Depravity - brand name fun ?

I wonder if this is how it all really starts… My thirteen year old’s revealations post his innocent trip to a posh Kolkata club for his favourite Baby Corn , left me fuming and somewhat thankful that my membership with them was in it’s last month . While he was awaiting his order , around one p.m.; when all clubs on weekdays are relatively empty , he witnessed a queer phenomenon where the club attendants ( all male ) were going into the empty reading room alongside and filming each other , sans trousres , on their respective mobiles and later having agood laugh about . They also tried to pull in a passing  fourteen year old boy but gave up when he protested and ran away .

The incident shook me up for two reasons, the first being that this surely is the genesis of those morally deviant characters who commit such vileness with such fippancy and then move onto crimes such as were  comitted in Sutia , the infamous rape village in Bengal. The second had everything to do with me who continues to be shocked by some such incident on a daily basis and still refuses to take a stand . I however , stand completely vindicated in my eyes when I say that” what can I a lone woman do” ?  Such non – idealistic  talk I know is in absolute discord with our erstwhile ideologies which helped liberate us from the colonial rule only to enmesh us 65 years down the line in a vicious circle of greed, self-love and materialism . Is it any wonder that we have all become complete islands in ourselves runing on nothing except God’s grace and our good-luck which should hopefully take us far enough as to never have a run in with our law-enforcing authorities. I am sure if there was ever a census for who the common man fears the most , the Policing department would come right out on top . We hear more of crusaders , do gooders and the common man being shot , stabbed or murdered , than of criminals being caught or booked . The icing on this unsavory cake is the new trend where the perpetrators of the crime now cry ‘wolf’ (to make them appear the wronged party ) and the truly wronged ones have had to bear the additional trauma of bailing themselves out of police custody . So is it any wonder that in the complete absence of a law –enforcing agency we not only stictly mind our business but our morality has become forked . I don’t know about you but my moral lessons to my kids have undergone a drastic makeover . Lessons in street smartness carry more weightage than being a ‘ maryada-purushottam Sri Ram ‘. I tell them first to watch out for themselves ; a philosophy which is at absolute variance with the one followed by Barun Biswas, the messiah of countless women of Sutia .I know I will draw a lot of flak when I say that the reverence which I accord to that departed soul is infinitely more than I have felt for a few of our erstwhile luminaries who have been credited with great philanthrophic  works . The only reason I can give insupport of my agreement is that our murky times must have surpassed even God’s estimation of ‘ Kalyug’, hence it is indeed a wonder when an individual not only speaks up and takes a stand but also dies fighting for a cause which did not effect his life in any way . I can’t imagine doing likewise .

  

For sure, countless imaginations are running riot at the opposite end of the spectrum , devising new ways of getting ahead in this race of ‘ no holds barred obscenity ‘. The latest ‘dirty picture ‘ to go viral with a vengence is the new trend of uploading nude pictures via the various new applications or social networking sites . Literature too has taken a hit with books like ‘Fifty shades of Grey’ being churned out which cater to voyeurism . I guess despondent at being left behind, the visual media , the television hit its nadir with the Guwahati incident while the print media has a report almost every second day  on how humans were forced to partake of their excreta. Given our state of affairs , is it wise to say that ‘ be the change that you want to see ‘ because what holds you and me back is just this ; even if the ‘change’ does happen it will be made sure that the catalysts of the change are not around to ‘see’ it . I draw hope from rare instances like a recent one in Kolkata where a woman singlehandedly foiled a cab-driver’s attempt at raping a 7 year old girl by standing in front of the cab and raising a hue and cry .   While such heros should be honoured on a public platform , you and me the mute spectator definitely definitely need to pray  for a ‘ suraksha kavach ‘ as Karna had , to render us immortal as we deliver just dues to offenders . Meanwhile we continue to languish between the ‘ devil ‘ and the ‘ deep sea ‘.