You know, I am weird, at times extremely so, when I stare at people in busses or in public places because the face or the personality pulls me strongly towards it...I want to know what this person does when he or she is not playing the "role" of a "perfect whatever" that we are all expected to be. What does the person eat? What does he or she like to wear? What are his or her interests? But most importantly I want to know if a situation comes for him or her to stand up for something, would the person be able to do that? Because that is what we are missing nowadays, almost in every sphere - The culture of standing up for something, the culture of expressing an opinion, the culture of having an opinion!
Oh sorry, perhaps I am wrong! We DO express our opinion now...and we have a huge platform - the Social media! Use Facebook, use Twitter (Sorry I am limited to knowledge about just these two) and you will have a following that you never thought you could have, had you spoken about it somewhere!
Having an opinion is fashionable. You need to express your solidarity with everything from the Indian Economy to Priyanka Chopra's disrespectful dress while meeting the much revered Prime Minister of India. And we have to either be on this side or on that - there is no space for a moderated view of things.
In fact, expressing an opinion has never been easier! We have a huge list of topics ranging from economy to culture to movies to religion to just about anything under the sun. All we have to do is to select the correct category and then take our pick from a spread of "opinions" thereby determining our stand. If you are worried sick about the credibility of these option of "opinion" offered, rest assured. Each topic and their corresponding "opinion" are carefully prepared by specialist groups of people employed to offer the most comprehensive set of "opinion". Now since these are well articulated and supported by visuals and videos, they are sufficiently equipped to influence and convince us about the absoluteness of our choice.
So, we have to have an opinion about everything starting from Ryan International School to how handsome Justin Trudeau is! We have a say about whether or not Deepika Padukone should be beheaded for playing a role that is supposed to be maligning the image of a fictitious queen from some part of Rajasthan. We have a say in why Mamata Banerjee wore chappals while walking down to the Vatican while Mother Theresa was being anointed a saint. We have a say about whether or not Sonia Gandhi deserves to be a politician in a country she had internalised years ago. Hell, we even have a say about whether or not Rahul Gandhi is matured enough to be a politician!!! We have a say about how India could have played the Sri Lanka matches more tactically to manage and win all of them, without playing a single match in all our lives or never having stepped into a field. We have a say about how to handle the "enormous amount of black money" that has been generated thanks to DeMo(di)netization.
If there is one question that bothers me about all this "say" on social media, it is about the ability of regular people like you and me to "think"! We might all be running against time, but thinking is perhaps not so dependant on time after all! Could we actually think about "forming" an opinion, not picking one from a tailor-made set of options? And most importantly, could we stop being rigid about the "opinion" we select to the extent of being fanatically inclined to trash all other views. Could we actually try and be a bit more "open" to others' opinion? Could we try to be a bit more humane?
