Fan-atics

For the last one-and-a-half years, Orkut has been my prime source of timepass, through which I got in touch with a number of my school mates, with whom I had lost contact after leaving school. It has fetched me some new friends as well, and browsing through the numerous communities present there, I have learnt a lot of new things, and many unknown information about various incidents, institutions and celebrities of our society.

Well, the purpose of this post is not to highlight the positive aspects of those communities, although there are some good positive aspects. On the contrary, I would like to make a few comments on certain communities and their members. In most of the cases where the community is about a person (eg, Kishore Kumar, Mohd Rafi, Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Sachin Tendulkar... in short, about those stalwarts who have exceled themselves in their respective fields), I have noticed a strange aspect about their members.

It is quite obvious that if I am a member of a community which is about a person, it means that I respect that person, admire him and would propagate his positive aspects if there is a debate on a certain issue. As a fan, I have the right to do this. But problem comes when I, in order to champion the superiority of my favored person, defame another person of the same field with the same calibre. Being a fan of one person does not mean you have to disrespect every other person of the same field.

A couple of examples will make the point clearer. Rahul Dravid is a very good batsman, probably one of the few greats who have appeared in the cricket arena in the last decade. Admiring Rahul is fine. But in order to do so, defaming Sourav Ganguly is not quite right. The vice-versa case is also quite common. The thing is, if you are a real lover of the game of cricket, you will respect both of them with slight difference in the degree of likeness, but you will never disrespect one in order to project another.

Recently, I am stopping by the communities of Kishore Kumar and Md Rafi quite frequently, and have learnt a lot regarding Hindi film music. But the sad part is, here also, the story is the same. I am a fan of Kishore Kumar, but when someone says that Rafi "could not at all sing", then question arises about his sanity. It is a known fact that R D Burman has worked more with Kishore than Rafi, although the handful compositions of RD-Rafi have created history and are uncomparable. But keeping this in picture, if somebody says that RD did not like Rafi, He was just a mediocre music director or Rafi did not possess enough talent to match with RD, then according to me, that person does not have any right to speak about music. He is not a fan, just a fanatic.

Before finishing, I am unable to control myself to quote a post of a KK fanatic in one of the communities:

Rafi sang a number of patriotic and devotional songs, so what? I mean, what is the difference between the two genres? Just replace Watan by Bhagwan, then patriotic becomes devotional!! Whats the big deal??

I dont think any comment is required to defend this.