Random Thoughts

First of all, I thank my friend who pointed out that people who don't have an account on blogspot can't put comments on my blog. I have rectified this and hope that from now on I will get to see at least a few comments.

Rakhi Sawant has become the bete-noire of the self-styled moral police these days. Media is blowing her supposed misconduct out of the proportion and suddenly she is being treated as a woman who represents everything that is wrong with the entertainment industry today.

my question is, is it really justified? after all, she is just a woman who is there in a profession, like all of us, and has to endure everything that goes with it. it doesn't matter whether she likes it or not. she is perfectly correct when she says that if she would come on stage wearing a sari and projecting a demure look, nobody will even look at her. she is getting ridiculed just because she is trying to make money for herself and is honest about it.

but the larger question is, do we really have the moral authority to make judgements on whether she is doing right or wrong? there is nobody in this world whose conscience is clear. as I have written earlier in my blog, innocence comes dirt-cheap in this world. it only takes a few pieces of paper to buy that. people lose their integrity every day, every day an honest young man/woman falls victim to the lure of money. just because you can't see the devil doesn't mean that he doesn't exist. and just because you fail to see your own shortcomings doesn't mean you will act St. Peter of the heaven.

and this is precisely what is wrong with our society today. I make no bones about saying that our society has been long dead, for a society is a place where humans live. we have been transmogrified into robots with hearts of stone. everyday i pass through a sub-way on my way to the office in Cannaught Place. CP is the hub of private companies in Delhi, you will find all types of swanky cars and fashion-conscious people here. there in the subway an old woman sits near the stairs. she is too weak to say anything, and so keeps a plastic glass on the floor for people to drop some coins as they go by. every day in the morning i count the number of coins when i pass her by, and every day in the evening, without fail, i find that the coins haven't changed since the morning. and what is more heart wrenching is that, with every new person coming down the stairs, i have actually seen her face lit up with expectation. isn't she the mother, or the grandmother of somebody like us? how can we just forget to think about an old woman who is old enough to be our grandmother?
our humanity, or the lack of it, hasn't spared even children. just behind my office building there is a small garbage ground. small girls, barely 6-7 years old, who should be playing with dolls and reading fairy tales, rummage through the area throughout the day. most often they are wearing little, if any, clothes and i am yet to see a single girl who is wearing a slipper. what will happen if some stray piece of glass pierces her feet? will her parents be able to afford even the doctor's fee, leave the expense of medicines? isn't she the daughter, the sister of one of us? that girl's eyes, if you look into them, are vacant as a delapilated castle. her dreams have long gone dead, she has known no God. she will be raped several times, by several people, by the time she will reach 18. with all probability, she won't reach 50 and if her fate is so poor that she actually does, she will be forced to spend the rest of her life sitting near the staircase of a subway, with a plastic cup on the floor.

I've travelled extensively in Bihar by the ordinary coaches in the trains. several times i have seen little girls who are carrying their younger brothers in their arms and are going from one bogey to the another for begging. Once a little girl came to my bogey (she was carrying her younger brother) and stood before the passengers. after some time she slowly and sheepishly spread her hands, and looked at each of us. however, she didn't utter a single word. obviously, she was too proud to beg (children have a very sense of pride and honour, even though adults don't notice it most of the times). everybody just stared at her as if she didn't exist, as if she weren't standing there at all. the girl, quite used to all this, started to turn away. just then the train jolted and the girl lost her balance. she fell on the ground but nobody even offered a hand to save her from falling. she fell, and the crash on the floor must have given pain to her knees for many days. but even while falling she did manage to keep her hands over her brother in order to protect him from any injury.

my point is, is it the way we, the 8 people in that bogey, were supposed to behave (there were women, too)? that poor little girl had more humanity in herself than 8 educated and supposedly civilized people. people are prepared to see their mothers and sisters dying on the streets, but start hollering when they see someone uncovering herself in public to get some money, to survive. they crib about the sourness of fruits that are hanging from a tall tree, but don't care to give even a faint trace of light to those who are condemned to die, and to live, in the shadows.

is this double standard justified? it might seem quite strange, but i do find similarities between Rakhi (Sawant) and a sage. a sadhu renounces all material aspirations and keeps his morality intact. Rakhi has done exactly the opposite. she makes no bones about being an opportunist woman, doesn't care about moral ground and want to buy everything that money can buy. at least she is better than the mediocre society she is living in.