œThey say the world is spinning around; I say the world is upside down, sang the legendary Jimmy Cliff almost half century ago. The latest (December 26) issue of Forbes India features its third ranking of 100 ˜celebrities™ dominated by Bollywood stars and the mind-boggling sums they have earned for provision of lowbrow services. Among them Salman Khan who earned Rs.244.5 crore in the period October 2013-September 2014 despite his producers and himself being unaware that assault, battery and grievous bodily harm are criminal offences; Amitabh Bachchan (Rs.196.75 crore); Shah Rukh Khan (Rs.202.4 crore); and Akshay Kumar (172 crore). These top earners apart, the Forbes Top 100 list is replete with Bollywood producers, directors, singers and sundry others associated with Indian cinema. Yet the plain truth which should be self-evident to the editors of Forbes, if not to the lay public, is that because of their absurd storylines, logical inconsistences, and excessive histrionics, 90 percent of the estimated 1,300 movies produced annually by Indian cinema crash at the box office. The industry is kept alive only by the continuous flow of unaccounted money ” often from underworld sources ” and fantasy skin-show song-n-dance numbers lapped up by the sexually repressed middle and working classes. Business editors are surely also aware that for individuals of modestly above average intelligence, Bollywood films are a major embarrassment as they are for judges of international film festivals. In the circumstances instead of the unquestioning adulation showered upon the stars of this stuck-in-a-time-warp industry, the editors of Forbes would have rendered a valuable public service and educated the badshahs of Bollywood by suggesting ways and means to upgrade their movies, management processes and perspectives to capture a meaningful slice of the global entertainment market. The world is indeed, upside down. Grinch redux While the great leader traverses the country mouthing the mantra of development, he seems unaware of the activities of his allies in the sangh parivar, cutting the ground from beneath his feet. Moreover they seem hell-bent upon taking all the joy out of life ” and in the style of latter-day Grinches ” out of Christmas in particular. This perhaps explains why Union HRD minister Smriti Irani felt it incumbent upon herself to issue a decree to the principals of all 15,000 schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) ” the country™s largest pan-India school-leaving examinations board ” to transform Xmas day (December 25) into Good Governance Day, to be ˜celebrated™ by forcing children to write eulogies of BJP leader A.B. Vajpayee, the party™s first ever prime minister (1999-2004). Quite clearly the intent of this latter-day Grinch was to steal the joy out of Xmas. But to her dismay, the birth anniversary of Jesus Christ was celebrated by all Indians with great gusto and merriment. Likewise in garbage ” sorry, the garden ” city, for the first time in its history, the Bangalore Club (estb. 1868) was prohibited from serving a glass of good spirits to its upscale members for…
