Sandy Hooks (and) The World

9:30 a.m, December 14^th

Sandy Hooks Village,

Newtown,Connecticut

Adam Peter Lanza, an armed 20 year old man, wearing a military outfit, killed 28 people in a span of 20 minutes. First he shot his mother in the face, 4 times. Then he stormed into the local elementary school killing twenty kids (all between the ages of 5 to 7) and six adults of the female staff. The 28^th ‘victim’ was Lanza himself.

Adam Lanza

The police arrived. No shots were fired by them. Investigation says that Nancy Lanza (the perpetrator’s mother) was a firearm enthusiast who used to stock guns and believed that violence was the only way to survive once the economy crashed, which according to her was very eminent. She wanted her kids to take this seriously, so they accompanied her to the shooting range on a regular basis. Nancy Lanza was a woman who could predict the fall of American economy but was oblivious of the eminent fall of her son’s sanity.

The victims

The crime is unforgivable. What had the children done to meet such a horrifying end? To Adam Lanza they were merely a collateral damage in his superior battle against the world. What enmity he had against the kids is a mystery and that is what the whole world seems to be obsessed about. Sure it is puzzling. This tragedy affects the whole world and the whole world needs to contribute in solving the crime. We need to spread awareness about the 28 people who died in Connecticut, because it so happens that an incident like this rarely takes place in our country. We need to spread awareness and we need to tell people how this event has scarred us for life. We are a global community and we unite against issues like this, right? 

So what do we do? We twitter, we blog and we put up status updates, cursing Lanza, cursing his mother and cursing the American government. As soon as we are done with this, the little children wouldn’t have died for nothing! They were actually a mere collateral damage in our superior battle against the world, which begins with regulating American laws concerning possession of firearms. We are all Lanzas, shooting with our keyboards into the virtual world of internet.

Meanwhile, as the people of the cynical world are engrossed in their pseudo-humanity, the top management of the media houses is hunting for the next piece of information, rather the next bait. When they take a coffee break, they switch on their respective news channels. It warms them to see so many people dancing to their tunes. The chairman pats the backs of his executives for choosing the right ‘piece’. The sponsors are happy. The increased primetime viewership assures them that their marketing investment decisions have been sound. Other entertainment channels sulk because they cannot come up with such interesting pieces, as their network is supposed to air reality shows where the actors take too much time to rehearse their scripts, causing a further lessening of profits. They pacify themselves by saying that the audience will get tired of the violence and will come back for some animation films to uplift themselves and some nerdy sitcoms to laugh at. So the question that arises is- How much do those children mean to this industrial world where success is measured by profits? Money brings happiness, so the only way to quantify happiness is to count the money. So in a way, when some people are earning money through others’ tragedy, they are buying happiness. So happiness- like money- does not go out of system, just changes hands. Is this too heartless an idea? Well, If Lanza can happen to this world, so can this idea.

History tells us that Lanza is nothing. He is a big thing today because we are now living in a ‘pro-peace’ world and not in the times of ‘violent land grabbing escapades’. So we believe. He is a big thing today because he is all over your internet and television screens today. He is a big thing because the issue was blown up like a balloon. Whether the reasons for this amplification are sentimental or monetary, are for you to choose; whichever choice comforts you more is the right choice.

When I say that this issue has been blown out of proportion, I do not mean that it was not horrifying. So here comes the need to define a limit to the ‘proportion’. The proportion is inversely related to your ignorance. Here’s a simple exercise-

1. Leave this article for a minute, open your local newspaper
2. Scan through it
3. Notice how many homicides, rapes and other violent cases you find in there
4. Remind yourself that is just your town. India being the seventh largest nation in the world contains hundreds of towns like yours
5. Do the math

Now would you tweet about it?

Probably not. I will tell you why, because nobody else is tweeting about it. It is not ‘trending’! So why would you discuss something that is not in fashion? Isn’t it elementary that you discuss what is ‘in’ rather than discuss what is important? There was a time when people were reprimanded for not doing but only talking. If that is not the case now, can we at least discuss the right things?

New Delhi. The evening of 18^th December.  A 23 year old girl and her boyfriend boarded a city transport bus. Surprisingly, they had only four co-passengers other than the driver. The co-passengers, not very surprisingly, started passing lewd comments towards the girl. This tactic was just to spark a violent argument with her boyfriend, which then gave them a reason to hit him up with iron rods. With the male taken care of, the men proceeded towards the female.

Late at night, a passerby found two bleeding beings, by the roadside. They were in a state of shock. The perpetrators long lost to the night.  

