'Reel' Vs 'Real'

Why do we adulate our actors so much? I have been pondering over this for some time now.

Consider any film award ceremony. This single occasion drains money running into millions. A splendid event with a glittering arena and even more glittering crowd. Then goes the announcement, "This years life time achievement award goes to...". The whole auditorium gets up, a huge uproar, tears in thousands of eyes (They are all actors and of course it's not hard) and hundreds of millions more who are watching it live from every corner of the country.
-- This is the respect we show to a person who plays with fake guns and fake blood. Monetary gain for doing this is in excess of Rs.4,00,00,000 (I have not put any extra 0s).

Then we have the Gallantry award, the Great Param Vir Chakra. It's a huge news on DoorDarshan, yes, that lousy Government owned channel. No, I don't watch free channels. Why should I when I pay Rs.300 every month for those numerous colorful channels filled with raunchy contents? Yes, the awards did get a passing mention in one of my favorite channels. They cannot spend much time on such unimportant news, because they have better things to cover - there is so much happening in the Bollywood and Hollywood.
-- This is the respect we show to a Hero who plays with real guns and real blood to protect his Motherland. Yes, there is a monetary gain here too. He, or in most cases his widow, will get a handsome pension of Rs.1,500 (One thousand five hundred - in case you thought I missed out the 0s) per month from the Central Government!!

Saying all these, now the next Param Vir Chakra must be given to the hero of a film that I saw last year. He climbed a huge rock and smothered all the enemies! He is the bravest in this country.

This is how pathetic we are. Though now, thanks to numerous private NEWS channels, who have taken a bold move of going beyond glamour. We are now getting to know some of the 'real' issues. Of course here too Bollywood gets the king's share. An actress getting a small bruise makes headlines and it is more important than absolutely anything else happening in India and everywhere!

Ok, now considering that we do get to know about the current issues from these NEWS channels? Are we trying to address them??
May be not!

We still have a long way to go...