In early 2015, Russel Peters did a show in the city I lived in. I immediately booked tickets and because I knew what to expect, I got the tickets for the last row. I was not sure if I could laugh at myself if a stranger made fun off me and if I couldn’t, I did not want the camera to put my wry smile or an upset face on permanent record of the video recording. I guess that would be the same for a lot of people. We are often comfortable when our friends make fun of us but not when others do. But this is a little different for public personalities. Their lives are an open for everyone. Not just the media or comedians, people form every walk of life have the liberty to make fun of them. Well that’s more or less accurate. More in a few countries with a real freedom of speech and less in countries with restrictions on what you can say in public.

For example, India has a something called a Right to freedom which includes freedom of speech but it comes with a big asterisk. The State can impose reasonable restrictions in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offense. Which more or less means shut your trap. This indirectly kills the art of Satire and Parody. Unlike America where it is routine for comedians, talk show hosts to mock public figures, India can be a dangerous place to exercise such freedoms, especially against politicians in power. Even the Russel Peters was a heavily toned down version of his usual self when he toured India.

Yesterday, the office of a movie director was attacked because of his political parody on a actor turned politician. These are the same bunch of people who were giggling at the the two movies that the same director made but were about other politicians. So, laughing at others is good but you cannot laugh at yourself? Not just this instance, this taking an offense thing has gone so far that the judicial courts have asked the film makers to add disclaimers to their movies to protect their artistic freedom.

The very first instance of such an incident (that I can recollect) was when the release of Da Vinci Code was postponed in 2003 due to a protest by some Christian missions in India. It was a weird thing that a movie made in a predominantly Christian country and I don’t remember any protests or law suits in US about this movie. There has been a gradual increase in the frequency of such incidents and that indicates that people have grown more sensitive. Right? But here lies the paradox that the same people have grown highly insensitive to the other things such as anything that might offend others. So, what do we call someone who thinks everything is about them? Egocentric? Conceited?, Self-centered? Self-absorbed? Self-obsessed? Self-serving? Self-interested?

You can call them any of these or all of these. India is a country of 1.3 billion people. Whatever you say or do, there is a very high probability of more than a few people getting offended. Is the only way to keep everyone happy is for everyone to remain silent? Like in the movie A quiet place. Or may be silence will also offend some people.

I don’t mean that everyone has to be think skinned or that every opinion is valid. There is a time for everything and now a days, everyone seems to get outraged for every petty little thing. May be forgot that it is okay Laugh at your self once in a while. The idiosyncrasies are a big part of what we are and it is okay to be made fun of and if someone makes fun of someone you adore or idiolize, that’s OK too. Nobody is perfect.

More often than not, the anger comes from a fact that the satirist is at least partially correct and you don’t like the fact that it is being pointed out or in some cases being exaggerated. It is the embarrassment you feel that triggers these reactions.

A picture is worth a 1000 words. So, let me put it to you this way. If you laugh at any one of these pictures, you should be able to laugh at all of these.

In my native tongue, there is a saying that translates to there will be 7 people in the world who have striking resemblance. Though it doesn’t say what this resemblance is in, this urban myth has left me pondering over last few weeks. There are tons of theories doing rounds on the internet about weird coincidences. Once example of such physical resemblance is Enzo Ferrari – the founder of Ferrari and Mesut Ozil a German footballer with Turkish origins. Well unrelated people from different generations having striking resemblance is intriguing but having had about 108,760,543,791 humans born till date, the probability of 2 people looking alike can still be explained mathematically, if not with just paranormal reasons.

I have known these fun facts for years now, but what compelled me to write about it is that I have started pondering this with another concept called Parallel life. There is a book on this subject comparing how some famous people share a parallel life with another famous person and there was even a Korean movie made on this subject almost a decade ago. Now why can’t we apply similar logic to people in news now?

