Over the times now, RJ Balaji has gained quite a reputation for speaking his mind regarding any social or political issues. Recently, in an interview with News 7, Balaji said that he feels that the time for Rajinikanth to join politics has long gone. He was quite open with his thoughts and compared the Superstar with his father-in-law and said, “If I tell my 65-year-old father-in-law to do 10 things, he will possibly do two. He doesn’t have the strength to do more than that. He is happy playing with his grandchildren and I want him to stay that way.” His view brought in quite a retaliation from some Rajini fans.
As I have already dealt with the ‘Rajini joining politics’ issue before, I clearly felt that RJ Balaji’s way of putting things is too crude. When things can be put simply, he tries to make it complex. Why need to compare a man trying to make a change with someone normal? A simple no would have sufficed.
This is not the first time RJ Balaji has created a controversy. In fact, Balaji seems to have always found himself deep in controversies and disagreements. You can call him “vocal” or “honest,” but it just doesn’t do justice to his ways. Perhaps there is more to it than it seems.
Let us take his Big FM days. Before Balaji became an actor and a social “vocalist,” he used to be an *wait for it* RJ at Big FM. His show Take It Easy was very popular. He did reviews of latest movies in his segment “120 Rs.” However, he had to stop his reviews due to a lot of complaints he received from actors and other film-based employees. His reviews always contained negative criticisms and sarcastic comments. It created a huge controversy until he finally had to take it down.
Nobody can ever forget his interview with Rajdeep Sardesai. The floods hit Chennai badly and we were struggling for help. However, the national media was very cool about the entire issue. Chennai made it to the front pages of the national newspapers only after a few days. The whole issue became way too dampening. No pun intended.
When Rajdeep Sardesai, the consulting editor of India Today went on grounds to cover the issue, RJ Balaji’s words were pretty harsh. He was seen dragging the mic towards him and saying, “First thing I want to say is this is the problem. Like most of you don’t know who’s Balaji, what is Chennai. You don’t how Chennai looks or how Tamil Nadu looks?”
His stance on the whole Jallikattu issue was also very tiresome. In an attempt to support the protests that took place to not ban Jallikattu, RJ Balaji made quite some stirring statements. I am not saying that his stance is wrong, but one should know to draw boundaries. There is always taking it too far. From what I could see, I felt that Balaji was trying to pull all the credits onto himself.
Let us take a small example. During our school days, when our teachers divided us into groups to do projects, there always used to be a student who used to do all the work. Irrespective of whether he/she actually wants to help, they always seem to put the entire load on themselves. They are more often called as attention seekers. More than they actually want to help, they want to be acknowledged for doing most of the work. Strangely, RJ Balaji’s way of doing things reminds me of that person during our school days.
Is RJ Balaji constantly finding himself amidst controversies just for the sake of attention? I feel that such a persona would do politics more justice rather than media. Just like another Arnab Goswami, Balaji too is immensely rash with his views. Journalism comes with ethics and decorum. One must always consider the opposite party before making a public comment about him/her. So I guess karma hit Balaji hard. Just like his views on issues, I too have formed an opinion about him.