What makes Hanuman angry today?



The angry looking Monkey-God, Hanuman, is everywhere. Till about couple of years back he was not much visible in your everyday life. In fact, today, I saw him in the car in front of me, as soon as I left my apartment complex. Then I saw couple of him at the first traffic signal, and many more on my way to the office. It made me think, why is he portrayed angrily? And more importantly why are people increasingly falling in love with his angry avatar?

Hanuman was always pictured as a gentle and submissive god. The traditional image of his has a sense of calm on his face, folded hands, or flying peacefully holding a mountain in his palm. The creator of the ‘new-look’ Hanuman, Karan Acharya, said in an interview, he designed this image for his friends, and the intention was designing a Hanuman with an attitude. Looking at the volume of google searches happening for the image, the popular interpretation of ‘attitude’ has been ‘angry’. Below are few of my thoughts on transformation of Hanuman from gentle and submissive to aggressive and macho one.

The picture of changing Hanuman is reflective of the changes happening in the society today. The new majority of people coming into the mainstream middle-class are people from small towns. They belong to that section of society who was mostly nameless and faceless - till about few years back - and did not have a proper job or identity. Today, we find this class of people working as semi-professionals and professionals powering the new economy that is visible in the urban India - Drivers, electricians, repairmen, delivery boys, etc., These are people who are also facing headwinds in terms of competition, consumerism, rising cost of living, expenses to meet their aspirations… and the new-look Hanuman is the symbiotic of strength and mindset to face and overcome these challenges. At a sublime level, these people are also realizing their power (in numbers) in terms of political and social structure. This aggressive image is an assertion of that transformation happening, from being a submissive to assertive one.

Also, we are living in the era of ‘fast and furious’. We are an angrier lot today than before. This manifests in our day-to-day behavior – online and offline. The media is full of rage stories; the social media is littered with rage – based on politics, religion, or just plain rant against everyone else in general. And rage begets rage. The reasons for this rage could be varying, but the underlying reason is, this manifests when there is inequality in the society & widening of gap between what you want and what you get.
A picture of angry Hanuman is a representation of the suppressed anger we are carrying within ourselves

Technology too has an important part to play to make this image popular.  The picture was uploaded and shared by the creator for free. The best part, it was not just an image but also the source and vector file of the same was available on the Net. This increased the possibility of others to download and use the file for their specific needs. Internet is a place that is crawling with people looking for a good design/content that they can use and getting high quality stuff for free is always welcome. It is simple, it has an expression, it is adaptable - from signages, to the popular windshield stickers, T-shirts, Mugs, and even Tattoo! I think the fact that the image found its sweet spot when it started appearing in the rear windshield of the vehicles.

The art/designer community online is a close-knit community. There are regular online destinations they visit for their regular creative dose or inspiration. If something interesting and catchy is available, it soon becomes popular amongst the community. However, the increased popularity of ‘Angry Hanuman’ was due to its reference by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during an election campaign in May 2018. The Google trends show a spike in search interest during this period and it got sustained at a higher-level post the same.

For sure, the popularity of new look Hanuman is not going away soon. It is a symbolism of a new movement that is happening around us and will remain for sometime.

Comments

MyHousingExpert said…
People fighting each other cause they are of different cast maybe.




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My Housing Expert
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