A reality check...

While the brouhaha is on about the most recent incident of gang-rape in Delhi and its aftermath on the kind of punishment that awaits the accused, let us have a reality check about our own state in the meanwhile. Though it has become more of a fashion to label Delhi as the rape capital of the country and subsequently indulge in a more dangerous blame game involving a certain community, figures prove that the number of similar incidents is increasing at an alarming pace in Assam as well.

According to sources in the Assam police, the number of incidents involving the kidnapping of women or girls in the state has gone up from 1,456 in 2005 to 2,998 in 2011. The number of rape cases has significantly increased to 2,011 in 2011 from a much lower figure of 1,217 in 2005. The number of molestation cases has also jumped to 1,446 in 2011 from 899 in 2005. Now these are only official figures and the number would go up if scores of other unreported cases are included in the tally. The GS Road incident, which was an equally ghastly episode, isn't history yet. The incident involving the poor tribal girl, who was openly stripped and mercilessly beaten by a beastly mob in Guwahati, hasn't really skipped public memory till now. I would also take the liberty here to cite a recent happening where an NRL official was arrested for raping a married woman.

Thus a comment like “North-east is a better place for women” doesn't really hold ground under the given circumstances and is a kind of escapism. While it is prudent to identify areas of trouble and take necessary steps, a one-eyed approach like shifting the blame on a particular city only worsens the already complicated scenario. A causal and not an effects-oriented approach is the order of the day. We got to be empathetic here and not sympathetic. This is not Delhi’s problem alone. This is a problem afflicting the entire country and thus need a single-focussed approach. Although, nothing and I repeat nothing could possibly justify such a heinous act, the fact remains that there are deeper and more intricate social reasons which are responsible for the current milieu. All of us need to find those reasons out and sort them out rather than cry senselessly over a single incident and considering it as the end of the world. The reasons could be the subject of a different discussion that I would be taking up some other day.

Coherent(??) thoughts!

Here I am finally where I belonged, or is it? OK give me a bit of time and breathing space to figure out as to why I am here at the first place. Before I actually scribble an assortment of words that might mean something (or chances are that things might be otherwise), let me jot down everything punctuating my very turbulent mind and entity right now. There are bound to be questions that would ridicule my present effort and rightfully so. Neither am I trying to make a point here nor is this an attempt to increase collective awareness. I am just trying to pacify my rattled and challenged persona. Yes, I am quite aware that the more sensible lot would actually recommend me to write a diary as this in no way would attract public curiosity or contempt or compassion for that matter (important ingredients for a blog to be read). Yet, somewhere somehow, everyone expects to be heard and understood and I don’t stand an exception. With this, I guess, I have tried to explain my position. I wouldn't blame anyone who refuses to believe my version as I myself would have scoffed at a similar attempt by someone else. So, with doubts galore, let me begin my tale (not really, although a ‘writer’ always wants to tell a tale). As told earlier, I would begin my ‘whatever’ with a spontaneous ranting of words (or phrases or clauses), not necessarily in a definite order though, that I would try (honestly) to weave henceforth into a meaningful scribble. Nostalgia, teenage, school life, college life, magical nineties, haunting past, a journey, moments, songs, movies, incidents, deaths, personalities, teachers. I don’t claim to have included everything that I might use in my ‘meaningful’ (or meaningless) rumblings set to follow. OK the story (or the stories) goes (or go) like this.

While, there are people who might have ignored the impact (or should I be more politically correct in using the word influence) of past on their lives, I belong to the more tested (yet unfortunate) group of people who are always drawn towards past. I remember Amrith Lal, my earlier boss and News Editor at the TOI in Chennai, once having told me that nostalgia is a very dangerous proposition that creates a kind of seasonal contempt for the foreseeable future and makes us cling to the past, thus stunting development and natural growth. In fact, he went to the extent of calling nostalgia a negative inertia. As much as I agree with his very erudite interpretation, I have reasons to believe that life is not always governed by what is beneficial to the greater lot of people. So, I am still drawn towards past and nostalgia is still a word to reckon with in my personal dictionary. So, what is it that I am trying to prove? OK to put it in simple terms, I often get enthralled at the prospect of going back in time (although at the hindsight, I really can’t imagine my life without the modern gazettes that I have been sporting for quite a while now). So, I tried reasoning it out with myself and tried to demystify the myth associated with past. So, I surveyed people around (not exhaustive by any stretch of imagination though) and I was astonished to find that my symptoms were neither uncommon nor something that I should be worried about. Although technically we can never arrive at a conclusion (an over-hyped hypothetical word), I am safe to infer that past, more or less, takes everyone into its cozy (sometimes thorny as well) lap.

In fact, we would be astonished to find how often teenage is deeply associated with any nostalgic moment. Again, I am no psychologist to be able to offer an explanation for this. May be (I reiterate, may be), teenage is by far the best time of our life although popular literature and dominant social belief have always given that rare honour to childhood. With all due respects to childhood, I would like to differ. Here, I will tread a different territory to prove my point. For me and a lot of other people, childhood is too dreamy and good to be true. Nostalgia is actually that part of the past that we can relate to and imagine ourselves to be in, rather than a distant hazy and dreamy world that, we know, we were once in. So, see within yourselves listen to those old songs, see those old movies and you would actually appreciate that it is teenage that is coming back to you rather than childhood. And the moment, we start ruminating about our teenage days; things that invariably crowd our mind include a song that we had loved back then, a movie that had given us sweet dreams, that special girl (or boy) who had often jammed our thought process, the youth icon who had inspired us to do something in life (Sachin, Sonu and Nachiketa for me) and not to mention that special individual who was a dear part of our life but is not there anymore (subject to a myriad range of reasons). The thoughts make you at once happy and sad. Again, I fail to give reasons (purely my fault though for not being a behaviour analyst). So, we go back to the moot question. What is it that I am trying to establish? Nothing! Yes, at the outset itself, I had warned that I am not trying to prove any point. Now, as I am churning out this nonsense, I am getting nostalgic listening to an old Indipop number Tera milnaa pal do palka by Sonu Nigam that came out sometime in 1998 (I was a seventh-grader then and was just about to enter the exotic club of teenagers). So, folks (which in any case would only be me), for now, I have to bid goodbye. I would like to continue with my discourse in future blogs (I don’t claim to maintain continuity though).

Good Day!!