The Insanity of Indifference....

The more one thinks about it, the easier it becomes to realize that insanity and indifference have a very close, perhaps even a symbiotic relationship.

"Pop" psychology would certainly suggest so.

If we don't care for what happens around us, in our society, and expect things to change on account of some magic wand...then that is surely insane.

So, being indifferent to issues like the safety of our citizens, the quality of education, the values being imparted to children, how we treat our women, our preparedness against natural disasters and the list can be endless...and expecting that our system will change overnight, is, at the risk of repetition, surely insane.

The flip side, is its aftermath.

Indifference, which lets people get away when they say there are different social rules for men and women - i.e women who smoke/drink/swear are morally "easy" and men are "cowboys/cool/macho".

Indifference, which doesn't make us question or protest against grossly flawed behaviour - not treating women with respect, swearing / cursing in their presence, even something as basic as littering in public.

And then, one day, in some form or the other, one ends up facing the consequences of that indifference.

Which, depending upon its harshness, makes one temporarily or permanently insane.

Insane enough to ask many futile questions.

The toughest one of them all perhaps being..."Could this have been prevented had I not been indifferent ?"

Must we not stop for a moment, and think this over ?

Must we not make the correct choice - of action over inertia, of slaying this monster of indifference.

I hope that this new year, we ask this question to ourselves, and choose the right answer - one which we are comfortable with, and can live with without the tiniest feeling of remorse or regret.

Let's not be indifferent any more - because we owe it to ourselves.

Wake up now my country, Hell has dawned !

I start this narration with a religious analogy...an attempt to define Hell...and out of sheer convenience, looking up Wikipedia give an interestingly relevant answer...

"In many mythological, folklore and religious traditions, hell is a place of eternal torment in an afterlife, often after resurrection."

I believe this definition is not entirely accurate.

One doesn't need to die and discover hell - one can simply be born as a woman in our country.

Yes, that statement has been dramatized...magnified in impact to create shock.

Because shock is the only recourse to waking up our slumbering, indifferent nation from this brain dead stupor.

Because now, more than ever, we need to rise beyond criticism and cynicism, and change our attitudes and behaviour - so that women in our country don't go through the hell that Shenaz Treasurywalla described in gory detail. Oh and of course, people have taken exception to that too, by finding fault with her death penalty plea and appeal to "powerful men" to save this country's women.

I am not here to argue for or against the points made by Shenaz.

I merely want to share my two cents on this entire debate, which has started to get coverage in public domain simply because Shenaz shared her horror stories.

Because after reading it, I felt disgusted to the core. Sick, Disgusted. Outraged, mad enough to dream up my own ideas of violent retribution against this tribe of sickos.

Because, suddenly, my father's reasons for worrying about my sister's safety do not feel unfounded at all.

Because my wife narrated her own versions of this behaviour that she had seen or had been victim to.

Because in my engineering class, there was a guy who used to do something equally sickening in crowded places, and would narrate those incidents as one would narrate adventure stories.

And I did nothing to stop it - did not shame him publicly, did not confront him for this behaviour, just ignored it because I felt he was sick in some way.

Because I am father to an 18 month old daughter, whose innocent face, laughter and antics make me smile each day - and I would hate to see her in this kind of situation, ever...

Two years ago, when Nirbhaya happened, when she was not yet born, we thought things would change.That was a pretty gruesome and shocking incident if any.
And yet, two years later. it seems Nirbhaya died in vain.

Because it seems that everyone who raged against the system then was driven by their own thirty pieces of silver perhaps ? No one was really bothered about changing things then, like now.

Perhaps, in a country of 1.2 billion people, life really is cheap.

But in this dismal state of affairs, I don't care what the govt does or doesn't do to make things different..I ask myself what is it that I could do ?

And then I realize that I have the answer...

I recall how I stood one day in front of the Godrej office in Vikhroli, nearly four years ago, waiting for a friend to pick me up. It was a busy afternoon.

And one auto rickshaw driver was having a blazing argument with a female passenger on the fare amount.

I stood by indifferently, though surprised that such a violent conversation was happening in Bombay - this was right at home in Delhi, but not quite Bombay stuff.

I kept noticing that tempers on both sides were getting aggravated by the minute, and yet, no one had bothered to intervene.

And then I saw the driver grab the girl's arm - which was the point where I lost it.

I ran up to the driver and screamed my head off, threatening him with a police complaint and what not...and that is when he backed off, and made his way. The poor girl was stunned, and she too went away silently.

I don't know what came over me that day...but I remember feeling bad that no body on that busy street had bothered to intervene...that I should have perhaps interrupted them earlier...but eventually, I felt relieved that perhaps my action possibly averted a mishap.Indifference from me would have been a greater sin, would have made me a party to the crime as well.

And that is what I resolve to continue doing...

I promise to teach my daughter self defence, give her strong female role models to look up to, and never let her be hesitant or under confident.

I promise I will be more alert and aware of the safety of female members in my surroundings - be it family or work.

I promise to raise my voice whenever I see any obscene behaviour on the part of men, especially in public places.

I promise not to be part of any cheap and gender insensitive conversations, not with friends, not colleagues, no one.

In my own small way, I hope to be able to reduce the impact of this hell - make an infinitely small difference to lives around me...and that is my request to everyone out there...

Let us wake up and act NOW - because each one of us CAN make a difference.

Choosing indifference over involvement will only darken this Hell - eventually, we ourselves are responsible for the kind of world that we want to create for ourselves, and Hell is surely not what anybody wants.