In The Name of Arushi

To confess, I stopped following the Arushi murder case after two or three days only because of the sickening consumerization of the entire tragedy! Even sitcoms have managed better in depicting a death tragedy in a saner manner and here we have the Indian media with those sick minded journalists anchoring the sale on the great Indian media bazaar!

It was like, 'Hey, we have a personal tragedy, which we have sensationalized just for you! We will be back from a short break. You too be back soon with your popcorn tub!’

The Hindi news channel that claims to be the fastest, winning awards for being the best news channel is the birth of the K factor in the news media. Congratulations, Indian media has just managed to define the depth of abyss.

I feel happy and sad at the same time; happy because I got educated (and not just earned a degree to make a living) and I still manage to keep my conscience alive; sad because I think of the common man and wonder if he returns home from work, tired and all he wishes to see is the image of another common man being raped on TV?

I might be wrong - still there are people like me who stopped watching the entire case, just because inside them, they wanted to preserve the sanctity of a girl. But I am not so wrong, when I come to know that the murder case notched up the highest TRP.

Isn't the Indian media another case of Frankenstein gone out of control, just like the Indian bureaucratic setup? Ironically, the media calls itself a self-appointed watchdog of that bureaucratic setup. What do we need now? Another counter-media as a watch dog of the primary media?

It is not that all media does is vomiting out people's personal lives. We have several admirable instances where media has helped in initiating the process of justice, being a beacon of hope for the unheard common man. But it surely has setup a very wrong precedent. Aren't we contributing to our kids growing up insensitive to the concept of privacy and honor?

There has to be a line. Unfortunately, the line is a qualitative one and no demarcation can be made. Morality has no demarcation. What’s genocide to me might be another man’s cleansing contribution to society. But we do have something called as law, which is more or less, a large section of society coming to a code of conduct. If not law, then some amount of conscience can be displayed - morality, which is not born out of teaching but which is more out of human values. Something like, do not sleep with your mother.

I would love to preach and practice “Do as you would like others to do to you” saying on the individuals responsible for the heinous concept of sensationalizing the murder tragedy. How sensational it will be to see them on hidden cameras, beating their wives or confessing to their pervert fantasies?

Somewhere, we have either wrongly defined or misunderstood the concept of truth. Truth no more exists at its face value; its various manipulated variants must be priced and the highest priced variant must be sold. Days are not far when the K animal, restricted to soaps till now, marches its way into the news media.

Arushi is gone and we have played enough and enjoyed enough. Let us not anymore traumatize those close to her, those who have fond memories of her. In the name of humanity and in the name of Arushi, let us stop this utter sensationalism nonsense!