Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Twitter Bhagya Vidhata: Milestones in the evolution of Indian Social media.

Blogasode - 1


*Concider the monologue is by Anupam Kher, read it in his voice*

In its early days, twitter and facebook were just among other desi social websites like desimartini, ibibo, funmaza etc. , basically another website to add the known and flirt with the unknown. Youth met and mingled on these to pass their time, but one very day...

*Curtain opens*


*sounds of a group shouting “Jai Shree Ram! Jai Shree Ram!”*


*lights on*

*A group of women come center stage laughing & enjoying . Suddenly, a group of men come running from the opposite direction and start bashing them.  Then every woman coming  gets a royal treatment of pulling beastly from hair, throwing them swivelling on the ground and kicking boots in stomach mercilessly etc. while they cry and ask repeatedly why are they getting beaten? And trying to escape, whilst a reporters recording it all.*


*lights off, noise fades down slowly, leaving a single, loud scream of a woman crying for mercy, gets louder and vanishes.*



*silence*



*curtains closes*

2009 Mangalore, Sri Ram Sena beats up women in a pub calling them the termites of Indian culture who are spoiling the society and the upcoming generation. 

There was anger in the youth, but discussing it with parents was useless because according to them going to pub and consuming liquor is a bad thing. And, even though they condemn the incident from their heart, they will never advocate for the bashed up kids as it will give an impression to their own children that they are okay with them going to pub, which they don’t want.


Youth discussed it. The discussion travelled from a distressed minds to canteens, to group discussions and finally to facebook. As the news spread, the anger grew exponentially, but it was aimless, till Namita Malhotra channelised it by creating a facebook page called “Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women”. The aim was to tell the cheap politicians that they can’t use the youth to bring laurels to their dirty politics. The youth is united & connected and will strike back to teach you a lesson.  People joined the campaign on facebook in huge numbers. A scattered youth on the internet finally got united for the cause.


*curtain opens*


*a party’s office, a hall, people talking to each other and an elderly man sitting on the table discussing something with some people in suit*


*a party member comes in with a box*

“Sir, courier.”

*On the nod of the elderly man, party member keeps it on the table and leaves as he was busy in the discussion*


“Chai!” he commands.



*In few minutes, a kid of about 10 year old, in old dirty loose shirt and nicker, brings chai. Takes out the glass of chai from an old & bent steel glass holder and keeps it near the courier box which reminded the elderly person to open the courier box*

*He opens the courier while the kid gives chai to other people.*


“WHAT IS THIS?!” He shouts.


*With his index finger & thumb and with a disgusting face expression he carefully picks out a bright pink thong from its string out of the box, to which the chai wala kid starts laughing loudly and people sitting on the table join chaiwala*

*Half the people of the room go red in embarrassment and the other half red in anger, then the suited people and the chaiwala forcefully control their laughter, chuckling.*


“Sir, courier!” Comes a loud sound from the door


*and the suited people burst into laughter again with the chaiwala, this time uncontrollably*



Over 500 pink panties were delivered to the office of “Shri Ram Sena” as a protest against the goondaism they displayed at the pub in the name of moral policing. For the cowardly act of beating women in groups by Shri Ram Sena, this time the symbol was not the "Bangles" as it seemed they are ok with bangles. They needed a much blunt message this time. Hence, the "Pink Chaddi".

The “Pink Chaddi” campaign became very popular and mainstream media gave it a good coverage resulting in preventive custody of about 140 members of Shri Ram Sena(Including the senior leader Pramod Muthalik),  so that they may not create any mayhem in the city at the Valentine’s day.


Youth now had the power to think collectively, exchange ideas and act accordingly, and were good at it. This event was no less Gandhian as it shook the souls of the target, conveyed the message and obviously with non-violence. Indian Social Media unknowingly took a step towards a journey that they themselves never knew will judder the heaviest thrones of the Indian politics so conspicuously.



“Twitter Bhagya Vidhata: Milestones in the evolution of Indian Social media” is a series of blog-episodes or “Blogasodes” of the most relevant and popular events happened in the history of Indian Social Media that shaped it into what a huge power it is today.  Events mentioned are in the vicinity of reality and slightly dramatized keeping the entertainment of the reader in concideration. The motive of the blog is not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Criticism and feedback is requested in the comments section.



Blogasode -1:  Pink chaddi campaign