September 29, 2025 (Yes Punjab News)
Filmmaker and storyteller Shekhar Kapur has always had a way of looking at the world through unexpected lenses. In a recent reflection, he explored a fascinating question: “They’re tribal ! They’re different ! They are a tourist attraction! Completely unlike us … Really ?”
Shekhar Kapur recalls his early years in London, studying to be a chartered accountant, and how he was struck by the uniformity of men in the financial districts. He observed,” I was fascinated by the men in the financial districts , that all walked the same way, and in bowler hats and black suits .. obsessed by their ‘brollys’ tightly wrapped.
Not a little flap out of place. No one looked at each other .. and in the commuter trains .. they even turned the pages of the Financial Times with a particular flourish .. ensuring there was not a crease out of place.. “. Shekhar Kapur realised then: “This is a tribal culture! I remember thinking… no less than the men of the Masai tribe.”
He argues that “we human beings are essentially tribal. We congregate into tribes, especially when we are afraid… and change tribal loyalties more often than we realise.” Politics, too, is tribal. “Even democracy is tribal behaviour… just look at the angst between the democratic right, the democratic left and the middle.”
Valuation systems, whether for art or corporations, also fall into this pattern. “We give it names like ‘scarcity’ but really a painting has value because a particular ‘tribe’ says so… and the sudden rise in so-called valuations of companies… it’s tribal behaviour that leads to valuations that don’t actually have a true financial base other than a belief system.” The lesson, he suggests, is visible even in daily life: “In Juhu… I curse cars as a ‘pedestrian tribe’… yet when I’m driving, I honk at pedestrians. See how we quickly change?”
Shekhar Kapur leaves us with a thought that lingers: if our identity keeps shifting with every tribe we join, then perhaps his sharpest question is also the simplest — “Are we more tribal than individual?”
FOLLOW NOW
