He used to sell a formulation designed to exterminate vermin. Standing at the town’s most crowded street corner, he’d bawl his guts out, “Maro, Maro” which literally translates to “kill, kill”. This intonation of his would go on for hours at a stretch, be it the most inclement of weathers, which came with annoying regularity. The toughest season was summer, which lasted for more than nine months in a year. The proximity to the sea made his white polyester shirt cling to his frail frame so much so that his clenched nerves, throbbing with his screams, would seem on the verge of exploding, leaving just a frame of bones still yelling ‘Maro, Maro’.
He was pitch black, emaciated, not very tall, and bespectacled, having long smooth hair, oiled to an extent that they would appear thoroughly wet. The hair themselves were a remarkable color, the blackest black imaginable; the kind of black you would show a kid to define black. He had a huge cyst on his neck, which used to wriggle with each superhuman effort of his to bring out the loudest amplitude, exhorting everyone to turn into murderers. The pain and discomfort would be there for everyone to see, but it somehow seemed that this remarkably strong willed persona was always destined to pursue this grotesque profession.
People stumbling over him, giving probing, amused or shocked glances would turn away with a sentiment akin to guilt, as though they were collectively responsible for the misery heaped upon him. The usual progression of emotions on coming across this hideous outcome of human civilization was amazement, amusement, sympathy, guilt and finally, an accusing indifference. For some, the indifference could even turn into hatred. They would feel indignant, blaming him for having roused their apathetic interest just like a blazing curio among the inconsequential trinkets at an amusement park. They would hate him for flaunting his pathos, his misery and the absolute lack of emotion he showed, his apparent indifference to derisive glances, his unconcern with the fruits of his labor and his tenacity which gave them a measure of their own vulnerability.
10 May 2010
07 May 2010
death to kasab
Since yesterday, when the death sentence for Kasab was announced, there is unbridled joy being expressed by the media and the people in general. The splurge of posts on social networking sites celebrating the judgment takes on various hues. Some condemn the time and money spent on his trial for what should have been an open-and-shut case. Some praise the Indian judicial system which allows even someone like Kasab to undergo a fair trial, and some just resort to jingoistic balderdash.
There is another group of people who dwell upon the morality of the death penalty and whether such a ‘heinous’ act should be abolished altogether, like in some countries. This group assumes that death penalty is an inhuman or heinous act. In my opinion, it isn’t so. As a matter of fact, a death sentence is probably the mildest form of retribution for someone who has no hope of evading the law. Amongst all fears that plague us, fear of death is probably the one which is least encountered. How many of us are actually afraid of dying, how many of us even ever think about dying, which is in fact the only certainly of life. Each of us is going to die anyhow, so how does death become a punishment. In fact, the quick death by the noose is perhaps much easier to endure than a slow painful death.
And does awarding the death penalty become a deterrent? Certainly not. How can something which you or anyone you know has never experienced become a deterrent? Suffering, we all know, or can at least imagine, but death? Moreover, a quick death ensures that someone like Kasab, so heavily indoctrinated with his fanaticism takes his hatred to the grave with him. So, it’s just a proponent of an ideology who dies, the dogma itself still survives, and in fact, flourishes, emphasized by the assumed martyr who gave his life for it.
On the other hand, if such a criminal is subjected to life-long torment, with no respite or hope, the aura associated with his act gradually fades away, both in his own as well as his supporters’ eyes. In the never-ending anguish, the perpetrator may even realize the futility of his crime. As for retribution, what can be a bigger revenge than having someone spend his whole life confined within four walls in sub-human living conditions? The ideas that he lives on are likely to wither away in a matter of months and he becomes a despicable reckless individual, detested because of his actions, but certainly not revered for his beliefs. For a religious fanatic, the death penalty is a sort of corroboration of his viewpoint. It just endorses the filmy cliché ‘it’s better to die with your head held high than to go through an agonizing existence forever facing ridicule, scorn and contempt’.
There is another group of people who dwell upon the morality of the death penalty and whether such a ‘heinous’ act should be abolished altogether, like in some countries. This group assumes that death penalty is an inhuman or heinous act. In my opinion, it isn’t so. As a matter of fact, a death sentence is probably the mildest form of retribution for someone who has no hope of evading the law. Amongst all fears that plague us, fear of death is probably the one which is least encountered. How many of us are actually afraid of dying, how many of us even ever think about dying, which is in fact the only certainly of life. Each of us is going to die anyhow, so how does death become a punishment. In fact, the quick death by the noose is perhaps much easier to endure than a slow painful death.
