Shake Your Legs and Swing Your Hips with a Flash mob

A customary shopper in Chennai mall, or a passenger who waited in CST Mumbai would have popped up his eyes wide open seeing the sudden upsurge of energy in one or two people standing near him, as they started dancing suddenly for some blaring music that came out of the blue.  Yes, even I did the same after watching the first Flash mob video, posted on YouTube. But taking people like me to more and more surprises, Flash mobs, the recent web sensation, are now becoming the talk of the country, inspiring more and more people perform Flash mobs in their cities.  I was literally astonished seeing the video, but couldn’t stop admiring the group who managed to perform in CST, one of the busiest railway stations in India. The next moment I was all set to ‘Google’ about Flash mobs in India to find out the brain behind this interesting rather energizing act.  I was surprised seeing 23 year old Shonan Kothari’s picture!  Is that right?  A 23yr old girl made Mumbai dance ‘Rang De Basanti’ in CST, and made the onlooker join them and dance to joy.  Kudos dear friend!  That was a worth appreciating act to make people know that there’s so much fun and enjoyment in aping the right part of western culture. Do you know why?  A little research that I did gave me quite a lot of information about Flash mobs.  They may be new to Indian community, but are very common among the westerners. Leaving the embarrassment of dancing all on a sudden at a public place, Flash mobs won’t do any harm, but entertain you and those few people around by infusing a lot of vigor and vitality. When Indians can dance to almost ‘anything’, why not dance oneself to happiness?

Flash mobs, even though are preplanned, would look like an impromptu public celebration for the people around, when one or two among a group would come out and start dancing to some foot tapping numbers from well known movies. This spontaneous public celebration actually has no weighty messages to convey, as it’s just to entertain people. Once started, it’s often seen that many people soon join the Flash mob dancers and become willing to shake their legs too. A dance, though not professional looking, that appears apparently out of nowhere with just 1 or 2 people, growing to hundreds, then quickly disappearing, Flash mobs will always give the public a joy out of surprise.  If rightly used, Flash mobs can raise a lot of public awareness about some of the important crises that the world is facing. When it’s done in an entertaining way, messages would definitely reach public more quickly rather than making fruitless efforts to give a serious speech, or distribute some pamphlets that contain hard-to digest descriptions and thoughts.  So I think we should ponder on this idea and make wise use of such energizing acts, to trigger immense joy and enthusiasm in us and people around, along with spreading some valuable information. Hoping to see a Flash mob someday!

Can we all move on now, please?

Hostels are stays with the least internalized understanding. This ticks me off the remotest chance of viewing the NEWS telecasted every day. Minty tinny shows of channels are the preference of lots and hence our TV blinks and flashes every moment in the very futile effort of multi channel viewing, with thousands of choices other than NEWS. The precious chances I get in the dry time is often spoilt by the off- late art of (hypo) critical discussions and analysis of topics by channels, which needs no relevance of their such video audio conferencing. It’s pitiful to see how media exploits certain incidents and use them for making cheap publicity. These horrid discussions at times force me switch off the TV at the very instant over a reflux.

Why is the media so obsessed? I would say discussing such incidents again and again, and showing those unpleasant footages repeatedly on the television would do more harm than creating awareness among the public. It would only aggravate things, when people sit in studio floors and keep on repeating how someone got killed/harassed, etc; describing each and every scene of that, as if they witnessed it.

I think I should rephrase and say exaggerating instead of describing because that’s actually what they do in front of the camera. Media has a kind of eccentric and shameful obsession for such cases, and the madness often break-off the all set limit when some of the public goes along with the ride, discussing these stories in buses, streets, parks and in every bit of stride.

One’s outlook is entirely different from another. A topic can take the meaning of his/her choice, be it right or wrong. But the media is now trying to make the viewers take, believe and swallow the interpretation of the topic by the discussing genius, who is left to travel only through a guided path that the higher-ups have set for him. This is brainwashing because the methods that the channels adopt are overt and the controlled environment is very obvious.

It is one's moral strength that informs and orders his power of reason; and without it the mind becomes little more than a recording machine waiting for imprints. This is what one looks like while watching the television discussions that happen these days.

The media now think that people have lost the ability to relate the images of their own brains, without television intervening to tell them what it means. Almost every comedy I see in these discussions is about people making all wrong choices and all the errors of judgment possible.

We have the right to make choices about what we should hear, where to look, how we want to feel about what's going on. But nowadays are left with little choices and are forced to listen to all these bizarre discussions for no sensible reason at all!

The print media too are madly in love with such stories. I really don’t understand what’s there in the mind of journalists while jotting down pages and pages of articles about those ghastly incidents related to these people that we the commoners want to forget and wipe-out from their lives. Don’t you think they all should move on and report something else; as there are a lot more things other than all these in our country and in this big world.