This incident is on the front page of Chennai’s issue of The Hindu, right below the detailed descriptions of GMR-Maldives tussle, Dhoni’s loss against England and Gujarat voting rounds, squeezed between an SBI advertisement and that of a highly reputed college that has started providing a master’s program in family business management.

 The girl and the boy were not the residents of United States of America, they were born and brought up in a busy Indian metropolitan city where the news of children being crushed under city buses is as usual as the weekly fluctuations of the stock market, where the head of the nation does not call press conferences every time people die. Because then he would have to be on the TV all the time. He would have a separate channel for himself.

I once asked someone, “Why does this city have such a disturbing road-accident rate?” The answer I got was more disturbing, “This is a metro, such things keep happening, you take care of yourself”. To my surprise, the same person was tweeting condolences to the Connecticut community, two days ago. Maybe the ‘Sandy Hooks Massacre’ is the new ‘Gangnam Style’ then. Sometimes I feel that being a global citizen has its disadvantages. Because there are no borders to adhere to, we start believing that we belong to the better part of the globe. Our reality becomes America. No more do we take steps to improve the quality of television in our country, we would rather watch international sitcoms that the internet gives us an easy access to. Not that it’s a bad thing to do, but don’t you forget that it’s just your computer screen that has the look of a developed rich economy. When you step out of your house, there’s still going to be gaping potholes, needy beggars and the undying stench of corruption. The exposure towards the better world is backfiring. The portal on your latest sharing device’s screen is just make-believe. Now when indigenous writers dream of plots for their story, they do not think of Kapoors, Mishras and Khans. They think of Mr. Smith and the bar on the Dewey Street. Including me. I do admit that in a fast-paced thriller, Anand Sharma would make a bad name for a protagonist. I would like to clarify here that I am not against the fact that internet provides access to global citizenship, hell I love the internet! But I try to retain my identity. Do you?

Israel has been torturing the Gaza Strip for a long time now. It is known to assassinate important leaders of its neighboring countries, until recently. It’s bombing on Sudan is a major discomfort to all the countries around it. The death toll and the living conditions are unimaginable. And let's not forget that Israel itself is under the constant threat of annihilation from these neighbors. The civil war in Syria has destabilized the whole of west Asia. With the various communities fighting for their rights, the governments of Sudan’s allied nations are distracted. It is said that Israel’s attack on Sudan was just a warning to Iran, which is probably supplying arms to Sudan and also 'allegedly' developing nuclear weapons, atomic bombs that could wipe out a country the size of Israel in a matter of seconds. One superpower that is supporting Israel in its violent endeavors is the United States of America. You see an integral part of the country’s economy functions on the selling of arms. When there’s no war, the arms sales take a drop. So “let the whole world fight, let me earn the money to defend my country against these violent countries”. Enter- greed. There is no deficiency in firearm production, so “let me sell some to my own citizens; so what if they are already drowning in taxes, there’s nothing wrong in providing money to support their government so that it can protect them from the violent countries out there!” But this injection of cynicism into the society has proved to be an overdose. And then we have reactions like those in Wisconsin and Sandy Hooks, Newtown.

Justice is a very relative term.  Ajmal Kasab’s death was celebrated with fireworks and processions. The death was just a part of the Mumbai tragedy. This fact was forgotten. So much are we in the clinches of media that we have stopped thinking for ourselves. The picture is being drawn in front of us and all we do is appreciate or criticize it. We too can pick up a brush, you know? But then surely we cannot trot the globe and collect all first-hand information ourselves. So we have to depend on the news channels to provide us with the relevant information. The news channels have competitors (it’s a money game after all) so they will try to attract you towards their particular channel. And this can only be done by showing you something attractive; content that is more magnetic than the competitor’s. Important news gayi tael lene (can kiss my ass). And thus we watch what we are provided with. “Yellow Journalism” is too extreme a term for the entirety of Indian Media. But there’s a mild jaundice fever, one can sense it.

This is how things are running. And new stuff will start running when this stops. What we can at least do is close the internet window occasionally and open the literal window of our rooms. There’s things we cannot ignore. There’s things we ought to see, we ought to do. Besides, this will also make way for a better torrent speed!

Just for the record folks, between last year and this year, the Syrian Civil war has killed 50000 people. This includes about 2500 children. Many of them were tortured to death. But surely the Connecticut issue is more grave and discussion worthy.

