Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Of Swamijis and Media Scoops

Today’s news had more masala than we all could take. One of our very own, revered and respected swamijis had been caught red handed, on a video, doing it, in the ‘swamiji style’. With a once famous Tamil movie actress. She still looks pretty though. Matter of opinion, anyway.
The Nithyananda Swamigal is a well read guy, who spoke a lot of sense. My mum used to read him when she was in one of those ‘religious reading’ phases. I have never read his writings, or heard him talk, though. But he did have a lot of followers...all over the world. I don’t think you can have a lot of followers until you are really good, personally. The question is, really good at what? The point is that, he was a famous guy; now he is more famous than he can ever hope to be. And he has gone underground. Small ironies of life.
The thing is, I really don’t get what the big fuss is all about. Suddenly there is a lot of publicity, and believers who feel they have been fooled, go around his ashrams and thrash everything they can lay their hands on. I mean, come on! He is human, too, and well, he was just trying to get one of his basic physiological ‘wants’ fulfilled! He just looks less perfect now, less God-like. Why isn’t anybody looking at it that way? And that guy, he should be suing who ever placed the damn camera in his bed room for invasion of privacy, and not run into hiding.
Yeah, the previous paragraph is definitely a lot of madness. But hey, don’t we all have better things to do? Prime television time, and a news channel is broadcasting the entire video coverage for a full five minutes, into my living room! My mum is horrified/shocked, my brother roaring with laughter and is texting his gang: ‘Nityananda Swamigalin Thiruvilayadal-Watch Sun News, very interesting fore play tips’ . I was torn between disgust at having to witness near-porn with my mum and brother in the same room and appalled at the channel for having stooped so low to broadcast a catch. They even had an explanation: It is supposed to be a warning for the devotees to not fall into any more such ‘traps’.
Seriously, what crap, man!
I do understand that there is no business as lucrative as a ‘fake swamiji business’, and I also understand that whatever happens, our people, those who will themselves to be charmed by these characters, will always be charmed/harmed by them. There is nothing we can do about it. But that is not reason enough to broadcast porn (to those who have seen the footage, can I classify it as porn? I’m not very literate in that field, you see) into our homes. And yeah, it is a scoop. No doubt about that. (Infact, if an English news channel, one of those that thrive on string operations, had caught hold of this footage, they would have made enough stories out of it to last a week) But hey, let’s face it; haven’t such occurrences become common place now? If the guy was forcing people into it, yeah, he deserves the electric chair. But it was, erm, otherwise, in our man’s case.
What freaks me out is, if this is one famous man, what about you and me? Where is the entire ‘safe in the privacy of my room’ feeling? When I was a kid, and was told in school, ‘God is always watching you’, I did not like it at all. Now, I don’t know who else is watching me, because we are all just so vulnerable, and no, it is not a nice feeling at all.

16 comments:

Aishwarya said...

Hey !!! perfectly right.. its all over blown up !!

Sandhya Iyer said...

We the publicity scoop seeking junta! :D Hum nahi sudhrenge.. See, the point here is; you cannot be good all the time. Human beings are susceptible and vulnerable to emotions. It is invasion of privacy, and a median stunt.

Unknown said...

Ur statements r perfect da........

rajanicheruparambil said...

Total porn i swear..and really, what did they have against the actress? It was him they wanted to catch red-handed..why not blur out her face if they wanted to broadcast his private life into our living rooms anyway?? It was pretty darn cheap of SUN TV..very disappointing..
And does his personal life matter to me at all? not really..so please-keep the graphic details out of my face..believe me-if i really did want to watch it-id google it!

Eliminator said...

The case in point is Godmen aren't gods. Is being "celibate" got anything to do with being "religious"? But you do get godmen who force women. Still, privacy is privacy. Sun news, shame on you.

Anonymous said...