According to most main stream western media, sees India’s prime minister Narendr Modi as an equivalent of Trump. Since Modi has become the prime minister of India, the self proclaimed liberal media such as BBC and CNN always refer to him as a ‘Nationalist’, ‘Conservative’ and a ‘far’ Right person. Both have used the same slogan “India/America first”, both have been pro-majority. Trump has even used Modi’s catch-phrase for his campaign to entice Indian Americans. I do understand their misunderstanding. I dont want to dive deep into it as it needs a lot of explanation and deserves a separate post. Lets just say India is like an exception here and the fact that Modi panders to other world leaders despite them being authoritarian is just business. He just wants more foreign investment. So, According to me they are not at all similar. In fact, if you compare their lives, both are polar opposites in each and every criteria.

Since March 2020, all that anyone can talk or think about is the CoronaVirus and if you follow the News you will also wonder how the Government of the United States has managed to hit a new low in the management of this epidemic. If you had compare the life of the current American President to an Indian politician, I would choose the current chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Both Have had zero experience in governance before taking up their current jobs, they are what they are now only because of their fathers, both have a strong support base in bible wielding folk and the only achievements on their resume are either failed businesses or white collar crime law suits. As a matter of fact, they both down played the dangers of Covid=19 early on(one of them still continues to). One could even argue that they sort of had Parallel lives. But the resemblance ends there.

When if comes to handling the epidemic once they got past the phase of just denying it, the was passed on to the Chief Minister of Telangana. The more I think about it, the more I feel that the Indian Politician who first came to my mind when thinking of the American President was in fact not the correct match. Their circumstances of their rise to power might be similar but both are vastly different people. Now lets see how the POTUS went about his work of saving people.

First he said it was just a normal flu just like the Indian counter part who said that it would go away with one dose of Paracetamol. Then he and his administration kept heaping self-praise on how well they have been handling the situation and how everything is under control (they are doing it till date). Then they have said that the hospitals have enough beds, the doctors have more than enough medical supplies to deal with any number of patients while the ground reality was completely opposite. They tried to not to test dead bodies for Coronovirus just to keep the numbers low. Their explanation for increase in cases was that the testing has increased. Last but not least, they both blamed the spread of pandemic on others.

There is also a stark similarity in the way these both came to power. They did not have an agenda of sorts, it was fear mongering. The notion that outsiders are coming to steal our jobs. The state with highest Covid-19 infections in India is also a governed by the people with same ideology. They have been for years spreading the idea that every outsider is either a criminal or here to steal jobs. If you don’t have an agenda or intention to govern and only know to be divisive they remain in a bubble that the hatred for others among you base of supporters is sufficient to elect you, no matter what you do or more importantly ‘Not do’.

Crisis is the litmus test for leadership, it separates sheep from goats. Larger the crisis, more bigger and better are the leaders required to tackle them. Most of the actual leaders you must have come across in your life must have been ‘non’ leaders by their designations and positions. Leaders are those who other’s interests and welfare above theirs and are not afraid to take hard decisions. Leaders are those who do not keep their folk in dark and Leaders are those who admit when they make mistakes. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging its existence and these self centered ideological twins across the world are fighting to the best of their ability to turn a blind eye.

The problem here is either in your office or in your city/state/country, there is no test a person has to go through to become a leader. Though the corporate world wants you to believe that reading books and taking soft skills trainings can make anyone a leader, its absolute bullshit. About 4 years ago, there was a psychological evaluation done on each and every one of our team, which also included an anonymous 360 feedback/ I loved that training as it gave me insights into what people thought liked and disliked. This helped me become a better co-worker. I also later came to know that our management team had the same training before us and the results we pretty shocking to them and in a way very obvious to me. None of the our leadership team had any quality required for their role. I wish they did this analysis before they were given these jobs. I wish there is a psychological evaluation of every Managerial or Lead position. Because most of these people coast through their lives without having to deal with crisis, either because they are lucky or because someone below them saves their hide. But when a full blown epidemic like this hits the shores, there is no where to hide.