PK debate - arguments and counter-arguments

PK was expected to be the most talked about, much awaited movie of 2014. Now that its released, we can safely say it lived up to its expectations. Despite releasing on 19th Dec, it still is the most talked about movie – for different reasons altogether. 

(Spoiler Alert) - For those not in-the-know of things happening around them, “PK” is a movie of an alien landing on Earth but losing his remote to return home. In his search for finding the remote, he tries learning the behavior and culture of the people around him. That’s when he realizes that only God can help him find his remote. He starts searching for God but meets people from various religions and confronts godmen and religious beliefs in the process. Post confronting the belief system, he wins back his remote and returns home. That's all about PK in a nutshell.

Any film that provokes debate (healthy, I might add) is a good movie. PK has polarized the Indian movie watching audience like few other movies have in the past. Significant number of people wants to boycott the movie and equally compelling are those who feel the movie actually makes a lot of sense. Some of the arguments for boycotting PK and my counter-arguments – 

• PK is an anti-Hindu movie. PK has various scenes that hurt Hindu sentiments. The scene with Lord Shiva’s character was in bad taste. The movie attacks the belief system of Hindus, especially those who travel long distances on bare foot to visit and pray in a temple when PK argues that God is everywhere. It states that religion is becoming a business in India with little investment and huge returns even on the first day. The movie safely left other religions aside when they are also in the same boat. 
  Counter-argument: First of all, PK is not an anti-religion movie. It’s not attacking any religion. It is satirically addressing the belief system prevalent in every religion. There is a scene where PK brings coconut to Church and breaks it in front of the holy altar. PK then brings wine to mosque. The final debate between PK and Godman is a healthy one with both putting their best foot forward (while I personally feel the movie failed to grab the potential of a healthy final debate). I think all of us agree that there are selfless as well as selfish godmen, the former a diminishing lot and the latter increasing in number. I don’t see anything wrong in attacking the latter lot. And by the way, every religion has these two types of godmen.
• The release of PK is wrongly timed. A certain section of India is boiling over forced conversions in various parts of the country. Rates are being quoted for converting from one religion to the other. For all the “unity in diversity” strength we as Indians have, this comes as a big blooper for our constitution. During these times, releasing a movie that attacks religion was uncalled for. 
  Counter-argument: Fair argument. It’s wrongly times. But I don’t think it’s the movie’s fault. A lot of background preparations go into making a movie. Even the date of release plays a big role in the success of the movie. Dec 2014 had only one big budget movie releasing and it was “PK”. Pre-poning was not an option at all as no one can predict the forced conversion scenario. Postponing a movie will result in the movie losing out on a huge revenue base (holiday season). 
• Ohh My God (OMG) was better in addressing the concept. 
  Counter-argument: No counter-arguments here. I completely agree. Although I feel these two movies should not be compared as PK turned out to be PK’s personal story of finding the remote to return to his home. Religion was just a sub-plot PK encountered in his search for remote. If PK is raking negativity, OMG should have had a nationwide ban!
• PK got its funding from Dubai and ISI. 
  Counter-argument: Let’s not even debate this as no one apart from his “source” knows the facts. No facts, no argument and hence, no counter-argument.

I, for one, believe the movie has raked up unnecessary debate for various reasons, some of which are mentioned above. Personally, I was not too pleased with the ending, the love angle to be precise. The director kept the debate open without any credible conclusion. Maybe it was the director’s way to avoid controversy or maybe the director intended the movie to be based only on PK, the character, rather than religious belief angle.

India has always accepted diversity and diverse opinions. If someone likes a movie, watch it again or promote it by word-of-mouth or simply enjoy and move on. If someone doesn’t like a movie, please don’t watch. If you are having a counter-argument, have a healthy debate through lawful means. Vandalizing property is not justified under any circumstances. If at all anything, calls for banning the movie is proving counter-productive as the curiosity of people who haven’t watched the movie only increases. PK will only stand to gain financially.

Adios Orkut!

Life was going good. I got my first phone - Nokia 3310 (still epic!). I got my first computer (with a simple P3 processor and 20GB hard disk). College was awesome. Friends were great - all wonderful characters whom I still miss. Those were the days when Super Mario / PacMan / Sonic / Minesweeper ruled the gaming industry. I used to play Cricket and Lawn Tennis (on 8-bit video games) with my friends all day long. None of my friends in college had a girlfriend, so all of us were always free and devoid of any commitments. None of us had a need to show how many friends we had, what we thought of the other person in the same group, no one wanted to rate how cool the other person was. Life went on in a "real" social environment… 

…till Orkut happened!

Not that we cared. But it forcefully entered our lives. I used to get repeated reminders of people in my address book that s/he has joined Orkut and is waiting for me! That's right, waiting for me to join them. I just met them a couple of hours back and now they were waiting for me on a strangely named website known as "Orkut". These are the same friends who didn’t wait for me in the bus stand so that we can catch the bus together, but were waiting "endlessly" on social media. That time, we didn’t know anything about social media. Orkut was just a website where you need to register ourselves and share some information in public domain. 

Now that Orkut is nearing its scheduled end on 30th September 2014, I am experiencing a strange sense of loss. I don’t use Orkut now. In fact I haven't used Orkut for the past 5 years. But it was part of my early 20's and hence it matters. Those were the days without smartphones. There were no apps. Internet Explorer was the most reliable way to explore an enchanting new world of Internet. Orkut became one of the most critical parts of the puzzle that partly made us who we are.

Some things in Orkut that I will cherish all my life – 

1. Testimonials: We all like to show-off, don’t we? Even the most introverted type has an innate desire to be known by those around him. And what better way than testimonials! Orkut took this concept to an all new level and introduced this feature as part of their offering. This allows friends to write testimonials for someone and it appears as part of the profile, once approved by the recipient of the testimonial. Writing and receiving testimonials were a craze during those times. One usually used to reciprocate the gesture. And we used to cherish the “kind” and in most cases “flattering” feelings our friends had towards us. I, for one, will surely miss this feature. It baffles me why Facebook did not opt for this feature!
2. Who viewed your profile: In other words, intrusion! But we didn’t mind. Orkut had an interesting module where you used to know who just viewed your profile. It perfectly targeted the human curiosity factor. That’s also one of the ways you can find friends. They view your profile and you add them, in case they didn’t initiate. If you opt out of this, no one will come to know you viewed their profile and in turn, you will never come to know who viewed your profile. Now that I think of it, I am glad Facebook didn’t opt for this feature. Its more of a bane than boon.
3. Scrapbook: Exactly what the name suggests. Write what you want on your friends’ scrapbook. Your popularity used to depend on the number of scraps you had vis-à-vis your friends. Some smart ones (me included) used to delete our scraps once the purpose is served. Deleting the scraps also used to shield me in the scrapbook popularity index! C’mon, I don’t want people to know I am less popular than them. They say, “try try till you succeed; else remove all evidence that you even tried”.

In more ways than one, Orkut made the first step towards social media till Facebook took it to a totally different level. And now, as we speak, there will soon be a new social media platform being made in some college project somewhere around the world. Personally, I wanted to continue on Orkut, but all the friends I had on Orkut were moving to Facebook and I was left with only two options - either to stay on Orkut without updates and interaction from friends / move on to Facebook. Like most, I chose the latter. 

When majority followed the new leader, Google eventually decided to post this message to signal the end of an era - 

Nevertheless, a big thank you to Orkut for all the wonderful memories. And as you move towards the fag end of your product life-cycle, may your URL rest in peace.