Swamijis indulging in such activities is not new, but I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. I do have friends who say that his teachings are somewhat good, so it is better to follow what appeals to us(the teachings), and not follow the teacher itself. It is now upto the people to reject the teacher, but not entirely reject the teachings(which is difficult to do, considering people wont accept something coming from a 'bad' person).
Looks like the swami finally gave in way to human emotions. Well, the people deserve to know about their 'swami' who is supposed to be godlike, following celibacy, but this particular way in which it is being presented is nothing but a publicity gimmick. TRPs they say, now the world will know about SUN TV.

Meow said...

Exactly.... feeling scared these days :P and it was one pakka blue film in SUN TV.... horrified to see such things in TV....

Peter Parker said...

1)
Stop watching news channels unless you want to see comedy,tragedy,drama,romance,porno all in one package eating up the main story, check the news editor's resume,wont be surprised if the requirement is movie screenplay writer's......grab a newspaper instead(n while u r at it go for the e copy ,save the trees)
2)Thank god that he switched off the lights...and now point a finger at urself and say bad bad for watching till that frame waiting for the 'story' to unfold (i am doing that )
3)
He went up coz of publicity and thats what brought him down...'privacy' is now nothing more than a word just an illusion.Pinhole cameras,tracking bugs u name it u have it..just go to ebay.I bet if i type US and Obama this blog will be tagged by some genius in NSA and relayed to FBI...

Roo said...

Btw, wat is the meanin of being good? People believe in these saints as they consider saints to be holy people, those who preach about God, those who are out of worldly bonds and pleasures !! I accept they are after all humans, but with a difference.. Else people would be prayin to u n me! this difference comes from the life style, approach and thinking of saints.. He is no saint who doesn't practice wat he preaches!

Ankit Ashok said...

I understand that you are appalled at having to watch a clip close to porn with your mother and brother, but all the media guy wanted to bring to your notice was the fact that such things did happen - and within the premises of a hallowed ashram.

And I believe the rage of people stems not from his trying to satisfy one of his basic needs, but from claiming that he had eliminated that need. I doubt if something of this sort comes up at Osho's ashram, it would be such a big deal.

gitanjali said...

@ Ankit:
Hey, hi again! And you got me wrong, man! I am not appalled at having had to watch a close-to-porn clip with my family; in retrospection, it was a rather funny experience.
It has more to do with the media..it cannot be simply labeled as 'sensitizing the public'. There are subtler ways of doing that. A still of the couple would have done, for people like us. And the video, for who ever was interested, could have been made available on the www. No sir, their intentions were more than that!

Ankit Ashok said...

If anything, their motive seems "altruistic" :P

Funny, or exotic - media was trying to deliver a service :P

gitanjali said...

@ Ankit:
Opinions :) we are each entitled to one. Peace :)

Vintage Obsession said...

I totally agree with your point of view. Lets leave his personal life aside and look at his teachings if he's letting his deciples down there its a different thing. What he does in his bedroom is upto him!

Iniyaal said...

Very true... Glad to see such sensible posts.

When two people willingly come together, it becomes their personal matter. Wonder why all this fuss in secretly video taping it.

Foolish of the public to believe that every religious guru should be celibate. We should think twice before lindly beliveing the godliness of god-men.

And even more foolish to keep watching 3rd rate scenes again and again with their family on public TV channels.

Preetha said...

I quite enjoyed reading what you had to say about it. It is a shame that godmen indulge in such behavoiur when what they preach is that they are at a higher plane than us mere mortals and hence the need to satisfy their sexual appetite is no longer existent. I undrstand why his followers feel cheated. Its simply because most of these people, at some point, aspired to be like him and hence placed him on a pedestal. When they realised that their idol was less-than-perfect and very-human, they felt cheated. Its only natural. But I also, like most of the commentators, believe that what he does in his bedroom is no one else's business. Sun TV could have displayed a little more class and shown an edited footage. But I guess they did what they had to do to get the TRP's.