22 - TRIGGER-HAPPY AND SATURATED IN CORRUPTION

Every baby is born an innocent living thing.  ECCE  explained how the foetus can absorb the emotions of the mother and how the infant's behaviour and growth is affected by the environment and the persons around,  how nutrition affects the physical growth and how immitation nurtures the emotional growth.   Genetics also plays a small say in both the areas.  But no parent wants to bring up a murderer or a goonda.   No parent would willfully want their progeny to be criminals.

In spite of our nurturing, each one of us develops bad habits and  sometimes it can unleash a monster that causes sorrow to others.  Someone can become a chain smoker and pollute the family air, another can be a persistant liar and get away with petty sins,  a shoplifter,  a wife beater,  a boaster,  a drunkard,  a rapist,  a stalker............

If  one introspects, it is extra money or indulgences that lead to vices.   A rich minister pampers his son with unlimited cash, cars, guns, and the most dangerous item,  the gall to do whatever the son takes a fancy to, without any worry for the havoc this behaviour may cause.  And this leads to a Rocky Yadav  in Bihar,  who can kill an innocent like Aditya without qualms.  Power perpetuates goonda raj.

The gun licensing authority of India should issue a gun, but the latent clause that accompanies possession, should be that that individual must work at the border for 6 months.  This clause will ensure that these gun owners develop an empathy for the injuries that can result, and the positive use that a weapon should be put to.

But if the crime has already been committed, then the individual should be forced to join the armed forces and be sent to the border for life.   If the culprit is sent for life imprisonment, it is not beneficial to anyone.  The government should put this trigger happy person to positive use.

By the way, Mr Arnab Goswami of Times Now,  you so vehemently condemn such wayward deeds of powerful politicians,  that we hope that it doesn't backlash onto you personally.   But it is heartening to note that at least our fourth estate can kindle justice for the wronged,  who would otherwise be silenced.  And it seems so,  with the shoot outs of two journalists in Bihar. 

EVIL MULTIPLIES WHEN GOOD MEN DON'T CHAMPION WHAT'S RIGHT.

18 - NEMESIS

Indian television news is full of tragedies and the rest of it is full of ads.   The ads are unique to the Indian mind set  -  shampoo and oil ads for long healthy hair,  car ads which entice the audience with family values and eternal love,  pan masala ads that proclaim authenticity to royal antecedents,  noodle ads that vie with each other to be more popular and the latest entry is of course, all products of Baba Ramdev.

The news tags are the ones that are so heartbreakingly tragic - gangrape and murder,  drought and death, farmer loans and suicides, young upcoming career girls committing suicide after abortion, the live-in paramours getting away with murder, little babies falling into abandoned borewells, and the latest is that of death caused by random shooting-in-the-air during wedding baaraats.

Assuming that I am an Indian male of marriagable age, (panning all Indian males, urban and rural),  I will have watched porn videos,  I will have courted at least one female,  I will have fantasized about the girl next door,  i will have surely proposed to and hounded at least one or more girls using my mobile and yet when I choose my life partner, she should be as virgin as untrodden snow.  Mind you,  the girl should NOT have conversed with any boy,  she should NOT have been in any type of friendship with a boy,  she should NOT be a normal female until I, the eligible bachelor, walk into her life.  It is of no consequence to me that I had indulged in  all the previous chapters,   the girl I marry should be an ignoramus and simple minded, until I conquer her.  Fie on her if I discover that she had been in any type of emotional relationship with any male,  I shall discard her and banish her from my life and my thoughts, forever.

And it is this mind set that makes Indian girls tremble with fear of character malignment,  because all Indian  boys are incorrigible. 

Live-in relationships are a big let down for the females.  It is a ruse by males to get sex and service for free, with no strings attached.  Poor, foolish, females, looking for love makes you compromise on too many fronts.  These men  format live-in relationships for their own convenience, to be able to get away without any backlash.  The female is often left with no face, an illegitimate child or an abortion in the bargain.  These tragedies highlight how males persuade, hound and entice girls to fulfill their male hormonal needs.

The latest tragedies of baraat shootouts are also male oriented.  Frustrated males showing a Macho side by shooting in the air....please go shoot the rats that plague the local train stations and do a public service.  How is it that so many persons possess illicit revolvers? 

A certain politician goes to the police station and files a complaint to get me arrested if I request him not to block the bus stop with his cars.  Please, dear politicians, use your man power and your political power, to do good and make the gun weilders surrender their illegal weapons.  You can do it very effectively as most of these goons would be in your entourage, I'm sure.

About the bore well tragedies,  the simplist solution would be to compel each and every borewell company to map out their workings of the past ten years and then let them show photographic proof that all have been covered.

Lastly,  I shall confess that my favourite news anchor is Mr. Arnab Goswami.  More power to you sir, to have the platform and the guts to speak out for what is right. This is so that the television viewing is a little more rational with him doing the talking on talk shows.










 

15 - TRAVEL TRAVAILS

Having to commute to work by taxi or bus has a unique set of hurdles.  The first one is that I should be able to board a bus.  The next is that the bus may be overcrowded.  If it is not, then I can be seated.  But certain factors can mar the joy. 

I may sound like a pessimist but that is the truth and has to be accepted and explained..  All may seem well,  but soon the peace within the bus is shattered by a loud voice, instructing a colleague, on the mobile,  how to tackle a fussy customer.   And another shrieky female voice, argueing aka Arnab Goswami, but on the mobile,  that the new flat should have blue tiles and not the grey ones............

All this is the noise pollution within the bus.   The loud, incessant honking of the traffic outside, creates an unbearable din on the exterior of the bus, which violates  the ear drums of all passengers within the bus too.

The last straw is when the strong stench of a garbage truck overwhelms the senses.   With the traffic moving at a snail's pace,  I am forced to watch the garbage truck preceding my bus and to breathe in the foul air.

So the senses run riot during my bus journey home.   Of course, the pot holes add the normal bumps and subsequent bruises that occur.

But recently, I can overcome these tortures.......I shut my eyes and transport myself to France and Switzerland......where my children and I had toured last month.    The smooth roads,  the unspoilt natural scenery,  the peaceful silent roads.     That was so strange.  The motorists do not honk at all in Pairs and Germany.    Traffic signals are obeyed and every vehicle respects the zebra crossings.   Oh my India,  I wish every driver would get a chance to experience driving in Europe, and emulate the traffic discipline.

Also, the road repair department should attend a workshop in France, as to how to build and maintain smooth, pothole free, clean roads.