Yeh Hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan!

A few days back I was watching some program on television, where youngsters of our country (college going, just out of college, and similar others) were asked some questions about ISRO. The questions were quite simple like “What is the full form of ISRO?”, “What is done at ISRO?”, “Why was ISRO in news few days ago?”, and so on. Surprisingly there was only one who knew what ISRO is all about, the rest, shamelessly, gave any weird answers that could have made ISRO founders and scientist die of shame. Much similarly, the “mobile-mall-multiplex” generation is also confused between 15th August and 26th January (aaahhh, even some of our politicians are confused about this), and does not know who is the father of our nation, and does not know our national game, and many such things required for national general knowledge. Awful!

When these same youngsters are asked about Rakhi Sawant, they jump up in joy saying, “O yes, I saw that how she slapped her boyfriend and what drama she did during the reality show”. Do you know that Harbhajan slapped Sreeshanth, and prompt will come reply - “ofcourse man”. What are you currently following, “IPL, what else dude” or “Saif Kareena affair, it’s hot ya” is the response. You know that inflation is at all time high, reaching 8%, “aaahhh come on, who cares”. We are all crazy about SRK’s item song, what is Shahid doing after the breakup, IPL matches, Sanjay Dutt’s recent marriage, Prince falling into something, some girl in a village eloping with her love and the gruesome incidents that follow, and all other nonsense that is of zero national importance or any significance for the self. Do we really need to follow why Rakhi Sawant cried or which colour sari Aishwarya is wearing or where some celebrity is enjoying his/her vacation or who is shopping what.

We might well blame it on the media and say they show it. Yes, may be media is feeding us with those news snippets but are we too so gossip hungry that we pay so much attention to all such types of news. It could be good blame game and well turn to be a chicken-n-egg story. It may be so that media is selling all stupid things to us but why are we buying it. We are in majority, can’t we ask for what we want to know and see? News channels can very well show awareness programs on child labour, female foeticide, incapability of our politicians or conduct talk shows or something similar. We all are addicted to watching star studded shows, same kind of award functions, peeping into personal lives of celebrities, and so on. We are enticed with the gossip material and enjoy it to the core, rarely caring about the important things that are going on around and which really would matter to us. Neither are we (and the youngistaan, in particular) trying to seek rational news or information nor are we asking anyone to help us with it. We prefer watching what Bhajji’s mother said after he slapped Sree than what Dr. Kalaam would have said about our space research programs, we love watching SRK hooting shouting than Tendulkar playing some master strokes, Hrithik Roshan getting a baby matters a lot to us than finding how many female babies were killed at birth…the list is endless.

Also read - http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/rajdeepsardesai/1/50980/twenty20-the-page-3-of-cricket.html

And by the way, ISRO means Indian Space Research Organisation ;-)