Indian Junk News

One thing about being out of the country for so long is that you realize how so much of the news that you obsess about on a daily basis is actually quite irrelevant on a grand scale. I assume there is still a war going on, but besides that I do not know much else. However, my interest in US irrelevant news has been supplanted for my interest in Indian junk news, which is actually a lot more dramatic, in my opinion. The fact that an angry mob is usually on call at any moment is probably the biggest reason for the drama. Noting spices up a news story like an angry mob.

Here are 2 of the best that are currently going on:

Note - I am not a journalist and am giving my crude synopsis of the following stories. If I get anything wrong leave a comment and I will correct.

Indian Idol

So here they just finished up the 3rd season of Indian Idol. It is as popular here as it is in the US, if not more. Nisha and I watched the final, but we did not make it to the end since there were just too many performances of people who are probably grand old men of Indian singing, however unknown to us.

The winner as expected was Prashant Tamang. His story is heartwarming because he is an Nepalese-Indian Kolkata police officer who was not the judges favorite, but captured the hearts of the people. His father was also a cop killed in an accident, forcing him to join the force to support his family. Nisha and I also had interest in him because he is originally from Darjeeling, a charming mountain town we visited 3 years ago.

He was such a big deal in the hills that they banned alcohol sales for a week surrounding the final in Darjeeling. When he won people took to the street in joy all night. Also, people in Nepal donated 50,000 rupees to cops in India so that they could make numerous SMS votes on his behalf without bankrupting themselves.

So for a few days all was well, but this being India, all stories must end with a riot. A few days after Prashant's win some Delhi DJ made disparaging comments about him and the Nepalese-Indian community. In Siliguri, also in the West Bengal hills, a mob of Presant supporters was marching in protest of this, and was accused by some other local residents of assaulting a woman. Another mob of angry residents was formed and as Michael Buffer would say "Let's Get Ready to Rumble!!!". Several hours and burned cars and bikes later police restored order in what was described as a war zone. So far since then the Indian Idol peace has held.

Ram Setu

Hindus believe in the story of Rama, a god/king who lived in ancient times (I believe around 2500-1500 BC), as the story goes. One of the things that he was supposed to have done is build a bridge called Ram Setu from the southern part of India to Sri Lanka. There is in fact a strip of very shallow water between the two, but scientists say that it is a naturally occurring geologic formation.

I gather for some time, the Indian government, spurred primarily by the DMK party that rules Tamil Nadu (big state in south India) has wanted to dredge the channel between Sri Lanka and India. This project would be a boon to Tamil Nadu, but would also destroy the Ram Setu. Thus Hindu fundamentalists and their party the BJP are very against the idea.

This flared up recently because of a new court filing that spurred the DMK leader to call Ram a myth and challenge anyone who thinks the bridge exists to show him Ram's engineering degree. Verbal potshots have gone back and forth and a DMK mob sacked the BJP office in Tamil Nadu. The DMK leader refuses to backtrack on his comments, so the story trucks on.

At first I thought most in the US would think, as I did, that it would be pretty crazy in a secular country to halt a key public works project in order to not destroy a legendary bridge which science has declared natural. However, since then I realized that we are just lucky that our dominant religion does not have any myths that would get in the way of such a project. I do not think that it is any more of a unprovable myth that Ram built his bridge as opposed to a guy building a ship that saved all the animals on earth from a world-wide flood.

In fact, I think in the US we would actually be less likely to do the project, if it destroyed some biblical myth, then they are in India (where the project is moving forward). Also, if a major politician in the US made similar belligerent comments towards Jesus, I would speculate that he/she would be forced to leave office immediately, and probably have to do into hiding. Actually, this might be just what it would take for us to get an angry mob together, and have some more spicy news for ourselves.