Tolerant, are we?
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I will always remember the first time I flew. I remember it as if it happened yesterday — even though it was actually a week or so ago.
Ten minutes into the flight, I had decided I was never going to fly again. I hated the heights and I hated looking out of the window. Why couldn’t everyone just close their windows? I had closed mine!
There is a joke in the movie Hollow Man that involves Superman, Wonder Woman and a certain invisible man. I understand it is amusing but I have never quite been able to laugh at it. There are some things I don’t make fun of (mostly) and Superman is one of them.
Then there was this utterly idiotic video of Bapu doing a pole dance. I didn’t find it funny. However, it didn’t bring about indignation. Many however wanted heads to roll and sites to be banned.
Day before, there was a video on Youtube that showed an actor playing a panicky Dr Manmohan Singh in a spoof talk show. I have seen worse in NDTV’s Gustakhi Maaf (which, I always thought, was a beautiful TV equivalent of the newspaper edit page cartoon). But some overzealous sycophant pointed this out to the powers that be and the dinosaurs now seek to ‘ban the youtube.com website’.
Funnily enough, India TV, who aired the youtube video (seemingly concerned about the liberties the ‘youtube website’ was taking) pays rotten stand-up comics to do their thing on air. Much of this comedy pokes fun at politicians as well. If you see what the bother is about, do let me know. What really got to me was Rajat Sharma’s self-righteous rant about having to honour such and such and blah and blah.
But I still don’t feel compelled to ban any of these ban-happy people. They are free to honour (or pretend to) anyone they like in whatever way they like. They are even free to tell me what they would like me to do. I treasure my discretion. I will take great pleasure in asking them to take a hike.
I think we take tolerance too far. You let braindead bureaucrats take charge of the things you watch (or even don’t bother watching) and you slip that much deeper into the tunnel that leads to 1984. Some things call for intolerance.
But I began thinking — is tolerance a lie that we keep talking about to find release from the despair of conflict? Honestly, If you know you are right and you know the other person is wrong, avoiding conflict becomes quite an effort.
The answer came to me during an evening snack gathering. There was the vegetarians’ section and the non-vegetarians’ section. And they were smiling and chatting with each other while they ate their respective paneer rolls and lamb sandwiches. They didn’t seem to hate each other (far from that actually) in spite of the fact that the vegetarians obviously thought killing animals was wrong.
I deduced that tolerance is not a lie. The deduction itself might be inconclusive, but its a little hopeful answer that came from somewhere I wasn’t expecting it to and I am thankful for that. Most places where one seeks answers seem overrun by zealotry.
Oh… and I will fly again.
Posted on Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 at 11:26 am and filed under people, essays.
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I absolutely loved this post! Keep writing.
Hey there,
Tolerance…yes, I think the word is misunderstood and we all are now playing a passive role in the communities we live in. that includes instances where someone does not let me watch ‘Water’ or ‘Parzania’..but I stay quite and wait to buy a pirated CD. I agree when you say “If you know you are right and you know the other person is wrong, avoiding conflict becomes quite an effort.”…I think I can relate to that!
But I disagree with one thing… “vegetarians obviously thought killing animals was wrong.”…
I am a vegetarian but its ONLY because I do not enjoy the way meat tastes!
Nice post..will return for more
Shalini
Hey Wit! Thanks.
Hi Shalini! Let’s just say I was talking about the vegetarians who are vegetarians because they think killing animals was wrong. Savvy?
Oh fuck no! No way man. Change the look. First off, there’s the pink. Then there’s the fact that even if you take that away the look is too industrial and harsh. It does not work. Change the look!
Manmohan Singh spoofed? I think he should be spoofed, made fun of and given a royal kick in the ass. Hes the most cowardly politician our nation has ever seen. If it wasn’t for the industrial successes in the past few years, I am sure this puppet would have led our country down into the drains.
He’s useless. So sue me !
-PeAcE
–WiTh
—GuNs
Hey, glad to see you’re using Versa. Be sure to check out the latest release.
And I love your writing. You’ve just been added to my daily rotation.
Sathe: You didn’t have problems with earlier looks. You hate this one only because its black. Racist!
Guns: Easy man! Heart attack coming. I think everyone should be spoofed. It’s good fun.
Mertz: I love your design. So we are square.
dude - I love this design - from what I see you have a thing with black
BTW - check out my current template! its very similar …
hmm… the new look ain’t bad, but a little too roomy maybe? i dunno… maybe… but there’s still a bit of pink in there!
I like this template not the black one you used before this…it was too…’pink’(???)
when is the next post?
I liked the black one
But I think when its fixed I will use it on my group site.
I like this one too. Some maintenance goin on in mypajama.com headquarters. Posts will be up soon.
The trick with flying is like this:
Stand on a rock and jump off it. Aim for the ground, and miss it. If you manage to miss, your flying. The probablity of missing the ground is pretty low, but if you dont put your mind to it, you could possibly achieve it.
Keep trying and be tolerant about it..
The above idea has been borrowed from “The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” and must be given to Douglas Adams
Sanjay: Welcome. Adams was a genius. I have always admired his attitude towards the impossible.
Hola there!
Displayed your blog link on my bloggie. Hope it wont bother you.
All well at the head quarters?..hehe
Regards
Shalini
The first flight is quite a high (literally and metaphorically). My first time on a plane was in class 10. Family holiday to Srinagar and Leh. I can describe the aircraft and the people sitting in it like they were in front of me right now.
And India TV, do people actually watch that?
Shalini: Much obliged. And makes me feel guilty coz I don’t have a blogroll. Hope you don’t mind.
Tanmay:
India TV is only too acutely aware of the fact that it can get away with things like that because people have that opinion of it.
Yeah, I guess you’re right.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Russell Peters, but he’s doing a show in Mumbai. Get yourself the best seats and go watch it. He’s funny as hell.
And I’ve put a link to your website on my page. Hope you don’t mind.
Tanmay: Thank you thank you. And I am a big fan of Peters. Thanks for the tip-off.