The recent incident in Mangalore left us all shocked, but I fail to understand why, really. We should've seen it coming and we deserved this in more ways than one.
We are all busy cribbing about how this is not democracy anymore and we should have the freedom to do what we want to and how it could've been any of us! That is exactly why we are concerned, you see! Those guys didn't have to pick Mangalore, they could've picked a pub in Chennai (yeah, right!) when my friends and I are hanging out there. They could've picked a pub in B'lore when my sister's hanging out there. This is something which affects us - the upper middle class - directly, which is why there is so much publicity over it!
The journalists - they frequent pubs too; Or their friends/girlfriends/wives/daughters/sisters do! And it scares them to think that they kit and kin could be subjected to such a thing! Hence they make sure it's brought to limelight and pester the CM about it and urge the people to rise in action, etc.. Basically, they're scared. And the pub owners(influential people, all of them) are scared as well. What if the women stop coming? What if ladies nights don't happen anymore. How exactly are they gonna manage the ratio?
The act itself is something which should be condemned, no doubt, but don't you see? The Ram Sena people were just the stupider of the lot. They picked the wrong people to mess with! If they had tortured some poor villagers in some remote part of the country, they wouldn't have gotten more than 5 seconds of T.V time and their acts would've gone unnoticed.
As I said, we deserved this, since we failed to notice the girls who are not allowed to go to school in J&K (they will be killed, no less), and were busy worrying about not being able to go to a pub! We compromised on the rights of those not fortunate enough to be born to parents rich enough or living in the right cities, and in a way told these guys, 'go ahead, we won't stop you yet..' and now we pay for it, albeit meagerly.
Sure the Karnataka police can lock up 10 people and claim they've 'taken action' against them, but we aren't really a free democratic country until everyone is able to practice their right!
Milestone Birthday
1 week ago
19 comments:
Very rightly said.
I cannot honestly say that I was shocked or surprised at the incident.
As for your post, it's nice, though I do not completely agree.
@ Anon Eco: Glad you concur!
@ Roshan: No? Why not?
I understand the anger, the frustration.
But it is equally necessary to try and understand how people internalise their own versions of what constitutes "Indian-ness" and its meaningless homogenization and worse still try and impose it on others.
If this is not patriarchy, I wonder what really is!!
Essentially your point is 'First they came...' restated in prose. Reasonable, and I agree. However, real life is an ugly place, the mob is stupid, and compassion is the preserve of the comfortably-off. The change in all of this won't happen until a host of issues are dealt with.
Now, for the disagree part, this is based on certain assumptions. I believe that you dream of a world where a civilising mission would go forth to Kashmir (I'm only going there because you mentioned it) and set things 'right'. It doesn't work that way. You cannot supplant cultures, it. will. not. succeed. Heck, it'll probably make things worse.
Liberators do not exist, Chitra. The people liberate themselves.
I can make my point more strongly, but your blog is search engine indexed.
Well... I guess publicity does matter for issues, at the least as a deterrant.
As for communities which are oppressed in various regions, most of it is self inflicted... Similar incidents like the one in Mangalore do happen from time to time everywhere. It matters on how the society handles such a case, so that it doesnt blow up, become popular and then destroy the same society that fostered it. The situation in afghanistan and parts of africa are examples. All the reports online have been rightly against the issue, though I am sure the media inside India is having discussions on how morally degrading pubs are, and also 'condemning' the incident...
@ Vasu: I know! It is highly frustrating. We seem to be taking a few steps back every year!
@ Roshan: I agree I speak about an ideal world where we shalt go forth into Kashmir and erradicate the terrorists and the extremist. I guess the Indian govt. is trying to do that in it's own way. What irritates me is that issues like that are hardly mentioned in the press simply because it's 'disturbing' and 'people can't relate to it anyway', whereelse this pub issue is getting loads of press time.
@ Arulz: No way dude! The press is against it out-right. Like I mentioned, they don't want to stop hanging out in pubs either! Even the political parties claim they are against it.
Are you sure there weren't any talk show/ news feature/ mag article that tried to analyze what happens in a pub or about the night life in cities? If not now, they will start cropping up soon...
Not that I know of..
sensible post.
@PI: Thanks.
Same pinch!
I blogged a bit about it, just now. Only I don't sound half as concerned or intelligent.
It's a sucky world. Get used to it.
Also, country frutes are country frutes are country frutes.
If only it were country frutes. These are the urban trash we're talking 'bout. Call me. i'll tell you stories.
very touching and inspiring
Nicely put down. I'm not commenting more since I hv given my comments on a post that someone else had written on the same topic. But I liked ur thots.
Ill visit u again. Keep it up.
Anand. :-)
@ Nikita: Thanks.
@ Anand: I didn't know thoughts were a one-time thing! Thanks for the compliment though!
@ Nikita: Thanks gurl!
@ Anand: I didn't know thoughts were a one-time thing! Thanks for the compliment though!
well said.. those morons did it for their own publicity though.. they have no concerns on the culture whatsoever..
Post a Comment