Muktadhara's publicity stunt: 'Shrestha Banglaees'

I am simply awe-stricken. 'Shrestha Banglaees'. Sounds so noble and inspiring.

Muktadhara, New York, a leading organisation (or a group/company), recently launched their landmark effort to honour the living outstanding (shreshtha) Bangalees on the basis of public voting. I am sure this effort was triggered by the BBC Radio (Bengali section) effort to find out the best Bangalees ever. They were clever and didn't want to bother making award arrangements for the recipients, since it was all posthumous. BBC had previously launched another campaign to find out the best Brit ever. The recent effort of Muktadhara, I believe, is a resonant effort of the same. But, living (alive in their words)?

I am not even sure of the total population of Bangalees. But, I would presume it to be around twenty five to thirty crores (including both Banglas). We are quite lot of people. And this is one reason, Bangla as a language has climbed up the ladder to become one of the top five most spoken languages. The desire Muktadhara, New York had, I believe, was not totally commercial. They had an honest pursuit. But, the length they have gone and are planning to go, raise the very question of its authenticity and credibility. As far as I am aware through an email (since they are so reluctant in publishing the details on their website), they had received a total vote of around forty thousand or less (approx. 0.016% of the total population). Close to six thousand via postal mail and the rest through internet. I leave the judgement to the reader as to how representative it is.

I have no intention of disparaging or belittling the elected outstanding personalities. They sure are outstanding in their respective fields, and some have reached beyond their self and contributed to the Bangalees as a whole. I don't want to mention any individual as I am not capable of doing that and cannot dare, to be frank. They all deserve to be the most popular names amongst the living Bangalees. Is most popular a synonym for best in Bangla? If this is true, then I don't have a point.

People might have the feeling that I am trying to be utterly pessimistic about it. And some would also think that Muktadhara, New York has at least begun a process that would finally someday enshrine the names of Bangalees worldwide. In this age of vibrant information tech and bottle neck competition for being the superior, this totally unprofessional and flawed process of selecting the 'Best Alive Bangalees' looks so naive that I cannot but help calling this whole effort a blasphemy and profanation of the honourable awardees. This has again proved how far we are lacking intellectually that we even care to respond to such a meaningless effort.

What is the aim of this award? Of this total endeavour? What do the awardees get out of this public acceptance of being the best among the lot? Why the public award giving ceremony has to be held with the presence of all those global figures when you don't even have a representation of a single percent of the population? Isn't it going to strike them by an unreasonable and inordinate self-esteem? Why don't you call it off for low turn out? Why don't you just publish a book on them to commemorate this and let people know about the ones who were elected by the internet users? Where do you get this right to declare such an enormity with such minimal effort?

I believe there will be some intelligent and sensible people who will protest the guile and chicanery that they have undertaken in a haste move to make Muktadhara, New York a popular name.

Khurshid Meher Japan