The Biggest Silver Screen

The biggest stage and silver screen in real life is politics

A place where people change their appearances, characters, their principles, do cameo, villain and hero roles is a theater or silver screen, right? Politics takes these changes in people to the extreme, as the theater of the absurd!

That way politics has become a place where players skilled in acting can become good leaders. And so it is natural that silver screen becomes a stepping stone to political careers of people from Ronald Reagan to Vijayakanth all over the world.

The latest film running in the Indian Silver screen is the common man Aravind Kejriwal fighting against  Villains Congress and BJP. Though these villains fight among each other to gain supremacy over people, as ‘Dadhas’ fight to gain control over an area, they do not have any distinction between them. From Capitalism to Corruption, they are made of the same batter.

One of the henchmen of these Villains, SK  publicly threatens Aravind, that Aravind would not be allowed to return to his place (alive) and is ready to see blood now.  SK till other day was a very decent, ‘oxford educated’, ‘erudite’ politician, who suddenly removed his coat and shirt and started thumping bare-chested.

It turns out that SK is actually a small goon who is typically seen fighting the hero first, getting beaten up and giving way to more powerful ones as in a typical Bollywood Masala film. He seems to be protecting the ‘Mr. Dam Ad’, the most villainous character seen till now.

Whether “Dam Ad” turns out to be the real villain of the piece or a cameo masquerading other real big villains remains to be seen in the film. But till other day “Dam Ad” was ‘one among others’.  In just two scenes, he became super-rich and that was faster than Rajni becoming rich in the film Annamalai.

Another set of villains that poor Aravind is facing is the Gadkari who has cheated poor people of their lands and used resources of the people for his own lands. Currently Gadkari and Damad are villains fighting each other, but as the story moves, they may come together to fight poor Aravind.

Gadkari was masquerading as the good old comedian on the side of the common man hero. Suddenly he ended up as the villain piece and has turned fully against the hero.

Like a typical Bollywood hero who beats hundreds of villains with bare-hand, Aravind is facing a huge villainous crowd of current corrupt politicians.  If he is going to beat this crowd away is yet to be seen. In any case, he is already a Hero, atleast for the media.

The latest film running in the North America is two ideologically similar friends from two enemy families fighting deadly with each other. Mitt Romney who acted as a democrat in his career as a Republican Governor fighting Democratic president Barack Obama.

Though the principles and policies of both (Mitt Romney and Barack Obama) are similar if not exactly same, they are fighting for the prestige of their family than the principles.

Frankly Mitt Romney is more a right-wing democrat than Republican. Though he has changed his principles and stances to adapt to his family now and fight in the political theater, left alone I believe he is the left extreme of Republican spectrum, the opposite pole of Tea-party.

When people switch everything around them and inside them, what else it is but acting? And this acting happens only to gain power by hook or crook.

A Democracy is about people electing their own rulers. Rulers need no other qualification except be able to inspire people.  This is used by politicians who act in front of people as something other than themselves just to gain power.

Then what is common and different between a Cine actor and Politician?

A Cine-actor need not be an economic expert, need not be  a social reformer, need not be  an accomplished administrator or genuine public servant.  But actor acts as all of these before the camera.

What about a Politician? A politician also acts as all of these in front of people.

Atleast a Cine-actor stops acting the moment cameras are switched off. A politician does not know when cameras are going to be switched off and keeps acting continuously.

This is one reason in many countries across the world Cine-actors step into political field very easily and also become successful.

Our current day politicians are rarely visionaries. They are not even people oriented or truly representing people.  They just need to know how to act. None knows what they stand for, what they want the society to evolve towards to etc, as they have been just acting non-stop.

But the blame for it is not with politicians themselves. We, the people of this world, across continents and cultures act in the world stage. I have seen actors not just in Cinema and politics, but also in businesses and families.

Many times we represent ourselves as what others want and not what we are or what we believe. Politicians are a product of this society, with enhanced acting abilities.

‘All the world is a stage’ as Shakespeare wrote. If he had been alive now, he would have added “And finest actors are in political space’.

-TBT