Mukesh Ambani's new home on Altamount Road has been getting a lot of media coverage lately. And so has Arundhati Roy's speech in Srinagar. These two individuals live in diametrically different worlds (and probably despise each other's weltanschauung, approach to life, and lifestyles) and yet have one thing in common -- they've made it to Forbes' lists. Different lists, of course, for different reasons.
Mukesh Ambani topped the Forbes list of the richest Indians for the third year in a row, and is currently the 4th richest person in the world. And Arundhati Roy was ranked 3rd in Forbes' 30 most insipiring women in the world. Considering that the world population is rapidly approaching 7 billion, this makes both of them very special.
Several critics have been criticising, separately, Mr Ambani for erecting a monstrosity of a building they consider to be an outrageous display of wealth, and Ms Roy for making a speech they consider to be an outrageous display of hatred for India and its institutions. And several people have been criticising those critics, stridently defending the inalienable fundamental rights of those two objects of criticism -- respectively, Ambani's right to spend his money as he pleases (see reader comments) and Roy's right to say whatever she pleases.
How I wish those same critics of the critics would as stridently expostulate with those same objects of criticism whose freedom they defend, about their inalienable fundamental responsibilities as good citizens. How come they don't do that? How come their decibel level is always so high in defending the right of people to fuck-up but nary a whisper when it comes to the duty of the same people to NOT fuck-up?
