One with the dust
We live in an era where there are more statues of lions than there are lions themselves. It’s impossible to find a better metaphor to where…
We live in an era where there are more statues of lions than there are lions themselves. It’s impossible to find a better metaphor to where we are in the chain of time. And if that’s not sad enough, we are only busy destroying the flora and fauna under the guise of development. Any direction you look at, you’ll smell plastic in the air. We’ve created a monster for ourselves without even bothering to comprehend the extent of its claws.
Pathetic, isn’t it?
Anyway, the crux of this blog post doesn’t extent to the environment as much as to our species. Some fools gathered last week to bring down an old statue in Tripura. To a neutral eye, it was an aggressive symptom of mobism. There is no two way to go about it. As expected, there was hue and cry in media about the intermingling of electoral politics and selective history. Even those who weren’t Lenin fans — or knew what his first name was — suggested that pulling down a statue is an uncivil thing to do.
When such an incident happens, it’s always advisable to seek those who have zero emotions invested. (In this particular case, I am that person.) You can’t see clearly with too much blood or tears in your eyes. I will tell you how stupid both the sides look. One side is offended that a statue was pulled down whereas the other side feels that the statue represented a bloodthirsty character from the past. Ideally, the statue should have stayed on collecting dust and other heavenly accoutrements like bird-poop. Why? Because that’s exactly what statues are for. Be it of gods or mortals. My grouse during the whole conundrum rested with the utter lack of the party with the maximum skin in this game: sculptors. Not one media channel or publication bothered to ask a known—even semi-reputed or mini-famous would have worked — sculptor for her opinion. After all, that statue is a work of a person who gave his time and sweat to get the impression right. Art matters. But, no. Everybody else pitched in, from the politicians to the social commentators to social media narcissists, but there was no place for an artist at the podium.
Fortunately, we’ll move on to some other non-issue soon if we haven’t already. However, it’s worth noting how the idiots know exactly what needs to be done so that we can stay distracted from core issues worth addressing. With the way things are going with the so-called educated folks and the underrated lumpens, nobody will ever rise above the smoke. When TS Elliot coined the word ‘bullshit’, I guess this is exactly what he meant.