Saving Kaavya Viswanathan

"Well, to each his own. I chose my path, you chose the way of the hero. And they found you amusing for a while, the people of this city. But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually they will hate you. Why bother? "
-- Green Goblin to Spiderman in the movie Spiderman (2002)

The recent rise and fall of Kaavya Viswanathan as shown in the news media has made one wonder whether it is all about plagiarism or if there is something more to it. The story had all the right ingredients right from the beginning. A teenage success story that it was, talking about a young Harvard undergrad and how she makes it big in the bad bad world of publishing with her first novel - a chick lit - it very soon moved into much murkier waters. The same media that opulently praised Kaavya for her maiden success, savagely went for a kill after the rumours and confessions of plagiarism in her work.

In a story that appears too familiar and too obvious, one is awestruck by the way people's lives are ripped apart by the media, though initially to put them on a high altar, but only to be torn into pieces later. The glory and the ignominy go hand in hand. Nothing is spared by this juggernaut that crushes identities; identities that were initially created by it to be desecrated later. No doubt one wonders if Kaavya really deserved all this ignominy? Did she become a pawn used to attract eye-balls and sell copies of newspapers? Did she become an object to be used and thrown away as a piece of gossip in a boring party?

I guess no one deserves such a ruthless behaviour. It's time public images don't get into private lives of people and respect individuals' right to privacy. It's time media behaves sensibly and understand the kind of trauma a person might personally undergo because of all the bad publicity. At the same time what's now being termed Kaavya-Gate fiasco also shows how one's vanity that might cause one to allow media to tresspass that thin line between public life and private life can only lead to disgrace at the other end of the tunnel.

The problem with idol worship is, idols get broken.

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