WordUp! 2015 at Gurgaon, on 11 July was a spectacular event. A cool relaxing atmosphere, an array of talented speakers and of course great food made it to an event that will be remembered for long. But all those details in my next post. This one is about that one brief incident, which I wish I would never have witnessed in between a group of creative individuals.
So this stand up comedian comes up on stage to tell us some jokes. His name is Manik Mahna. He sounded okay, maybe some better jokes would come later. But just few minutes into his act this couple gets very upset. You know how these stand up comedians are. Making jokes about women, people, audiences etc. The idea is to chill but this couple heats up. The guy was telling lady jokes like, "I was with my girlfriend, I wanted to tell her best of luck but she was a buxom beauty, so by mistake he said 'breast of luck'. This upset the couple, who were not et all pleased by such jokes. They shouted and everything and the man wanted the mike. The stand up artist denied, saying it was his show, he wanted to do it his style.The man got agitated, so the artist backed up, said okay, he will tell another joke, he will move on.
But alas the organizers shut the show down, forcibly so, even though the couple kept up the shouting and the guy agreed to change tracks. This to me was a shame. I was embarrassed to the hilt. The artist asked audience to hoot if they wanted him to continue, we all hooted. but democracy and creativity were so disrespected I felt an urge of anger and sadness filling inside me.
We attend such meets, for they are well organized and Indiblogger works hard to build up a nice event. They have good speakers, responsible sponsors, quality content and decent management. For us bloggers, expression of creativity is important. If we had to suck up to each medieval mindset that comes across our way, we wouldn't be blogging our hearts out here. It was an underlying theme all through the show as well. Respect and value your creativity. So, what do you do, when at such a platform, an artist is censored and shut up, just because some people are not mature enough to take a joke as a joke?
Can anything be as low as this? I strongly believe they should have let the guy continue. He had offered to change his track. The narrow mindedness of the select audience had made him bow his creativity to their mercy. But no, his talent had to be insulted by shooing him off the stage in an unceremonious manner. So that means, even amidst creative mindsets we have to rely on bullys and loud mouthed people to decide what is right and what is wrong? What joke is good for me and what is not good for me? I too could have shouted ad hurled good lines, in favor of the artist, but what would have that made me?
I still fail to understand, how the organizers, such wonderful people, you should have seen them laboring so hard, it was so inspiring, how they could disrespect someone like this? An artist among artists was humiliated for asserting his creative right. If we can't respect that, can we respect our fellow bloggers? Their blogs?
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