I pick up the newspaper on the doorstep still half asleep and the headlines of a woman’s murder in the city stare back at me. A few days later, I read that her husband, an HR manager with a renowned software company has confessed his guilt to the police.
Maybe a week later, I read about a number of beggars dying overnight in a beggars’ colony run by the government and the authorities make the dubious claim that all those deaths were natural.
A couple of days later, heavy rains lash the city and as I flip television channels, a local channel is reporting that the torrential rains have claimed the life of an auto driver. They even zoom the shot to show the dangling hand of the deceased driver. I soon realise that they have shown the macabre visual thrice and that I am still watching it. I switch off the TV set, ashamed at myself and disgusted with the channel.
These three incidents are not connected in any manner, but continue to bother me. Some more thinking and I conclude – people in the government, media and the populace which includes you and me have become insensitive. We are no longer receptive to the pains, sorrows, troubles and tragedies of others. All we are sensitive to now is our own feelings.
In the case of the murder, if the husband is indeed the culprit, it is terribly shocking. How can a husband cold-bloodedly plan to kill his wife of three years? Can such a brutal act be justified even if there was any provocation? Can any reason be good enough for snuffing out a life in cold blood ? Psychologists blame stress, work pressures et al for crimes like this one, but of what use is pinpointing the cause when we can’t come up with a reasonable solution?
The reactions to the deaths in the beggars’ colony by the authorities show the government’s insensitivity. If there was a vote bank of beggars, or if they all represented any one religion or caste, the reaction would have been different, don’t you think? Ultimately, the matter was given some seriousness but that was because of the hullabaloo raised by the media and the public. The politicians did not even let go of a photo-op, personally visiting the colony and giving the standard assurance that all would be well.
Regarding the TV channel repeatedly zooming in on the limb of the deceased driver, it is true that the media loves to sensationalise. But why, because that is what the public wants to see (yours truly also pleads guilty). What the media needs to do here is act with maturity; when lives, feelings of people are involved they need to be sensitive and portray incidents in a refined manner. Since it is almost impossible to impose rules, the media will have to self-regulate.
But I continue to wonder, instead of cringing at ghastly scenes, why we coolly watch them (even with a certain amount of relish?). How can people bump off their near and dear ones without as much as a blink? Why does the plight of the ‘less fortunate’ fail to move our representatives? Is it that in the age of the internet and cable TV , we are being bombarded with so much information, round-the-clock news, graphic details of so many gruesome incidents that our sensitivity threshold levels have risen? Maybe we need to relearn the forgotten traits of sympathy, compassion and empathy.
Author: Pratibha Shenoy (Bengaluru)
Really nice article….