"Celebrity Industry": How Indians Are Chasing A Mirage
This year, Indian e-retailers raked in Rs 15000 crores during their recent festive sales. "Fashion was the biggest in terms of the units shipped. Fashion was also the biggest category in terms of acquiring new customers with 63 per cent orders coming from tier II and III cities... We also saw 2 out of 3 customers using schemes like exchange, EMIs and bank offers." (From a report in ET.) So, Indians are being fashionable on borrowed money.
As Indian markets were freed up in 1991, and consequently the country started growing economically, Indian girls were very conveniently, at the right time, made to win world beauty pageants. And millions of dreams were born. Girls saw that you wear some skimpy clothes, strut around on a glittering stage, give some stupid answers to some stupid questions, and they give you millions. Film offers start raining on you, you wear designer clothes and accessories, and they pay you even for wearing all that. No chulha, no chakki, no saas, no dahej........ TV talent hunt shows chipped in. They went to small towns to find new dancing and singing stars. Everywhere dance schools, singing schools came up, gyms opened, beauty parlours became the sunshine industry. Just as every Indian thinks that he will get the government job if only reservation is increased or abolished, so every girl thought that she was just one-walk-on-stage away from being the next superstar. In reality, hardly a dozen faces put together in movies and ad industry succeed. And even they have to put very hard, back breaking work, have to make all sorts of compromises. Rest end up ruining their lives, fully compromised. That way, Sushmita Sens, Aishwarya Rais, Diana Haydens, Yukta Mookheys, Lara Duttas, Priyanka Chopras, Dia Mirzas, and Manushi Chhillars may have destroyed more millions of lives than millions of rupees they earned. This coincided with weakening of Hinduism. Hindus were mocking their own religion for decades, because mocking Hinduism was made a sign of modernity, evolution, broadmindedness. With Hinduism's teachings about the meaning and purpose of life absent from their lives, children truly turned feral. The circle was complete. "Homely" (though disused in meaning), made its exit from matrimonial ads, as even parents were no longer sure. Where and to whom you are born does decide a person's station in life if no efforts are made to throw off the script. But there are better, surer, safer ways to advance in life than hoping to break into the "celebrity industry." Persons in film, TV, and media industries are trained to fake emotions. Better they are at faking emotions, more successful they become. So they are able to hide the struggle and pain they undergo to reach where they are. Viewers only see them with greasepaint under arc lights, and think it is that easy. It is not easy. It is in fact nearly impossible. Success rate in "celebrity industry" must be the lowest of all. And the losers end up losing it all, literally in a gutter life. But as the sales patterns show, the mad rush is only growing. We abandon Sanatan Dharma and our culture, and the fate abandons us. And our children are consumed in the resulting fire.