Soapbox Time: Amanda Todd and my three cents

I woke up today to a virtual shit-storm that had hid the internet a few hours ago. A teenager by the name of Amanda Todd had committed suicide. Amanda had visited internet chat rooms to meet new people and had flashed her breasts to a flatterer. A year later this person returned with a message on Facebook "If you don't put on a show for me I will send your boobs". She ignored the message. But this guy knew everything about her. The photo was sent to everyone she knew and thus began a life of cyber-bullying, schoolyard bullying, drinking, self harm (cutting) which finally culminated in a suicide.

Here is her story told through note cards by her:

The video brought a tear to my eye. My robot eye. The same eye that couldn't cry at his grandfather's funeral. I have never faced bullying to such a degree. But I wasn't always a gaunt six foot three guy who'll probably join you in making fun of himself and probably outdo you. A few years ago I was a scrawny five footer, easily moved to tears and hypersensitive. In boarding school. Life wasn't always great. I moved schools, gained some confidence, developed a shell and a self deprecating sense of humour. Now only very close friends know me as the clown Pirelli.

This wasn't Amanda's first attempt. She drank bleach the first time which only resulted in a visit to the hospital. Doesn't it sound fun when I say it like that? She failed in her first attempt but got it right in her second try. It sound s like she's an Olympic pole vaulter. And just like an Olympic pole vaulter she had to succeed in her attempts to get some recognition.

An incident like this always creates a lot of attention; the media and the hordes of mindless hash-taggers pounce on it and out come the accusations and the solutions. This particular incident has bred two kinds idiots. The first wants to raise awareness for Amanda and bullying. These jackasses are going to wear pink on Monday. To raise awareness! Like we don't know that bullying goes on. Like nobody f***ing know about it. Sure go ahead and raise awareness about breast cancer, educate people about it, raise money to fight it. Wearing pink for bullying isn't going to do shit. Except assuage your guilt. The people who were truly touched by this aren't going to wear pink. They are going to donate money, volunteer and push for change. You want to do something? Ask for new legislation that prevents this sort of thing.

Then there's the second kid of idiot. These arseholes agree with me about Idiot 1. They're not passive, they are active! They are going to change the world by talking to someone who is different from them, talking to the social outcast, talking to someone abnormal, talking to someone who is different and picked on.

They want to include them. To extend a hand of friendship towards them.

You know what's going to happen?

This human being will see the guilt and the pity in your eyes. And in that moment where you feel you are doing something monumental by putting your hand forward all they are going to see is a fake. A fraud that feels guilty and pity and feels that you need to talk to him to be "normal", to be accepted. This outcast usually feels worse than most people do because he/she is different, but today they'll feel worse than usual.

Thanks for the pity a**hole!

These social outcasts have friends too you know? It takes them longer to find someone like them, but when they do it's fantastic because finally they've found someone who understands them and allows them to be themselves around them.

Tell me, once you've befriended this abnormal awkward freak what then? Are you going to talk to this person regularly? What about the sensitive yet clueless people who'll see your hand of friendship and shake it with pleasure thinking to themselves they've finally found a friend. What happens to them a few weeks later when you've outgrown them or are too busy to talk to them or you find out you have nothing in common with them or you've forgotten all about Amanda Todd? Do you have any idea what it is going to do that person?

Why don't you get shoved into a confined place? Get called nasty names? Get beaten a few times? Then go and talk to them. You can bond over the abuse you've survived.

Don't huff and puff while you see the inaction and the passiveness and then race off to a half-baked half-assed plan to "include" someone different.

Think.

Feel.

Ask for stringent cyber-bullying laws that make sure that this does not happen again.

Come up with some good solutions. Some boundaries. At what point does it change from trolling or harmless fun to cyber bullying?

Should internet chat rooms be blamed? I often go these chat rooms to meet new people and discover new music and films. Blaming internet chat rooms would be like calling Taxi Driver a bad film because of that one loony who tried to assassinate the president to prove his love to Jodie Foster. Wouldn't it make more sense to publish guides to help teens understand the dangers of such chat rooms and the importance of some internet etiquette?

If you are going to talk someone you've ignored talk to someone who you like and connect with but you've been too scared to talk to because you friends make fun of him/her.

On Monday wear black or white to mourn Amanda Todd. Wear pink if you want to but follow it up with some action.

On a personal side note I would like to apologise to anyone who thinks I've bullied them. There were a few times I have taken my frustration out on someone else. I hope you forgive me. Bullying is a vicious cycle. I didn't know that a few years ago.

If you would like to disagree, shout your opinions, tell me to go shove a cactus up my anus or just talk and reminisce over the good old days when we got wedgies please comment below

RIP Amanda Todd. My condolences to the family.