WHAT IF...A PRANK GOES WRONG??

As soon I finished watching the second episode of Channel V’s ‘Axe Your Ex’, I sat down to pen my thoughts. Firstly, this is a new reality show that Channel V has started. In this people spoil the day of their ex and the channel plans all the nightmares for the poor ex in advance. Today’s episode featured a boy who wanted to axe or spoil the day of his ex-girlfriend. The girl was a 20 something and surprisingly her roommate was involved in this dirty game too. She was firstly called to this mall where strangers would come up to her to give her presents and flowers. All this was set by the channel to irritate the girl. One stranger even gave her a bikini set and asked her to try that out, much to the embarrassment of the girl and all the people sitting in the mall where all that drama took place.

Finally, the worst prank played: An actor was asked to play the role of a psycho killer and scare the hell out of the poor girl, already tired and irritated. As soon as she entered her apartment, she spotted a dead body (fake, of course!) and then a new drama started. She was even made to do sit ups to apologize for something she had never done, all that on a knife point and on the public television. And in the end her ex-boyfriend and the channel crew came in and told her that it was only a prank! You should have seen her face; she was scared and frightened as hell and burst into uncontrollable tears while that stupid boy, the one who staged all this to take revenge was laughing all the way like a sadist enjoying torture of his victim to the hilt.

Now, I did not find anything enjoyable in this entire drama. What is the channel trying to teach us? Barbarism? Sadism? Bitchy tricks, or to laugh when someone is going through a rough patch? Or enjoy when someone’s day goes wrong? All this humiliation, that too on a national TV can be enough to drive anyone to take drastic steps. Who would be responsible if the ex commits suicide out of embarrassment? What if she gets a heart attack during that idiotic prank? World is round; what goes around comes around too. Enjoying somebody’s problems is not ethical and it is not right. What if a prank goes wrong??

Pati patni aur ‘woh’

Recently, while flipping through the pages of a women’s magazine, I read about a different category of ladies called as ‘home breakers’/ ‘man-eaters’, etc. These are sultry, intelligent and shrewd women, usually unmarried or divorced, who target rich and successful married men. As per the definition these ladies are ‘woh’ in a normal and happy pati-patni scene. I heard media accusing actress Shilpa Shetty of breaking a UK based businessman Raj Kundhara’s marriage, of yesteryears’ actress Sri Devi breaking producer Boney Kapoor’s happy home, of actress Sangeeta Bijlani being a ‘woh’ in cricketer Azharuddin’s happy household. And more recently, of actress Rani Mukherjee playing a ‘woh’ in Aditya Chopra’s life (btw Aditya Chopra has separated from his wife Payal) and if media is to be believed, Mukherjee is solely responsible for this marital disaster.

There is no dearth of such cases and I do not intend to count them over here but my point is- is ‘that’ woman the only one responsible? Is that married man an innocent child? If that woman, the ‘woh’ is responsible for barging into a happy household and is capable enough of shattering it, the man of the household is also equally responsible of letting his home break. Rather, he is the one who allows that ‘woh’ an entry into his life much to the discomfort of his partner (wife). He is the one who gets more interested in the ‘woh’ and succumbs to her charm, the one who decides to seek divorce from his lawfully married wife without any compunctions about leaving her and his own kids for a seductress.

Media and society tag such ladies with all sorts of nasty names, degrade them down to the lowest possible level and what not. Although this impact is much less in case of celebrities as obviously society bows down to the power and fame, but it is there and can be visibly seen. I do not say that such ladies are fictional characters; they do exist and are experts at seducing their chosen prey but there is a big bad world out there, and meeting such people is inevitable. One cannot blame an outsider for breaking his home. It’s not the power of seduction of an outside force but actually the cracks inside a relationship that lead to its complete crash. If any of the partners is weak or there is a lack of trust, their relationship needs but a little tremor to fall apart. People out there are not angels to let such opportunities go and give you a free counseling session as well. Rather, they are waiting and ready to pounce at the first chance or the most subtle hint. Finally, it’s the couple who call it quits and no one else.

Shilpa Shetty is blessed with a shrewd business brain. And on top of that a multi millionaire like Raj Kundhara is begging her all day and night for marriage. Leaving him (a golden opportunity) just because he has a wife and on all the ethical and moral blah blah definitely is not what at least Shetty can be expected to do (esp. after her Big brother drama). In such a case (s) I differ from the usual opinion and I find all Kundharas and not Shettys more deserving of the tag of a home breaker.

(PS: If you have seen the movie ‘Ankahee’ by Vikram Bhatt, u’ll get the point)