Chomuhood and the Curious Case of SSR Warriors

The slang chomu is used to refer to a gullible fool. While its conventional usage is pejorative, there has been a concerted attempt by Indian media houses and an online cabal which refers to itself as SSRwarriors to give it a positive spin. Though the issue has taken more space than it merits both on air and on print, I am going to spill some more ink into the hopelessly poisoned river of public discourse. This piece is prompted by the observation of many of the online and newsroom fans of the late actor, denying the possibility that he could have been afflicted by a mental illness. After all he was known to have a lasting interest in physics, and following Newtons fourth law of motion, people with a keen interest in natural sciences cannot suffer from mental illness. Regrettably he was also manipulated into taking the dreadful drug called marijuana; unheard of in the long history of Jamboodweep, by none other than his cunning girlfriend who according to credible media reports is also a practitioner of black magic.

The narrative of a 34-year-old man being manipulated into consuming weed, by his girlfriend which led to him committing suicide, has been and should be subjected to deconstruction as it lays out a dangerous formula for the treatment of young women as deviants if they choose to live their lives on their own terms, as they would not be able to defend themselves in the face of such attack . The purpose here is to look at the kind of projection that the late actor has been subjected too. A very talented man, denied rightful opportunities and manipulated by a woman who can tap into a seemingly larger pool of cultural capital which implies a mastery over witch craft. In this case Sushant Singh Rajpoot becomes the surface on which our collective chomuhood is being tattooed upon. The instruments for this are those who see themselves as talented people denied their fair share of opportunities, while they may not have had the fortune of being manipulated by women they perceive to have a larger pool of cultural capital to draw upon.

The archetype of the Chomu is not limited to the so called SSRwarriors. This is a catchall rhetorical net which can beguile a very large number of men into seeing or wanting to see themselves in the figure of SSR rather they have displaced SSR with themselves in this narrative. This positive image of the Chomu being curated in newsrooms has one other characteristic other than the talent (real or imaginary) and the gullibility (very real) and that is self-righteousness. The poor Chomu wants what is good for the country, it is in the process he ends up cheering for lynch mobs, but that has no bearing on his righteousness because his intentions are pure. Though he may advocate for the denial of citizenship to Muslims but he does that to help disenfranchised religious minorities in countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. The point, you see is that he cannot be held responsible for any of his actions, he only wishes for the best and follows whoever shouts the loudest or in the most resonant form of self-righteousness. How insensitive of you bring up things like unemployment and the shrinking economy to him, as if he is supposed to look beyond himself and worry about issues which are not on his tv screen at the moment you westernized snob.

The gullibility of the Chomu is not entirely imaginary, after all he may also have sacrificed time and attention from the search for employment to the fight for #JusticeforSSR. This he does, because he is told that this is what is right for him by the completely trustworthy news people, who don’t look down on him. Being dragged down is another matter and no one should be blamed for it. Afterall our poor Chomu also sacrifices time from his family and children which he will readily swear by to engage in social work that will lead to the spiritual regeneration of the nation, such as slut-shaming Rhea Chakraborty. Afterall if everyone were to mind their own business and the society were not to engage in acts of voyeurism, personal and systemic, women would be able to exercise personal agency. And how can that be allowed? You may accuse the Chomu of being motivated by self-interest, but you are again wrong, the right honorable Chomu has performed the supreme sacrifice of giving up on his own rational self-interest and delegated all his thinking to the talking heads on the TV. So, to accuse him of any wrong doing shows only your pettiness.

But don’t you dare speak against those who engage in Chomu-speak on tv. For they give voice and validation to the Chomu, whom you all are hell bent to suppress. So what, if there is no employment for him, for the first time he sees his chai ki dukaan gossip being elevated and represented on national TV and being taken with a seriousness that three central investigative agencies are literally after a woman for any charge that may stick. This is a level of power that the Chomu may not wield but can feel in that moment, and you would have him walk away from the feeling of being an autocrat while unemployed. Though Rhea Chakraborty has been nabbed for possession of 59 grams of Marijauna, her real crime is being a ‘witch who ate her own man’ and she will soon be tried for it. In the meantime, the Chomu’s shall salivate on the arrest of the various activists and organizers involved in the anti-CAA protests who are being arrested on charges as credible as the witchcraft of Rhea Chakraborty.

You might ask if you can help the Chomu, this is nothing but your attempt to position yourself as the high and mighty and look down upon him, while he sinks deeper into the quick sand of televised righteousness. Your appeal to move away from the loop of television-WhatsApp conspiracy theories will fall on deaf ears. That is their own truth, which may not exist outside of their own heads, but that will not have an effect on their willingness to hold on to it. You may think that the scarcity brought by the economic catastrophe will force them to reflect upon their actions and abandon the position of self-righteousness which leads them to attach themselves with Vanity projects launched by the media. While this may happen, it is also likely that the Chomu may stick to self-righteousness out of scarcity and choose to stay on the sinking ship taking you down with him. You may plausibly think that the factory of Chomuhood will automatically be dismantled once another government comes in power, and if that is the case, I have news for you, you are no less of a Chomu yourself.