One of my friends wrote in his blog that we are a Nation of Rhinos, quite
evident from recent events as well. I think on top of that we are a nation who
love to stretch things beyond any comprehensible limit. Let us start with our
television series. One can find numerous examples where the story line keeps on
stretching. To give you an idea as to how much it can stretch, let us assume
that one of the stars had a baby while the series is in say its fiftieth
episode. By the time the child grows up to watch and understand the series say
in his/her mid-teens the show would be still running and no one would feel that
they missed something. This is the scenario for say the regular mother-in-law
daughter-in-law stories where episode numbers may run to even four digits. Lets
take the case of comedy series, though after sometime you are forced to laugh
watching them since there is hardly any comedy left. I have seen a few comedy
series from American sitcoms and I find that each season does not stretch
beyond say 30 episodes and the series may run for say 7 years making it a 200
episode series. And on top of that each scenario will be finished in a single
episode. but if you take Indian comedy series each scenario will at least run
for four or five episodes and on top of that some of the series have already
made to 1000 episodes (e.g Tarak mehta ka ulta chasma). It seems though the
public in this country are increasingly drawn towards 20-20 format of cricket
our television directors and producers are keeping the five day format alive.
This case of rubber band mentality is there not only in our television but in
our culture as well. Be it ceremonies in festivals or marriages or births or
deaths we can always see the presence of Mr. Rubber Band. It is not that we
understand the meaning of all what we do but since it was being done before so
keep doing. Somehow, it feels like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times where he is
given two spanners and he keeps tightening the screws no matter what and it
continues even during his break. This rubber band effect is seen in our
academic system as well. I can understand if you keep stretching the rubber
band philosophically beyond imagination or say literary but to stretch it
historically is something I never got it. History is something that has already
happened and what is there to stretch for school kid. While in school I found
it on regular basis that if I can write that "India became an independent
country on 15th August 1947" using considerable amount of paper and ink, I
got more marks. Same is the story with our higher education in science. The
common belief still exists that you have to suffer for at least 6 years before
you are fit to be called a doctorate. The quality of work is not important but
the time is. I can keep writing on and on like the rubber band effect and still
there will not be any end to it. Amongst all these stretched scenarios the only
thing short in this country is memory which for some reason does not stretch
beyond ones single step. And this is quite evident from the kind of people we keep sending to our parliament year after year.
