ah! not again...

For last two weeks, I haven't been able to catch up with the latest news about the nation and the world. Whatever “breaking” happens, reaches me after one full day, when the sudden inferno of attention it once created in the news channels gets extinguished with its hajjar times repetition.

Bhutto was assassinated, Kenya is burning bad, BJP triumphed in the home state (Himachal Pradesh) as well, India got slaughtered by Aussies once again, and New Year arrived with some episodic disgracing deeds of countrymen across the cities. Every news, which was labeled ‘Breaking News’ in the news channels in last two weeks reached me after becoming supersaturated on the television screens.

The latest retired ‘Breaking News’ which hit me hard was the molestation of some girls in Mumbai and Pune on the 31st night. Especially the Mumbai one – I mean how a mob of 60 people can ambush two girls and molest them? There is something terribly wrong in the way the mind set is getting shaped around the cities. The economy is growing, of course, but are people growing up to justify the GDP growth?

I wouldn’t say it was the responsibility of one particular section – Police, Mob, Politicians, or provocative dressing of women – like the desultory discussions that followed. I would just say it was a matter of shame for the whole nation. And it makes it even worse discussing such events like this . It appears that the first thing everyone does after such tragedies is to play “Who is to Blame!” game. And once the game is over, everyone starts waiting for one more game to come their way. Is it so exciting?

Instead of building a firm foundation of trust and understanding, we are getting drowned in the quagmire of blame-storming, finger-pointing, responsibility-shrugging and moral lethargy. Can relegating the responsibility and blame to some section clear us of the stigma of what happened?

Society has to change, and for that every individual has to change and this change can be brought only by right education, right policy and right implementation. We have to build a strong platform of trust on which our posterity can stand tall and take off for the new future. Growth has to turn into muscle to be meaningful; otherwise the 10% growth which we are boasting of today will render the nation obese. But who is going to do it and when will it be done remains again an open question... Till then I just hope with fingers crossed (not pointed to anyone)...