And does awarding the death penalty become a deterrent? Certainly not. How can something which you or anyone you know has never experienced become a deterrent? Suffering, we all know, or can at least imagine, but death? Moreover, a quick death ensures that someone like Kasab, so heavily indoctrinated with his fanaticism takes his hatred to the grave with him. So, it’s just a proponent of an ideology who dies, the dogma itself still survives, and in fact, flourishes, emphasized by the assumed martyr who gave his life for it.
On the other hand, if such a criminal is subjected to life-long torment, with no respite or hope, the aura associated with his act gradually fades away, both in his own as well as his supporters’ eyes. In the never-ending anguish, the perpetrator may even realize the futility of his crime. As for retribution, what can be a bigger revenge than having someone spend his whole life confined within four walls in sub-human living conditions? The ideas that he lives on are likely to wither away in a matter of months and he becomes a despicable reckless individual, detested because of his actions, but certainly not revered for his beliefs. For a religious fanatic, the death penalty is a sort of corroboration of his viewpoint. It just endorses the filmy cliché ‘it’s better to die with your head held high than to go through an agonizing existence forever facing ridicule, scorn and contempt’.
04 May 2010
theatre of the absurd
On similar lines to me previous post, sample some outrageous headlines on electronic media (none of this is a figment of my imagination, I don’t have such fertile imagination to come up with these gems):
‘Camere me kaala jaadu karte dekhi gai churail’ (The power of the camera, Dibakar Bannerjee’s inspiration?)
‘India TV ke paas hila dene wala video’
‘Kapde churane wala bhoot’
‘Commissioner ka kutta laapata’
‘Chajje pe billo rani’ (this was about a cat perched on a roof, roof-shattering news indeed)
Khooni ped ka rahasya
Yeh khabar sirf kirayedar dekh sakta hai, makaan malik dekhega to royega
'kanoon ke lambe haathon se narbhakshak ki pitaai' (lawyers bashing up pandher)
'dhongi baba ka naag nritya'
'dada ki dadagiri rang layee' (Saurav ganguly)
‘Camere me kaala jaadu karte dekhi gai churail’ (The power of the camera, Dibakar Bannerjee’s inspiration?)
‘India TV ke paas hila dene wala video’
‘Kapde churane wala bhoot’
‘Commissioner ka kutta laapata’
‘Chajje pe billo rani’ (this was about a cat perched on a roof, roof-shattering news indeed)
Khooni ped ka rahasya
Yeh khabar sirf kirayedar dekh sakta hai, makaan malik dekhega to royega
'kanoon ke lambe haathon se narbhakshak ki pitaai' (lawyers bashing up pandher)
'dhongi baba ka naag nritya'
'dada ki dadagiri rang layee' (Saurav ganguly)
some media bashing
The recent self-righteous and smug display of moral outrage over the IPL by the media, the politicians, and any and everyone who wants to be heard without having anything substantial to say is ridiculously funny and tragic at the same time. The ever-increasing impact of the media can have no better manifestation than this imbroglio. Speculative reporting, uninformed opinions, and shameless sensationalism has been the hallmark of media houses over the past decade or so. Lately, however, it has touched a new low with absolute disregard for accountability and answerablity. How often do we see reports citing ‘informed sources’ or ‘insiders comments’? That the media influences the actions of the state was exemplified by the sudden surge of allegations of financial misconduct, uproars in parliament and the abrupt probes into the so-called IPL scam. In a country where financial misconduct is almost a norm, the alacrity with which state agencies swooped down upon the IPL was ridiculous and absurd. And the media, which was crying hoarse over how the IPL is a ‘murky’ and sinister undertaking clammed up, all of a sudden. There was no attempt to substantiate the charges leveled, and no reporting of what the tax raids and crack-downs unearthed The sickening slander and attacks on individuals vanished into thin air as soon as the situation veered away from speculative to substantive.
And this was not the first instance that the media transgressed over its role as a reporter to a creator of news or a self-appointed opinion-builder. The Nithari killings were a shocking example of how the media can create abominable villains without bothering about even a shred of evidence. The fact that Moninder Singh Pandher was acquitted by the courts was conveniently ignored by the media. This is largely because our collective conscious loves to hate. Branding someone as a cannibal and coming up with macabre analyses of the gory details of the killings, the media never even bothered to ponder upon the fact that no one is guilty until proven. Letting their imagination run riot, the media actually weaved up stories of illicit relations, and the tragic possibility of a father killing his daughter in the Arushi murder case in Delhi. The sole aim of the media in these instance and many more, was to introduce shock value, the more implausible and horrifying the claims, the better. This tendency surfaced once again in the systematic slander against Sunanda Pushkar.
