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
