If you have been listening to Red FM channel in Mumbai, then one of the celebrity RJs they have is Malishka. As part of a radio jingle, she made up this video –

Everyone knows that in Mumbai, rains wreck everything. This year, in fact we have yet to see a day where the entire city has come to a stand still. Having said that, there are a lot of gaps that BMC needs to address. The video was made as a satire, since then, it has had more than 3M views.

So what’s the big deal?

Instead of acting on this creative complaint, what BMC officials chose to do was extremely childish. They organized a “raid” on RJ Malishka’s place and supposedly “found” dengue mosquito larvae.

Then the local Shiv Sena team created a spoof video of this song and BMC went on to file a 500 Cr INR defamation case against the RJ.

All this over a silly jingle that was created. Yes, it was aired, and many people heard it and saw the video.

The big deal is that an individual’s freedom of expression, and the freedom of press is being trampled with here. I don’t know whether I would classify this video under press or under entertainment, but what I do know – is that there is more than a grain of truth to the song.

By reacting like a bully, the BMC has shown how it takes feedback. The next time Shiv Sena talks about giving the marathi manus a voice, think again. It’s all talk.