Random Thoughts
India of Our Dreams
It is all over. A friend who teaches Philosophy in an American University, wrote to me saying that this has always been happening in New Delhi, since she knew the place since the seventies when she was a student. Yes, we remember the Sanjay and Geeta Chopra case which had rocked and shamed the country. Sujan Dutta The Telegraph (Kolkata) correspondent says that he feels ashamed, ashamed of all the sexist lewd jokes he has cracked, ashamed of making comments against women and matters which show our male sex-centricity.
It is tragically embedded in our Indian psyche and consciousness, which boasts, especially in some parts of the country of a conservatism. But behind the curtains ugly scenes take centre stage. Behind the curtains women are targetted with the lewdest and lascivious jokes. Jokes doing the rounds in the new avatar of the mobile phone are sexist and 'rapist' in nature.
It is very good that we are doing a deep down introspection, and trying to expiate for our sins. But we have to right the wrong, and carry the mortal remains of this valiant woman to its logical conclusion - that is, punishment to the rapists, and a grim warning to those who follow suit. After all these things are happening, because people think that they will get away. It is amazing how synchronistic things are, even now we hear of similar happenings, in Delhi, Punjab, Manipur, Meghalay and Mumbai. How many such cases have taken place 'silently' which have gone unreported?
The India of our dreams, has become nightmarish, the depraved and the corrupt exist in all walks of life. How do we take it out of this deep seated quagmire? What development are we talking about, when there is a moral and spiritual devolution of the worst order, a 'descent' of man and mankind?
What must be going on in the family of this woman, as death as disrupted rudely, simple middle class lives? It is not a whodunit, it is why we have done it? What is wrong with our collective conscious? We need to have a look at the TV serials and soap operas we produce, which family after family watch, with eyes sticking on to the sets like glue? Violence and sex are shown on these shows with crass impunity. There must be an embargo on such proliferation, on the use of mobile phones by the youth, with a National Screening committee to come out with findings and restrictions. The film actors today who are weeping crocodile tears, forget that it is the Hindi Film scene that has initiated such culpability since a long time. Now of course most of the regional languages are following suit with aplomb.
India of our dreams - dream away till the scent of these nightmares vanish, dream away till such putrefaction, does not stink but smells of roses, odoriferous, bearing stamp of human dignity. The India of our dreams, weep weep till the tears do not dry but are aromatic of fecundity, respect for the poor, downtrodden, victims of sexist violence, female foetice and yes, oh yes, jubilitating at the birth of a girl child.
30-Dec-2012
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Ananya S Guha
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