Dr KK Aggarwal
Padma Shri and Dr B C Roy National Awardee
President, Heart Care Foundation of India
If we see the Vedic philosophy time is the only constant which changes every time. The Yugas have changed from Satya, to Tritiya to Dwapara to finally to Kaliyuga.
The ashrams have to change from brahmacharya to grahastha to vanaprasthan and finally to sanyasa. Satwa has to change to rajas and then to tamas and rulers of the society have to change from Brahmins to Kshatriyas to Vaishnavas and finally to Shudras.
During rama rajya an ideal man was the ruler. He was called Maryaada purusha as his words, thoughts and speech commanded the same effect. The villains of those times were intelligent but death sentence was the only answer because of their bad deeds. Killing of Ravana from the hand of Rama was not considered a murder.
Then came the era of Lord Krishna who again killed Kansa and was considered the right decision by the society. Later in his life he counseled Pandavas during Mahabharata and told them the tricks of the battle and even conveyed when and how to speak a lie when it comes to war.
The world has seen a change in the rulers of the society from Brahmins (Rama, Krishna), Kshatriyas (Sikander, Muslims rulers), etc, Vaishnavas (British rule, industrialists are almost ruling the world today ) and Shudras have still to rule the world.
If you look at the mentality of the people that also is changing from satwa to rajas with some degree of tamas. Satwa indicates purity of mind, rajas aggression, tamas inertia and destructive mind. Movies reflect the collective mentality of the people living in the society. There was a time when people could not accept their hero doing any wrong thing. The end of the movie had to be hero either killing or winning over the villain. Slowly one saw the change in the pattern of the movies where the hero started playing the role of a villain but at the end was killed. The examples are the bad heroes role played by Shah Rukh Khan in Darr and Baazigar. Still people accepted heroes as villains but never accepted their survival at the end.
The time changed and the hero started playing the role of villains. In Aankhen two versions of the movie were made. One was for typical “bharatiya people” where Amitabh Bachchan at the end was caught by the police and the second for “Indian people” (people who treat themselves as western) where Amitabh Bachchan was shown bribing the police inspector and getting free.
The time is not far when in place of James Bond series the public will like to have a series of “Mr. Natwar Lal” where the hero will play only a negative role and will never die. In Don 2 Sha Rukh Khan is seen surviving at the end.
If we watch various serials the change is visible there also. There was a time when Ramayana and Mahabharata were the most accepted serials in the society but today’s serials have shifted to predominant rajas full of extra marital affairs, divorce, separations and conflicts. Some degree of tamas reflects in them in conspiracies and murders.
Perception to sex and violence has also changed over time. Today in movies kissing has become an acceptable feature by the society. With time the duration and number of kissing scenes are increasing. Time is not far when India will be on the lines of the west and will have no shame in showing open sex to the society through the movies or serials.
Only stray movies like Gadar will keep reminding us that we are true nationals of our Bharat and not India. We are proud of being bhartiya for its teachings of deshbhakti, truthfulness, satwa, forgiveness,love, affection and welfare for all.
We may not be able to change the society but atleast one thing we can do is to change ourselves and atleast be proud of being a bharatiya and take out from within us the pseudo Indian culture.
