Idle Idols!!!

Today as I was commuting through a local, I heard an interesting dialogue. It went like this:

1st guy: salaa .. ye duniya hai hi jitne walo ki be.. ajkal RAVAN serial dekhta nahi kya??
2nd guy: na re.. timich nahi milata.
1st guy: dekh sale.. usme dikhaya hai ki ravan kitna fundoo insaaan tha.. champ tha sale.. uske pas kitni sari siddhiya thi patay?? lekin end me kya hua?? Ram ne usko mara aur ho gaya na wo villan!!
2nd guy:kya baat kartay be.. wo tha hi waisa .. rakshas tha .. aur ramji ne use marke duniya ka uddhar kiya .. malum??
1st guy: gup be.. kayka rakshas.. Jitne ke baad jitnewalo ne story bana di ki Ravan ye tha aur wo tha.. nam bighad diya uska..mahabharat me bhi to nahi kya.. yahi to hua.. pandav jit gaye aur hero ban gaye.. duryodhan villan.. tuhich bol koi apne bacche ka naam duryodhan rakhega kya?? suyodhan naam tha uska.. bighad diya na naam...

and so the discussion continued..

I was slightly amused by this initially,but now in retrospect I feel that it points to a larger context. I feel that it exposes the lacking morality and loosing ideals of the indian society.Our History is the proof to the fact that we have always sidelined the heroic and have hailed the spineless.

Mahabharat, an epic which is a tribute to the ultimate in a man,portrays Bhim as the personification of all that's Heroic in this world. He is portrayed as a swayambhu- someone who is original, the prime force. Draupadi, the women of all times always used to fall back on him in case of peril, his brothers used to depened on him for survival, Krishna used to treat him as an equal. But we hail arjun who was no doubt an intrepid warrior but still was always dependent on the wisdom of Krishna. We hail Dharmaraj, who put his kingdom, wife, brothers and worst still himself at stake in the game of Dhyut. We hail him as a great king although he was more becoming as a sanyasi.And Worse, these days out of an unfathomable imbecillity we have started hailing duryodhan and karn as the true heroes!!!

It's not the act of hailing karn or duryodhan which is contemptible but its the reasoning behind the act, or rather the lack of it which is the true evil.In life, one should never follow any person, because the act of following itself betrays the primary individual will.Because, then you stop living your own life and start living a secondry degraded one.But still, If you have to choose between two evils you should select the lesser one. That is If you have to follow someone, atleast see to it that the choice of an idol is based on the rational interpretation of facts.After all, It would be great to have subdued versions of Bhim and Arjun roaming around than having to bear enhanced caricatures of Duryodhan and Karna!!!!