Hypocrites!

"May his soul rest in peace" they shouted in unison. Did they really mean it?

On that fateful afternoon of 12th April, 2006, Karnataka lost one of its most revered and talented actors of the Kannada film industry - Dr.Rajkumar. Just as Kannadigas prepared to give the departed soul a tearful farewell and a deserving tribute, violence and cheap vandalism rocked the city. Buses were stoned, tyres burnt, mobs lathi-charged, lots of public property damaged and 6 people killed.

Contrary to what most groaners who were the victims of such public disruption claim, the ruckus created by the "fans" wasn't just because of the fact that the actor died a natural death.It was because his body was being shifted from one place to another like a sealed snail-mail. Fans who gathered outside his bungalow to have a final glimpse of the body had to run pillar to post, shifting no less than 5 venues! There's also a huge question mark lingering even to this day, over who created the ruckus at all. Rather than the fans, it seems more likely that it was an act done by the anti-social elements. Neglected by the government they live, in filthy, godforsaken areas, where education has no respect and lives have no value. They wait to take revenge, revenge against the government, revenge against the society, which have provided them nothing. Worst of all, they are supported by parties which are not in power, parties that are interested in gaining cheap political mileage out of the entire mournful episode. Karnataka's opposition party is believed to have bribed these anti-social elements and instigated them into committing acts of arson and vandalism, just to expose frailties in Kumaraswamy's administration and nail him by hook or crook.

It isn't just Bangalore that has been witness to such embarassing crowd behaviour. Bad crowd behaviour has been a known devil in the Indian society as a whole. The shameful vandalism witnessed in Bangalore was just one amongst a series of such nauseating crowd behaviour - The death of MGR in TN and NTR in AP witnessed vandalism akin to the one we saw on 12th April,2006. On a slightly unrelated note, it also rekindles memories of the Eden Gardens fiasco, where an unsportive crowd made it inevitable for India to hang her head in shame in front of a powerful West Indies team; Conrad Hunte was reported to have climbed the flagpole to save the West Indies flag, before fleeing the ground on foot. Unfortunately, there are very few Conrad Hunte’s in India and they stand vastly outnumbered by scores of people like you and me who just read and write about mob fury, discuss it, condemn it, complain endlessly about it and blame the system for all its loopholes. We are no doubt responsible citizens in so far as not indulging in such mobs is concerned. We are responsible citizens in so far as condemning such behaviour is concerned. BUT are we really responsible enough to go that extra mile to look beyond just our dutiful roles in the society and do something bigger to jolt atleast a few vandals into a greater level of sensibility and social responsibility?

Like Gururaj observes in his blog, whenever there is a socially impactful event/condition, we generally see people around us clustering into one of the 3 groups - the talkers, the indifferent and the doers. The same was the case with Dr.Raj's demise. I, for one, am ashamed to note that I (probably most of us) remained in the first of these groups. Is abstinence from mob violence the only contribution we can make as socially responsible citizens? Can't we do something more, even if it's just a small thing, towards preventing such an incident again? Even small acts of responsibility such as contribution of money and/or time and effort towards initiatives like education/rehabilitation of anti-social elements could make a big difference. The next time we say "May his soul rest in peace", let us really mean it!

Book Review: WISE and otherWISE - a salute to life

Title:WISE and otherWISE - a salute to life
Author: Sudha Murty
Publisher: East West Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd.
Published in: April 2002
No. of pages: 188
Price: Rs.150
My rating:**

WISE and otherWISE is a compendium of 51 short stories, each with an underlying thought-provoking moral. The content, no doubt succeeds to a certain extent, in sowing the seeds of soul-searching. However, the style of writing and the gasconade veiling the incidents accounted in the book, are a huge let down.

"Dedicated to 'The Shirtless Ones of India' who really taught me what my country is" reads the first page of the book. Little did I realize when I read this, that the writing inside, would also pretty much appeal, mostly to the Shirtless Ones of India. The style of writing is annoyingly simple and insipid while brazen gasconade stands out ironically, even in those handful of stories that attempt to highlight humility as the underlying moral. The style of writing does get on one's nerves unless ofcourse the reader happens to be a non-English-medium, moral-science-crazy, 4th grader kid, who considers it a satisfying learning experience when he comes across the simplest of English sentences that read something like "There was a fox. It was cunning. It saw grapes in a field. Fox jumped. Grapes were too high. Fox thought that grapes were sour and walked away". If the reader does not belong to this class of readers, the feeling that he/she is left with at the end of the read is "Aha! Light, thought-provoking read alright but definitely not an absorbing read. Not a single new word learnt, not a single new brilliant idea pondered upon, it was merely 4 hours of reading tales that grandma would've told me in a single 1-hour session. What the ...".

xx million copies sold. Hats off on this record, Mrs.Murty.Errr....Is this figure a surprise, considering that your company's HR is infamous for shoving in a free copy of your book in the new joinees' welcome kit?

Quote for the day: The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.