Thursday, October 14, 2010
The blog comments I reject
It does not matter to me whether my blog visitors don’t see eye to eye with me, or if they ridicule me or my understanding of the issue i deal with or my style. In fact i like comments which reflect such views and i publish them unless they use terrible obscenities or they hurt religious sentiments, customs and practices.
I do get such rejectable comments once in a way.
The two categories of blogs that generate such comments are the ones on Amitabh Bachchan and Narendra Modi.
All my posts on Modi have generated dirty comments. Some are so filthy that I’ve laughed out loudly (sorry. I’m not easily shocked though it is ladylike to be so, i know). In fact it’s a comment on Modi that got automatically published that prompted me to activate comment moderation. But that hasn’t caused me to budge one millionth of an inch from my position on Modi. I cannot drool over his development politics. For me his unofficial official stamp on carnage cannot be compensated by the paradise he might have turned Gujarat into. Two thousand odd people who were snuffed out were denied the right to life in democratic india. To me what happened post Godhra is comparable with the crackdown on Tinaman square. Modi’s re-elections after Godhra are reminiscent of the mass support that brought Hitler into power. Yes, i am a Modi basher – tho an armchair one. I believe it’s my responsibility to be at least that, for i enjoy the fruits of democracy. I owe it to my country. But post Godhra slaughter made me realise man never learns from the lessons history teaches him. That’s why history repeats itself.
Some tell me i am over reacting. But i say no. But i react more than others in my part of the world because i was in Vadodhra when it happened. Some of the images still haunt me.
But the foul comments to my Bachchan blogs are really funny. Most of them are written by those who apparently are not competent in handling the English language. Unfortunately, i don’t know how to get into those comments and do an expletives deleting act, so i reject the whole comment. I get a feeling most of those expletives (an understatement, believe me) are used without a knowledge of the meaning of the word used, or the part of human anatomy that some of the words signify. If i publish them, you’ll laugh your guts out. All such comments are anonymous, but i know their authors are not Malayalees. A Malayalee might get his English wrong but never his obscenities in that language.
My blog which generated such comments, ironically, was not actually on Bachchan, but on a bad piece of journalism on the retake of Sholay. Apparently, they didn’t get the point. They thought i was trying to establish that Mohanlal was a better actor than Bachchan!
Why do these two categories generate such strong emotion, i wonder. I think it’s because both Modi and Bachchan have achieved god like proportions with their fans. Fooling around with deities can win the teeth gnashing wrath of their followers.
After all it’s a very painful experience to be made to realise that your gods have feet of clay.
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I have often wondered about the comment moderation. Thankfully, I am yet to receive such comments as you mentioned; quite likely because my posts are on harmless or non-volatile topics! I wish there were more comments, though. I am at times vexed with the list of people who visit my blog but leave without a comment; I even wrote a poem in appeal to such visitors!
ReplyDeleteI think the abusive comments that you got would have made good reading, because that would throw light on the nature of those poor, cowardly persons! Like you said, we could have had a good laugh!
Strong emotions because you (with your I-am-secular-and-you-are-communal attitude) conveniently ignores the other side. You have written so much about Modi. How many blogs did you write about Rajiv Gandhi & congress who turned a blind eye to the 1984 riots. Do you know who the Indoor stadium in Kochi is named after? Go, make your blood boil and let us know how it goes. I know, now you will say something like "I oppose that also...". Please, it is evident that you don't feel that way about congress. Otherwise you won't quote figures that congress uses, which are actually far from official figures. where did you get the number 2000 from? And you go all the way to china for a comparison (I guess you meant Tiananmen square, unless Tinaman square is a place in New Delhi where Sikhs were massacred).
ReplyDeleteAnd btw, weren't you defending Ishrat Jahan some blogs back, just because you wanted to bash Modi? Now the 'secular' reply will be that she is not convicted yet. That will be a slippery slope for you. There is not even a charge sheet against Modi, let alone conviction.
And a person who jumps on a opportunity to write about Hindu fundamentalists wrote a blog about the Kerala professor ONLY when he was dismissed - to criticize the management.
