Friday 30 May 2014

                                           BAAP NUMBERI BETA DUS NUMBERI

Badaun! Bad One! Bed 'em!! One hamlet but different interpretations. Ever since the news of two minor girls raped and then hung in the village square started flashing on national TV, it set me thinking. We as a civilization have advanced quite a bit. I have many a times claimed to my friends that we are living in bright times but they are more of 'dhoop-chhaun' times. There are still some grave pockets of darkness which are eerily similar to the barbarism of the medieval times. This particular incident unfortunately is typical of the times we have left behind thousands of years back. But the mindset sadly carried forward. 
Reasons behind it are being ascertained but whatever the reason punishment is doled out to the females. After a long spell of inaction the police are slowly shuffling their feet after shoves from the NGOs and of course sometimes the torch- bearing media. 
Sadly UP a state where I spent most of my teenage years and am very fond of, is dotted with such badlands that too in the bastion of the ruling dynasty. When 'Baap ji' was in power I ascribed such lawlessness to his  'goondagardi- ki- rajneeti'! Those were the times when we as the young generation used to think that to be a politician one had to do all that to stay in power. It was the done thing. Politics of appeasement and coercion, arm twisting and butt-kicking, politics ruled by the illerate and the uneducated. We were of the view that only goons entered politics and had to nurture their gundagardi to maintain a hold over the gaddi.
Then slowly we saw fresh, sauve, foreign returned faces on the stage. Faces which looked young and modern, faces with degrees stamped over them. One such face was that of 'beta ji'. An educated young man of our generation with a well brought up wife by his side. I thought now the things will change. Ladies think differently and the young men have metrosexuality written all over them. They will do things differently hand in hand with their better halves. Times will change and 'baap ji's party will get a make over. His governance will experience a major shift. 
Alas! that was not to be. 'Beta ji' was born with a defect, he had no spine and no vision and of course no guts too to change the way the party functioned. and the state of affairs did not see much change. Still riots happen, still women are lecherously hounded and devoured and then hung out as lessons in submission.
But now the pockets of light know that they truly have a very sharp and potent weapon in their hands which has shown remarkable results recently- the vote! Hopefully the inhabitants of the pockets of darkkness will grab the light and illuminate their worlds too!