Turbulent times
This 'n' that
By Renee Ranchan

NOBODY seems to know what is happening. Crime of the pathological variety has become rampant. Crime has always been there, but till a decade ago the reasons were very different. If a house was broken into, it was because the thief had no money in his pocket and had not eaten for days. While emptying the cupboard’s contents in case the master of the house got up, the thief would initially try to flee — with the goods, of course — without hurting the man. If the tussle worsened, the robber, in panic, would whip out his knife and stab the man, hoping that he would not die... There were these theft-related crimes or revenge crimes. And now? Open a newspaper any day of the week, and there will be a dozen or more reports on how this person was hacked to death, set afire or shot at. Reasons cited: more frustration in the 90s.

And kidnapping seems to be the new order, so check out your driver or child’s nanny before you hire either.

Shall we take a few recent cases? But before that it should be noted that crime in India is basically a metropolitan affair, though, sure enough, adjoining towns are following suit and with the way things are going, I am quite sure we shall hear of morbid, just-for-the-heck-of-it crimes in villages, too. Now for these snapshots: a couple of months ago flashed the ghastly news — two four-year olds kill their 3-year-old playmate ghastly. The trio got into an argument and the two boys clobbered the little girl on the head good and hard, with the nearest stone they spotted. How dare the girl bite one of them? After that, they dragged her lifeless body and dumped it in a drain. They then went home, washed their hands and settled down to watch TV. Yes! On TV it is an everyday affair to see brains bashed out. Speaking of children, to hear of infants being raped, is not so uncommon. The last case I read was of a 3-month-old baby raped by her babysitter. The mother was out on some household errand. A neighbour had volunteered to ‘help her out’ by sitting with her baby... I think this happened in some suburb of Delhi. And did you hear of that 59-year-old nanny case in America... the lady would slap, kick, push, shove an 11-month-old baby. The child’s father grew suspicious and so one day planted a hidden video camera before leaving for work. And yes, his suspicions proved right. I saw the fuzzy video clip of this nanny’s monstrous movements on Star News and it shook me... how can anyone throw an 11-month-old boy on the ground and then kick him? Repeatedly. And while on children, a father set his 16-year-old daughter on fire. Reason: his way of getting back at his wife with whom he was experiencing marital disharmony. A grandmother killed her grandchild. Yes, these cases again happened in Delhi. I am told that the crime in the capital is more than all the metros put together... and going by the daily reports, the statistics have to be accurate.

Servants murdering their employers has become a regular affair, so I shall not get into that. A neighbour once told me that she wanted to register her domestic help’s name and village-address with the police — you know how the police cry themselves hoarse (to little avail though) insisting that people do so — but she could not it. Why was that?She was sure that the man would take offence and quit.

And there is another lady I know who bolts the door of her room, double-checks its strength before she takes her afternoon nap. Reason: she feels insecure to the point of being literally scared of her muscular Man-Friday pottering around while she sleeps. Had I not heard of being "muffled to death with one’s pillow" by the very same hands that served you? Another lady has the worn-out look of not having slept for days,as she is inundated with work. And no, it is not because she cannot afford a servant. It is just that in these disturbing, turbulent times it is not a sensible and safe thing to do... And how about pistols, revolvers, something you must not leave home without. And you thought cell-phones were the must-carry items!(I have heard many people carry them around without the instrument being activated... status symbol-- yes, that is the purpose!)

Delhi has 60,000 licensed guns. One often reads of schoolboys pulling out guns ‘to get even with a classmate.’ Last to last week, a 13-year-old boy in Ranchi took out a gun from his school satchel and shot a boy in his class... Two months ago — in good old Delhi again — a man was shot at (mercifully, he did not die) for having asked the Tata Sumo driver to reverse his vehicle so that his tempo could pass. And it was his right of way anyway — was he not already manoeuvring his way out before the Sumo had whizzed in. What happened next? The Sumo driver took out a gun and shot at the soft drinks dealer. Yes, blowing out somebody’s brain just because you do not like the tilt of somebody’s head, the expression of his face, or the fact that you were refused that ‘one for the road’ drink. I guess you have guessed where this is going... the Tamarind Court, a restaurant in Delhi. A man is told — think it was at 2 a.m. — that the bar was closed for the day and no si-rr, there was no way he could be poured that one last drink. That was enough to trigger him off. To pull that trigger. To blow out the brains of the lady who was ‘manning the bar’. I am more than sure that this ‘triggering’ was also on account of a woman, yes, a mere woman, firmly informing him that no, there was no way he would get another drink. So what happens next? Manu Sharma shoots the woman at point- blank range. Indeed, drink after drink does barricade your senses but can this murder be blamed solely on alcohol? Does it not have something to do with credit cards, snazzy cars, farmhouse partying and the ‘good life’? At this point, I cannot but help think of the BMW boys. Yes, they too were sloshed-to-the-gills and yes, alcohol — its abuse — makes a monster of you, clogs the senses. Yet do you not think that it is not the only reason for the senseless crime?

What exactly can we blame this phenomenon on? The near destruction of the joint family with its emotional infrastructure, the growing number of latch-key kids who return home to play savage video games where the more you murder, the more you score (remember the recent shooting at a high school in America... well, these boys played such kill-for-the-thrill video games, had even embraced Nazi mythology and when feeling particularly happy, as in having spent a good day in bullying others, would throw up their arms and cry, ‘Hail Hitler’.) Or watch TV of the same genre. Or is it the cacophonic music that promotes violence? We could continue cataloguing the reason, but that will not take us anywhere. Whatever be the reason, the only thing clear is that we must stop where we are going. And now.