To grieve or not to grieve...

So, Sathya Sai Baba passed away on Sunday. And the media turned this moment of stunned world grief into a bloody circus of which celebrity is a greater devotee and who's crying how much (or not at all) and the loudest. Most of us just voyeuristically watched.

I can't get over that instead of getting antim darshan of Baba, I had to repeatedly watch Sachin crying. A) Because he's Sachin, doesn't allow you to invade his grief with your nonsense of "ab aap dekh rahey hain Sachin ki aankhon se chalaktey aansoo". Clowns, let the man cry in peace. He's just another devotee there like anyone else. B) Because he's Sachin, it doesn't allow you to rob me of Baba's antim darshan. I've got the TV on to see the last of Baba as much a I can, not Sachin and his wife and all the sundry men who wanted to pat Sachin just so they could get on bloody TV.

What is our fascination with celebrities that they shed a tear and it becomes a media tsunami? Whether it's Sachin crying in front of Baba's body or it's Bipasha-John's break-up, whether I care or not, the media reports. In as sensational a voice as they can manage, they report. Never mind the thousands of rapes, murders, dacoities that are clamoring to be heard. Never mind the corrupt practices that rob this country of its possibility to be a Super Power. Never mind the natural disasters that are happening the world over. No, we MUST watch a celebrity grieve.

Never mind that they don't want us to watch it. The question that demands an answer: To grieve or not to grieve.