Abhishek Bachchan was most recently trolled for ‘living with his parents’, something more than half of the Indian population does. Junior Bachchan has been a favourite subject for Twitter trolls for a while now. Time and again, the man has found himself at the centre of many a cruel joke. The joke is always the same. He is the son of one of the biggest superstars of Bollywood and he has not achieved the same status.
© Twitter_Peeping Moon
Don’t feel bad about your life. Just remember @juniorbachchan still lives with his parents. Keep hustling everyone!
— Ybn (@stillyoungest) April 17, 2018
Because Abhishek hasn’t achieved superstar status like his father, the internet troll by default assumes a superior status, taking misplaced pride in the fact that he is better at his job than the actor is. And so he takes every opportunity to remind him he has failed, he has failed to live up to the expectations that our sharmaji-ka-beta-obsessed society has imposed on him. He feels good about himself by dissing Junior Bachchan.
© Twitter_Amitabh Bachchan
That’s his biggest crime. That or the fact that he was born into the star family. What do people despise more – that he hasn’t been as successful as his dad or that his dad is Amitabh Bachchan – the answer to this is far from simple. What’s a biological fact for Abhishek Bachchan is probably the most ambitious dream for an ordinary middle class Indian. It is not about Abhishek, it is about all of us and our mundane lives with their lack of stardust staring in our faces every day. The ordinary Indian cannot digest the fact that someone born under such lucky circumstances could let it all go waste just like that. We have all heard from our parents how some famous man studied under the streetlights as a kid and made a life for himself. That’s the level of achievement our post post-colonial society aspires to – rise from the ashes, not go down.
Average is the biggest constant in our society, yet it is the most underrated. Lack of ambition, especially for men, is not respected. A house husband is a funny concept for us. It gets all the chachis and mamis blabbering and haw-hawwing in not-so-hushed tones. Unsurprisingly, the chachis have been replaced by the trolls on Twitter.
© Instagram_Abhishek Bachchan
We are a society that worships Sharmaji ka beta – whatever you do, you be at the top. Nothing less would do. If your dad has a diploma in engineering, you clear the IITs. If your dad is a small-time businessman, your aim is to be the next Ambani. If your dad is Amitabh Bachchan, you can’t be Abhishek Bachchan. We are a society that never lets you forget how important success is for your existence.
Those who mock Abhishek Bachchan are mirroring Indian parents and padosis when they put you down for failing to clear the IIT-JEE or not scoring a perfect score. Here is a perfectly fine gentleman minding his own business and living his life, maybe not as successful as his father or even his wife, but doing just about fine.
© Instagram_Abhishek Bachchan
This obsession with success as a measure of a person is not only cruel but also dangerous. In making success the only yardstick to value a person, we ignore the other more important qualities that make a human being great. It is this very thought process that leads fans to defend Bhai even after he was accused of crimes as heinous as murder. Bhai fans have been worshipping his onscreen persona for too long to see the man behind the superstar now.
The trolling of Abhishek Bachchan betrays this very shaky ideological ground we stand on. By worshipping success as the most respectable trait in a man (or a woman), we are inadvertently giving them the power to ignore all other aspects that make a man worth his salt. This is a way of the world, always has been – but we get to decide how crude we want to be about it. This is exactly how power works. Like the saying goes: If you are successful, sau khoon maaf. Well, it’s not a saying yet, but it can be.
Abhishek is a fine person, loves his family, is above averagely witty and, is most definitely a decent actor. His success or lack of it shouldn’t become the reason of our ill-placed smugness. It’s time we made peace with being average, a trait that belongs as much to us as to him.
(c) Youtube
(c) Youtube
(c) Youtube