Love It, Or Hate It- Satyamev Jayate

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Amir Khan, I am sure is pleased as punch.  After all his TV program Satyamev Jayate, seems to have got everyone’s attention. Good, bad or even being downright abusive, everybody seems to have an opinion. That’s great, because any day it is better than no one talking about it.  Judging by the varying reactions I have read online, people have either hated it, or loved it.

Personally, I loved the introduction in Amir khan’s voice wherein he tries to convey the motivation behind this program.  While, I am sure it was scripted to the last detail, Khan’s voice does seem to convey the sense of despair, the wanting-to-reach-out-to –the-public -at large and wanting people to shake themselves of their stupor and at least take notice of the ugliness that is underlying in the society.

The program seemed to have all the right triggers; emotions tend to run high while watching it. Amir khan shedding tears when the victims were sharing their personal details of female-foeticide, I thought was a bit of over-dramatization (but then one needs some dramabazi to get attention).

Female –foeticide is very prevalent in the country; the declining sex-ratio figures are proof of that.  I am not sure about the others who watched the program, but I was not aware of the cruelty and the complete de-humanizing, which pregnant women go through, when they are perhaps the most vulnerable stage of life, emotionally and physically.

I was appalled to know, that a grandmother could kick her grandchild down the stairs, all because she happened to be a girl-child: this from a grandmother who happened to have retired as a vice-principal.  I thought such things only happened in movies, or maybe in the Ekta Kapoor serials, never in reality. So, yes, through moist eyes, I did sit-up and notice. I realized, that like me, so many of us led cocooned lives, and had not encountered such harrowing cruelty. Imagine, being bitten off by your partner for not producing a male-child? Frankly, I never had.  Had you? Never could think that such a thing was possible, ever, except in vampire series of novels.

The naysayers say Amir Khan comes across as insincere, they also seem to have an issue with his supposedly high remuneration (rumored to be 3 crores, per episode) and some have even labeled it as social-pornography.

There is no denying Amir Khan is a STAR, who would listen to you or me, were we to host a program like this? Would it garner so much attention? Not at all.   Will the program change attitudes? Will people stop indulging in female-foeticide? That would be too simplistic to think so; life unfortunately is not so simple.

Female-fotecide is just many of the issues; the subsequent episodes apparently will talk about the different societal pain-points.The important thing is, the program Satyamev Jayate at-least brings real-people share their life-stores; any day more meaningful than just giving out figures of crime.

 Amir Khan unlike a lot of his counterparts is not using his star status to go and spend our monies on a fruit drink or a fairness cream. He is asking us to be AWARE, to look-around and if possible also become a part of the social change. It is easy to become an arm-chair critic, and try and find faults with any effort, but it takes a whole lot of conviction, research and passion to be talking about and bringing to the fore the ugliness of society.

 Don’t want spend your Sunday mornings on morbid issues? You would rather listen to music or play ball? Perfectly fine, just give the devil his due, is what I say. 

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