While the suggestion of forced victimisation was amusing to many, the smiles soon faded away – not everyone is a paid troll or an agenda driven political activist. The tweet was widely shared and Zomato accused of disrespecting religious beliefs.
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When Zomato stood by its decision of cancelling the order of a customer who objected to his food being delivered by a Muslim, many chose to stand against Zomato. It is always easy to hate the unknown, especially if they are supposedly inferior to us. But in the midst of things, one can’t help getting involved.Īre Indians being pulled by the forces of social media and the temptation to be viral? Photo: TT Marketing/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Were we always this bigoted, or are we doing it because hate is easier than ethics? Bérenger scrutinised that if we were to read about the rhinoceros events, away from action, we could be rational and detached. It reminded me of the numerous WhatsAap chats where I realised that people no longer understand what is happening and there is a consensus to conform – whether through subversion, intimidation or euphoria – that my safe place is now a place of unabashed rage and outspoken bigotry. The person who conforms is the one who can be moulded into a rhinoceros. The play is not just a light comedy as it was first understood, but a brutal allegory of fascism.īérenger, a simpleton, observes “I am not frightened any longer,” while his self-righteous friend Jean declares, “The superman is the man who fulfils his duty.” The audience have heard this clichéd statement many times, but in its cliché lays an alarm bell. Sixty years after it was released, watching a re-run of Rhinoceros sent shivers down my spine.
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Everything changes with the appearance of a powerful rhinoceros and soon, unassuming folks start metamorphosing into violent, untamed, thoughtless rhinoceroses. The three act play begins in a quiet, unidentified provincial village in France. His avant-garde play, Rhinoceroswas released in 1959 – a manic physical portrait of a city where everyone turns into a rampaging beast. Eugène Ionesco was a playwright born in Romania, where he witnessed the Iron Guard fall to fascism.