Invariably, the media loves to feed upon the clichés and beliefs of the majority. The insinuation that a single woman has to indulge in some hanky-panky to become successful reeks of the shameful regressive mores, redolent of Madhur Bhandarkar movies.
Around a year back, a vernacular daily in MP cited ‘informed sources’ to claim that the ‘Big Bang’ experiment might lead to the end of the world. Recently, leading electronic and print media reported unauthorized border intrusions by China, again, citing ‘highly placed government officials.
There will be numerous such vignettes on the recent IPL scam, like the claim that the I-T department has prepared a investigation report related to alleged match fixing and betting in IPL. The fact that the I-T department completely denied any investigations except the alleged tax frauds doesn’t bar the media from continuously toeing the betting line, and setting up panels and discussions on match fixing and betting at the IPL. And by now we would all have heard an acquaintance or two waxing eloquent about how he always knew that the IPL was fixed. Amid all the bellicose claims and counter-claims, initiated by the media and conveniently picked up the politicians and the susceptible media consumer, no-one bothered to check the veracity and credibility of these reports. How many of us know what are the exact charges leveled against Lalit Modi and what is the substantiation of these charges, or what exactly is the much discussed ‘sweat equity’ which brought innumerable riches to the vampish man-eating sunanda pushkar. We smugly concluded that out long-held beliefs were finally being vindicated.
What makes it all the more sinister is the impact of such irresponsible reporting. Pandher, the ‘cannibal’, was brutally assaulted by a group of lawyers, and will bear a lifelong stigma. The parliamentarians went into a tizzy about how the opposition had its hands full with the dirty money from the IPL. In a country where the legal recourse takes years to materialize, we have Joint Parliamentary Committees set up in a matter of days to probe the financial conduct of the whole IPL bandwagon. Yes, media vigilantism does have its positive aspects, but lately things have gone a bit too far and the result of it all is a growing skepticism developing towards the authenticity of the media, which was considered to a infallible and reliable not too long back.
And this was not the first instance that the media transgressed over its role as a reporter to a creator of news or a self-appointed opinion-builder. The Nithari killings were a shocking example of how the media can create abominable villains without bothering about even a shred of evidence. The fact that Moninder Singh Pandher was acquitted by the courts was conveniently ignored by the media. This is largely because our collective conscious loves to hate. Branding someone as a cannibal and coming up with macabre analyses of the gory details of the killings, the media never even bothered to ponder upon the fact that no one is guilty until proven. Letting their imagination run riot, the media actually weaved up stories of illicit relations, and the tragic possibility of a father killing his daughter in the Arushi murder case in Delhi. The sole aim of the media in these instance and many more, was to introduce shock value, the more implausible and horrifying the claims, the better. This tendency surfaced once again in the systematic slander against Sunanda Pushkar.
Invariably, the media loves to feed upon the clichés and beliefs of the majority. The insinuation that a single woman has to indulge in some hanky-panky to become successful reeks of the shameful regressive mores, redolent of Madhur Bhandarkar movies.
Around a year back, a vernacular daily in MP cited ‘informed sources’ to claim that the ‘Big Bang’ experiment might lead to the end of the world. Recently, leading electronic and print media reported unauthorized border intrusions by China, again, citing ‘highly placed government officials.
There will be numerous such vignettes on the recent IPL scam, like the claim that the I-T department has prepared a investigation report related to alleged match fixing and betting in IPL. The fact that the I-T department completely denied any investigations except the alleged tax frauds doesn’t bar the media from continuously toeing the betting line, and setting up panels and discussions on match fixing and betting at the IPL. And by now we would all have heard an acquaintance or two waxing eloquent about how he always knew that the IPL was fixed. Amid all the bellicose claims and counter-claims, initiated by the media and conveniently picked up the politicians and the susceptible media consumer, no-one bothered to check the veracity and credibility of these reports. How many of us know what are the exact charges leveled against Lalit Modi and what is the substantiation of these charges, or what exactly is the much discussed ‘sweat equity’ which brought innumerable riches to the vampish man-eating sunanda pushkar. We smugly concluded that out long-held beliefs were finally being vindicated.
What makes it all the more sinister is the impact of such irresponsible reporting. Pandher, the ‘cannibal’, was brutally assaulted by a group of lawyers, and will bear a lifelong stigma. The parliamentarians went into a tizzy about how the opposition had its hands full with the dirty money from the IPL. In a country where the legal recourse takes years to materialize, we have Joint Parliamentary Committees set up in a matter of days to probe the financial conduct of the whole IPL bandwagon. Yes, media vigilantism does have its positive aspects, but lately things have gone a bit too far and the result of it all is a growing skepticism developing towards the authenticity of the media, which was considered to a infallible and reliable not too long back.
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