hometown (Chandigarh) and reaches Mumbai with a hope of becoming a supermodel but
ends up with her morality being threatened.
They could not be blamed
entirely. Could they be? People do tend get influenced by the negative aspects.
It would be incorrect to say that
there is no truth in such movies but it is not the fact that every village or
small-town girl who comes to big cities in search of a job or for higher
studies would eventually ruin her life by turning her way into a drug-addict
group or as a tramp.
This is where we get to see the ‘Cultivation
Theory’ raising its head in the scenario. Traditionally put - Cultivation theory in its most
basic form, suggests that television is responsible for shaping, or
‘cultivating’ viewers’ conceptions of social reality. The combined effect of
massive television exposure by viewers over time subtly shapes the perception of
social reality for individuals and, ultimately, for our culture as a whole.
Cultivation Theory has been described in detail here-
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/cultiv.html
Media plays an imperative role in
shaping the ideas of the society. A person becomes what he wants to become
ultimately. If a girl has fortified moral values then she definitely won’t choose
a wrong path and put herself in a situation like that. Where destiny is
concerned, it will ultimately take its path. But doesn’t mean we can’t let it
go haywire!
- Divya Nambiar
very true Divya todays society is easily influenced by the media.
ReplyDeleteits up2 us 2 make adavntage of the privilage ,there is always 2 sides on a coin.
Media influences. We sometimes don't have a control over what it does to us, to our minds and that's when Cultivation theory is seen to be practically happening.
ReplyDeleteThere was also a daily soap called India Calling which aired on Star ONE. It was about a middle class girl named Chandni who sets out on a mission to bring her sister (Mini) back to Jalandhar from Mumbai. Her sister had come to Mumbai in search of a job but later turned into a drug-addict.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, our saas-bahu shows apparently ignore that a woman can be something more than a diffident housewife, one who lacks confidence to deal with the cosmos outside the four walls of the kitchen.
Why can't we have daily soaps and movies that focus on how a woman can come up in life against all odds?
Thankfully times are changing. There are soaps like 'Afsar Bitiya' which do focus on women coming up against all odds. But then keeping in mind the need for some ultimate 'Drama' these shows do fade out of limelight and the effort goes waste.
ReplyDeleteAn opinion from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, our country side from the North to the South, from the East to the West, is on the hands of a few wealthy farmers. They have huge farmer houses and they produce many things.
But kilometres away from paradisiac beaches and dunes, in a place called Caatinga, the land is dry, and the seasons don't help at all. The cattle die of hunger and thirst. Once a day, people eat a mix of water, flour, "spiced" with a piece of cactus and a slice of dry beef, if they can find one. They don't have schools, or hospitals, or even religious help.
It didn't have to be like this. The small rivers that crossed that area were neglected. Wells could have been dug to stock water for the drier season.
Brazilians love soap operas. When a famous one is to finish the whole country stops to watch it mesmerised. Once in a while, the writers remember the Caatinga dreadful situation. They pick a hero there and bring him to "the big city" (São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro) where supposedly the conditions are better (There are: for the wealthier). The hero thrives, how I don't know.
This entices the dream of moving to the big cities to earn money. Add to this a huge number of illiterate persons, not only there, but in the whole country.
It brings floods of poor men, who left their families in search of a already dead dream. They'll end on the violent slums dominated by drug lords, receiving half of the obligatory salary or joining their forces to sell drugs on the street (easy way).
But the media goal is making money. Isn't that supposedly moves the world?
So, think about it: A soap opera that talks about a dreadful situation, showing a hunt that has no TV, no electricity, no food, sick people will have less advertisers than one where a plot is filmed on a huge, nice apartment, facing a beach, with a maid dressed in an uniform, cleaning pans, while the hero drives expensive cars? And the bad guy creates havoc on their lives.
Every company will pay a lot of money to have 10 sec to advertised on the propaganda breaks.
Let's not fool ourselves. Media is moved by money. They exert a sub-liminar influence on people. How to dress, to consume, to behave, to talk, so on and so forth.
Times are changing? May be. Once in a while, we will find a movie maker that will be courageous enough (and have enough funds) to show us the reality or a serious writer will retell in a fictional way a sad story.
It depends on children having the right and open-minded school education, on parents teaching their children morals and ethics and it depends on making the right choices, not always so easy.
Finally, it all depends on us to start these changes inside us and demand them from our governments.
P.S. - Sorry about the long comment, but after seing luscious greenery photo and reading the story told on the other post, I have to confess I got even more enraged with our corrupted politicians for destroying the beautiful country that Brazil could be.
Thank you for that bit of information. I am sure it adds another dimension to the post. It further deepens the meaning of the effects media has on the people.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Truth be told, luscious greenery exists in patches and somewhere down the lane, these very patches end up reminding us of how the earth once was and how we ended up destroying it for our own selfish deeds.