So, once again we're shaken because bad things shouldn't happen to us. We're the good guys who pay our taxes and cocoon our lives and pamper our children with overseas trips to escape the sordidness of India. We invest in gated condominiums with backup generators and penthouse swimming pools, so we don't need to step out into the grimness of the streets against which we sport our Christian Dior shades and barricade ourselves behind power windows in luxury sedans, burying our faces in our laptops every time the wretched show up at the red lights to beg for alms. We think nothing of the gratuity we dole out to the valet at five-star hotels but will not part with even a few coins to those who need it for their survival, not because we believe in the gobbledygook about perpetuating some Dickensian system but because it's easier to stare past the great unwashed than to, in fact, consider their misery.
So, we look past the daily crime reports of theft and murder and rape because it's happening "somewhere out there", to people like them, not us, till, of course, it happens closer home. And when it does, we're shaken to the core. How could something like this happen to us? What is the state doing? The police? That we ask these questions only when it affects us, and not when it happens frequently in the slums or bylanes of the poorer sections of our communities, speaks of the great distance to be traversed for those who perform menial tasks to be considered human like us.
And, yet, the beast isn't just around us, it's amid us - and perhaps even in us - as we predate on our children's friends - dubious relatives, "uncles" who're more than that, dirty old men who're rogues in disguise. Years ago, a colleague had confessed to her father's philandering with all her girl friends till she was completely estranged from them, and him, the latter to the bewilderment of her mother who refused to believe her daughter's allegations of her husband's behaviour. The refusal to take cognisance of, particularly, sexual crimes isn't the only misdemeanour we're guilty of. The recent cases of the privileged flagellating their domestic staff points to serious lacunae in the mindsets of the upper-middle classes who take their positions for granted. That they hold high office, travel around the world, schmooze with the rich and powerful and are probably considered urbane and cosmopolitan is the more horrifying. What is it that drives them to such extreme conduct? Don't their spouses and colleagues notice such aberrations? The neighbours? Do they escape detention because people are scared of retaliation, or because they prefer to mind their own business?
It used to be easier to blame the victim. Murder: because you opened the door to strangers; because you talked over your mobile phone about a business deal that meant you had cash in the cupboard; because you dared wear an expensive watch on the wrist but hadn't invested in a guard at the door. Molestation: because you dared to dress up, party late, had a drink and, therefore, were fair game. It's taken extraordinary courage for a few victims - "survivors" - to speak up, but even then, we're unsure of their bonafide intentions. As, unfortunately, society dwells on the gossip and voyeurism fires the media, we're one misstep away from its knock at our door. It's time to chain the beast, even if at considerable cost to us.
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