A collective facepalm moment, writes Priyanka Chaturvedi

Last week saw the mega release of a Sooraj Barjatya movie after a gap of several years. It was a much awaited movie for all fans of the hit Sooraj-Salman Khan combination. However, what many hapless ticket buyers didn’t know when they booked a ticket to watch the movie, was that a special treat awaited them during the interval. 

It is a six-minute song called Mera Desh Hai Mahaan, Mera Desh Hai Jawaan, by a man who is re-defining parameters of sanskaar in his capacity as the chairperson of Censor Board. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) for Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, this short film is getting more reviews than the main movie.  
The aim of the short film is to instill a sense of pride in the nation on its achievements ever since the man of the moment, Narendra Modi took charge. What it ended up achieving though is called a collective facepalm moment in Twitter parlance. Even if we forget the bad editing, costumes and the models in the song that is meant to instill a sense of patriotism, how does one explain the non-Indian locations used to showcase the government’s achievements?

After laughing out loud on seeing the video, I decided to send the link to all the people I know who have seen something in Modi’s promises that I haven’t, as a belated Diwali gift. I thought they would appreciate the gesture but all I got were emojis — yes, emojis! We now live in times where we wish to express our feelings in the minimum time possible! We have smoothly moved from long-winded letters to SMS-ese to emojis. The emotions ranged from being angry, to embarrassed, to annoyance and one that had a sarcastic emoji with a note that said ‘Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum?’ This brought another round of mad laughter.

With my mission accomplished, it actually made me wonder what the video was trying to achieve. Why can’t we take pride in the diversity of our nation and its achievements on the world stage in a short span of time? Why, dear filmmaker, would you want us to feel faux pride for our nation with borrowed images from different countries? 
While I am lost in thinking some serious thoughts about the film, my eight-year-old daughter, who is a huge fan of desi super heroes like RA.One and Krissh comes running to me. She is absolutely annoyed with me, first for not taking her to see Prem Ratan Dhan Payo yet and second for not showing her the video where her country’s Prime Minister is doing better stunts than her favourite super heroes. How do I gently break her fantasy bubble of superheroes and remind her that their superpowers exist only in her mind? Sigh.