Celebrity Column: Hysteria. Mysteria, writes Ayushmann Khurrana

On stage - as an actor, singer, stand-up comedian or a musician - you simply have to create mass hysteria. This shouldn’t be followed anywhere else. Sadly, our country has become that stage. Circa 2001, our capital city was disrupted by the bizarre incidents of a Monkey Man. A strange creature, who looked like a mix between a Homosapian and Cercopithecidae. It leapt from one building to another like a parkour-trained enthusiast, had red glowing eyes, three buttons on the chest, and sometimes strange spectacles with uncanny testicles (this last quality is made up only for rhyming purposes). Theories on the nature of the Monkey Man ranged from an avatar of Hindu God Hanuman, to an Indian version of Bigfoot. Later in 2009, in the film Delhi 6, this Kaala Bandar was used as an allegory to represent an evil that resides inside every man alongside God (virtue).

A similar mass hysteria has come back in 2017 in the form of a mysterious braid cutter in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, UP and Delhi. I recently met Sidhu paaji on Kapil Sharma’s show, and he introduced me to this bizarre happening, which has engulfed a portion of north of our nation. My wife’s driver Mishra also narrated one such strange incident in his village in UP. Straight out of Ramsay brothers film, women see this strange person, who enters locked doors mysteriously and vanishes after chopping the braids. No theft or harm to the person has been reported. Vimla Devi of Kangan Heri village of south Delhi says, “An evil spirit, which chops hair braids is on the loose.” The rationalist in me feels it is Hakim Aalim’s rebel hairstylists, who have gone berserk after he threw them out of circuit post default in bills. The motive is just a haircut so clearly the person/s involved in this is/are compulsive hair cutters. They should’ve rather entered our music director Pritam dada’s bedroom to cut his ever-growing mad hair. Maybe after the haircut, our genius dada may follow the deadlines set by producers. Or the mysterious figure should target Ranveer Singh as he’s also tired of supporting a mane for a long time. Thanks to his Padmavati look. The braid loving spirit can also zero down on Ishant Sharma in pure national interest.

If he cuts Ishant’s hair, the bowler will be able to have a faster run-up as his head will become more streamlined, and eventually, he will bowl faster deliveries. Sigh. Ed Sheeran’s manager is tired of his crazy, messy hair. His manager should plan a concert in Delhi just to get his hair fixed forcibly by this braid cutter as Ed doesn’t like the idea of styling his hair.

So, what is the true story behind this out-of-the-world happening? Nobody knows. But one thing is for sure, that even in an enlightened democracy like ours, the media has to check themselves to make sure they’re not contributing to the mass hysteria. Such incidents, by rule, only get reported in the lower sections of society. Maybe this was media generated and later the masses lapped it up. Hysteria is such a weird thing. Unfortunately, global-warming hysteria, too, is driven by politics, more than science.

“The masses are always the breeding ground of psychic epidemics.” — Carl Jung