Of Live Ammunition and Item Bombs

There are a lot of deadly objects moving around the country and we don't even know it. Ammunition, supposed to be scrap from war torn countries like Somalia, Iraq and who-knows-where turns out to be 'live' and is turning up all over North India. Very smugly I thought that we were safe here. And a whole jeep-load of scrap (thankfully rusted) turns up in Navi Mumbai yesterday! Very worrying to think that you could be standing next to a truck/tempo full of shells that could destroy a lot more than bodies if it turns out to be more than just dead scrap...And customs is still searching........

Worrying indeed to see a show called 'Item Bomb' where girls in their teens or barely out gyrate in an attempt to imitate a pole dance, try to be sensual, but end up looking desperate and not really succeeding in being enticing. The winner ultimately was a girl from Belarus, who gets a chance to dance in a movie with Sanjay Dutt, even though she has no clue about who he is. As for the rest of the girls, they go back to their homes, to their intent watching of TV and practicing dance steps for next years contest. Being an item is now a career option.

Talking of new career options that are now available, it seems that being on telly, in music videos or in filmi films is the latest rage. Even children are not spared by the gusto to bare all and get a chance to see yourself on screen. Or perhaps it is the subliminal parental wish to put onto your children your own dreams and desires..... I know of a ten year old girl who is spending her days worrying about what to wear for Navratri, auditioning for local garba, debating on tattoos...Her parents give her an apple for snacks (which may not be a bad thing), ensuring that she grows up to be as thin as her elder sister (which may not be a good thing). At ten, this girl is concerned that her arms are 'fat' (and she's reed thin). She's concerned because her sister teases her that she'll not be thin. Her mind is on the clothes she wears, on the latest video, on the outfits worn by an actress in a new release. At ten, her life revolves, almost completely, on making it to the screen - big or small doesn't matter. There are Unit Tests around the corner, but that can wait. Being on TV is more important.

Star News has had an expose over the weekend on their show 'Red Alert' where they claim to have exposed (pun not intended) top models/actresses in prostitution ring in Delhi/Mumbai. Undercover (oops!) journalists kept changing cell numbers and identities over the months of talking with pimps, agents, the women themselves. The more well known the face, the higher the rate, sometimes going into lakhs for a popular telly serial actress.....No faces were shown, not yet anyway - the Red Alert continues next week, either a gimmick to increase tv ratings or a very possible recount of a world that's indeed out there. Easy money to maintain a lifestyle that determines your value by the way you look and dress. The lure of fame is too strong to resist earning thousands/lakhs in a few hours - money that could get you into a serial/movie, which in turn can make you a darling of the nation.....The lure of fame is too strong..

This then is the new face of India. Where girls (and boys) from small towns, little cities and big metros will do anything and everything for their fifteen minutes of fame. The innumerable TV contests for India's best wannabe actors leaves many broken hearts in the winners wake, but the chance of being up there, of making it in front of the TV cameras and being watched by the nation (and hopefully, a Bollywood director) makes it worth the elimination. There will be more of them next year. Younger sisters, brothers, cousins of today's wannabe's sprouting all over our TV sets like their life depended on it.

And really, for most of them, it does.