For the last few months, PUBG (an online multiplayer battle royale game) has been creating waves in India for all the wrong reasons. It has led to stabbings and hospitalised people. In addition to that, the game has been banned in Gujarat and people have actually been arrested for playing it. So it was no surprise when an effigy of the game popped up before Holika Dahan.
Holika Dahan is celebrated a day before Holi to commemorate the death of the demoness called “Holika” and to showcase good defeating evil. The modern iteration of said evil is apparently PUBG.
One of the twin brothers, Ashish Vitthal, who’ve constructed the effigy said that,
“It must be banned. Parents tell us children play PUBG all day. They appreciate us for the concept.”
Ashish’s brother, Amar added,
“People are turning violent by playing PUBG, children aren’t focussing on studies. So we came up with this concept. Earlier we had created awareness about noise pollution, demonetisation etc. We’ll burn this effigy during ‘Holika Daha’. We want to spread a social message.”
Although the effigy was pitch perfect, the reactions to it were mixed.
Parents in India not taking responsibility for their children by cutting down screen time, rather asking the governments to ban everything & creating a nanny state https://t.co/SihWratrd5
— Chethan (@perfektengineer) March 20, 2019
Proud Mumbaiker… https://t.co/NkDwrH38Kc
— imtiyaz Shaikh (@imi_ta) March 19, 2019
Rip pubg.. Rip thousands of pubg streamers 😠https://t.co/thV9OJMqyQ
— ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎ (@kunalmh) March 19, 2019
https://twitter.com/abhimanyusrana/status/1108085545014419457
It's a very good way of making kids aware about ill-effcts of PUBG whole day long.
— Honey Pahilajwani (@pahilajwani_h) March 20, 2019
I played PUBG from June to August last year and stopped playing it until now when my exams are over. If a person like me can control then it's not that hard.
— Hafnium (@Hafnium_India) March 19, 2019
Another effigy that caught everyone’s attention was that of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, the man behind the attacks at Pulwama.
JeM chief Masood Azhar was recently in the news after India attempted to make him a “global tourist” in front of the UN Security Council. However, that move was blocked by China, leading to a widespread Twitter campaign to boycott Chinese products.
Religious customs are an integral part of our culture. But since we’re moving forward as a society, it’s only logical that the symbolism behind those customs receives an upgrade as well. Let’s hope that these effigies do have an impact on our people and help them get rid of any evil.