Dear Shaheen...

Dear Shaheen,

[ The girl who posted something about Balasaheb on the day of his funeral when 2.5 Million people were attending his funeral procession in a peaceful way. ]

You are the luckiest girl in the world. You don't know that:

I can't imagine foll similar possible scenarios:

1) If you would have posted something against Mulayam Yadav or Akhilesh Yadav on the day of their death esp from Lucknow...

2) If you would have posted something like this regarding Kalaignaar M Karunanidhi or Jailalitha or M K Stalin on the day of his death esp from Chennai...

3) If you would have posted something like this agaisnt YSR or Jagan Reddy on the day of their death esp from Hyderabad or Vijaywada...

4) If you would have posted something like this against Bhupinder Singh Hooda or Prakash Singh Badal on the day of his death esp from Chandigarh...

My dear, the list goes on.

I know we live in a free country. We have a right to speak our mind and even broadcast it on the "brave" platforms of Facebook and Twitter. These social networking sites are like mightiest of tools with great power. But never forget what Uncle Ben told our dear Spiderman "With great power, comes great responsibilities!"

You are just stepping out of your teen age. Take this from me as an elder brother "Most important quality of humans is "Empathy". Empathy is defined as the ability to feel the emotions another is feeling. Be emphatic to the emotions of the people around you. You might differ with them and yes you should always make your thoughts heard but, timing is the key, dear! When, where and how are you going to differ is what matters and is going to decide whether your point gets across or it fells on deaf ears and as you must have observed now, backfires on yourself.

If you want to change the system you cannot do it by bluntly opposing it by means of voicing your opinion on social networking sites and forgetting all about it. From what I think, you had posted it with not much of thought but look at the effects it had! You got tweeted by Pete Cashmore, one of the most influential people in the social networking world and you also got support from many Indian celebs like Shobha De, Anurah Kashyap etc. I am sure people will sympathize and support you but let me guarantee you that all would be forgotten in due time and you will be left alone to deal with your life.

Make a wise choice dear of how you want to change the system. Freedom of speech is a powerful tool and that power itself makes it something that needs to be used with a bit of caution especially when commenting and putting forth your views about someone like Balasaheb, on the day of his death, when the emotions are running sky high and from the city where he was respected by many and feared by others - Mumbai, which has maximum of his followers, who are in mourning... A bit of caution would help, don't you think so?

Again, I would congratulate you on being lucky that you chose Mumbai, Maharashtra to post some comment against the dead leader on the day of his death. Had it been any of other places and any of other leaders and any of other followers and any of the other state police mechanisms, things might have been graver that they were. I am not threatening you in anyway [ …and anyone other than Shaheen reading this who might be feeling offended, Guys, stop thinking of what is right and what is wrong and do a REALITY CHECK! ] but as I said earlier, empathy is the word! Feel what people around you are feeling and then decide whether what you want to say should be said, in the way you want say it, at the time you want to say it, using the platform that your say to be posted on... This does not restrict the beautiful right of 'Freedom of Speech' but just helps in making sure that your free speech actually makes an impact that was desired.

I hope the ultimate desire or goal of using the free speech is not just creating a controversy, garnering support and fame but actually changing the system and people so that they become better than they were.

Yours truly with brotherly love,

Shantanu