It is very easy to see why you are getting such comments. Just because you don't use bad words does not make your blog sacred. You are doing the same job as the fundamentalists that you are criticizing, only difference, you are on the other side.
We can always differ on opinions.But it need not be rude. I remember some time back I had made a somewhat rude comment, for which I apologized.This is your blog,and you can write on any thing you want,and the way you want to.
ReplyDeleteAbusive language will come from anonymous readers.They often do not dare to show their faces.Some people even do not know what they are writing !They just want to write,thats all.
uff ...seems like a huge controversy here !iam pretty new .so no comments;but i wish even i had got the oppportunity to read those abusive comments.
ReplyDeleteAs late Prof. CT Benjamin used to often tell me, 'Yes, you may disagree; but why do you insist on disagreeing so disagreeably?'.
ReplyDeleteI am reminded of the infinite number of situations when Parvati and I would start quarreling. For e.g., I'd say - 'Parvati, you had left the TV on for the last couple of hours'. And she would defend - ' As if you don't! Last month on the 2nd you had left both the light and fan in your study for the entire day!'.
ReplyDeleteYet again - in the 80s and 90s, I was associated with a prominent poet in Trivandrum, in nature conservation activities. People would say - 'Ho! she is making such a hue and cry about some monkeys in Silent Valley; what does she have to say about the beggars and the homeless in the cities? She says NOTHING!'
I guess that there is a tool to not allow anonymous comments. Try activating that. It is a better and appreciative option than deleting carte blanch comments wholesale, only because they are antagonistic to you or in your words abusive.I would call that holding away and declining to accept truths or matters that you feel are inconvenient to your perceptions and beliefs.Is it not a kind of Orwellian prophecy that you practise? Personally I do not agree with comment moderation. But I admit you have the right to do so.That is your volition.
ReplyDeleteIf one is impassioned to human sufferings and gross abuse of right to live, then as expressed in one comment in this post you must show the same outrage at the complicity of the Congress party to the anti Sikh riots after Mrs Gandhi's death.
Agony and pain of blood letting is the same be it amongst Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews or any other form of life.
Please read "Long Walk to Freedom" the autobiography of Nelson Mandela.If it was retribution and wrecking of vengeance on the injustices inflicted on Blacks in Africa that was Mandela's philosophy ,it would not even have taken one turn of the finger for Mandela
to annihilate the Whites.Why he ensured that did not happen,that remarks the statesman in him, And the goons like Narendra Modi, Jagdisgh Tytler,H.K.L Bagat and their cahoots are the bane of this country.
I just read your bindi-talisman post through the link here. I was at Ahmedabad, the ground zero, living with my wife, two young daughters and my elderly mother in law. However best the apologists of communal politics try to hide themselves behind the inaccuracies of body count, those days were horrific. I too had to seek the help of an entirely different talisman: a shaving razor! I had to shave off my beard which I had been sporting for morethan 20 years then.
ReplyDeleteAbout comment moderation: Dont worry about that. There are people and then there are people!
@ all
ReplyDeleteguess now you understand the type of heat some topics generate.
i publish all comments and specially welcome the ones that disagree strongly. but obscenities - somehow i cant bring myself to post in my blogspace. the convent education hangover, i guess:-(
abhilash, the queries you have raised i have answered several times. also, i have never claimed to be free from prejudices.but i believe i am a secular person, the way i understand the term secularism; and am passionately committed to human rights. i have never justified the sihkh carnage post indira gandhi murder . but that was not the issue under discussion in this post.
besides, like balachandran sir pointed out, one genocide does not justify another.
"Fooling around with deities can win the teeth gnashing wrath of their followers," is the simple reason for the obscene comments, as you say, madam. Blog has given all of us a voice. Let there be the reaction too. But obscenities are a jarring distraction and should be edited out.
ReplyDelete@ p venugopal
ReplyDeleteyes sir. i think our generation still wince at obscenities. but the youngsters r no so, believe me.
Expressing an opinion is one thing and writing trash for the sake of it is quite another. Deserves no place better than the trash bin.
ReplyDelete