Not the just film fraternity, the whole country was saddened by the passing away of veteran actor Shashi Kapoor. Soon after he took his final bow, the entire social media was flooded with condolence messages from all four corners of the globe. However, the team of a well known channel was so caught up in the rush that they confused Shashi Kapoor with renowned writer and Congress MP Dr. Shashi Tharoor. The goofy name mix-up didn’t go unnoticed on Twitter. Soon the channel became the butt of all jokes and was trolled left and right for the blunder. In his typical self, Dr. Tharoor too took no time give the wittiest response to the blooper which was first noticed and tweeted by ANI’s Nishant Singh.
Though the channel apologized to Dr.Tharoor later, and wished him good health, the mistake once again goes on to prove that Indian media will never get rid of its “Shashi Tharoor obsession”. His name is so ingrained into their brains that they hastily jump in to affix the surname Tharoor to anyone named Shashi, only to make themselves the laughing stocks of the nation. There is a constant display of toxic rush to make wrong judgments and air malicious allegations against the trailblazer parliamentarian from Trivandrum. What surprises me the most is his dignified and composed responses to voyeuristic media reports with manipulated and malicious claims against him. He is patience personified and wonderfully polite.
Print or visual, our media houses leaves no stones unturned to shamelessly peek into every single moment of Dr.Tharoor’s life, political or not, and make a lurid headline out of them in the name of freedom of press. It isn’t unknown that in addition to this gossip-mongering section of the media fraternity, both opposition and some of his fellow party members too dislike him for reasons best known to them. They work as a team most of the time, play multiple roles and become the journos, witnesses, lawyers, judges, and the jury, declare their “verdicts”, make him the villain, and show him in bad light every single day, with absolutely zero evidence to substantiate the reports and comments aired. This is nothing but a TRP-driven witch hunt.
I am yet to figure out what exactly is making them so uneasy and uncomfortable. Had he been the kind of person that most politicians and scandal-mongering journos try to portray, he would not have become a Lok Sabha MP twice over, both when his party won and when they lost. Despite being called an elitist, Tharoor won real elections both the time and never took the “shortcut” Rajya Sabha route to become an MP. Moreover, one cannot easily ignore the reluctant admiration that most of these dislikers have for Dr. Tharoor’s oratory skills and the free flowing broad knowledge, for the widely –read books he has written over the years, and the fact that he was always confidently avoided or walked away from all political traps.
Despite lauding for his speech at the Oxford University or for his recent literary works that went on to become the best sellers, both journos and petty politicians never think twice before starting vitriolic and disdaining attacks against him just to grab headlines and get attention. When will our leaders and media houses get rid of their despicable obsession with making sensational and superfluous comments and airing spiteful news reports against Dr. Tharoor? Grow up guys! Whatever the controversies or allegations are, let the law enforcement officials and judiciary exercise their duties and come up with their verdicts. We needn’t take over their duties. So, get over your unhealthy obsession to malign Dr. Tharoor and instead focus on relevant and must-talked-about issues that our country is currently dealing with.
