The commoditization of Tragedy
The death of Mr. VG Siddharth came as a rude shock to me. I’ve met the man before, had a brief couple of interactions with him, he was extremely down to earth, soft spoken but sharp, patient and humble. Rare virtues in today’s times, especially for a businessman who created a highly successful brand like Cafe Coffee Day (CCD)
There’s a lot of difference between death from natural causes and suicide. The former being a common phenomenon, the latter, is a shock whenever we hear of it.
Still can’t get over it!
However what’s more shocking is the trend of commoditizing tragedies in this country. Sample some social media and mainstream media responses on the above:
- Jokes circulating on tea (Narendra Modi) / coffee (VGS) / alcohol (Vijay Mallya) comparisons
- 5000 messages of all kinds on Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, Watsapp etc etc with the following words “A lot can happen over coffee” integrated within some random larger message
- Speculations on the life and times of the individual, on the reasons for death, and in some cases (until the body was found) even whether he actually died or ran away
- References to VGS and CCD with multiple ads and product brandings and marketing disguised as genuine message
- The thousands of random philosophical quotes and stories run by individuals and websites and media, me included…
- Live streaming of events surrounding him now, including funeral and the search ops in the river etc.
- Trial by media with speculations on the letter and it’s meaning, calls to random individuals to make sense of it, never mind their capability to do so.
- The 15 min of fame…. celebrities and pseudo celebrities called on media interactions to use this death as a point of discussion and to do all kinds of business around it (accuse the government, accuse the individual, comment on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country etc. etc.)
This is no isolated incidence. Pick any major tragedy of the last several years, and you’ll find enough examples of the same being sensationalized or trivialized or used as a backdrop for jokes.
A large part of India, it seems, gets its best creativity and its daily bread / daily dose of entertainment only from tragedies!
