The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And everyday the paper boy brings more
- "Brain Damage" by
Pink Floyd on "Dark Side of the Moon"
Perhaps these
mercurial words were precisely written to make sense in times of unspeakable
darkness such as this. Only lunatics are capable of this. Only lunatics. Anger feels numbly insufficient
as we as a nation were dwarfed and disoriented by stronger emotional tremors
from disbelief and bewilderment while watching the life of the poor 23-year old
Delhi girl succumb following a gang-rape incident that involved 6 men on the
same bus, an iron rod and grievous injuries to her genitals and intestines
- I will let you imagine the details.
Only sick, twisted brains are capable of that. Only
lunatics.
No. No. I don't feel
the impulse to organize a peace rally or attend candle light vigil. Besides,
there will be all those people who will stand in a circle, hold hands and smile
softly at each other. Heavy-weight stuff like
that, you know. Moreover, there might be even someone who will try to
take a picture of all of us using a DSLR camera and explain how for a good
night shot, one must allow larger exposure time, medium aperture and never use
flash. I
think now is a good time to confess that I have no idea how these candle vigils
go … I have no clue about how those candle vigils go. I know … I can never be the type.
Iron bar. Goddamn it. Aarggh …
I just feel like
going ape-shit crazy, you know. Urban dictionary defines ape-shit crazy as "The kind of anxiety usually expressed by the
physical or mental desire to jump up and down, screaming and banging hands on
chest or head on walls". Seems about right. May be all of those
people protesting are going ape-shit crazy too. But, in their style. Protesting on the roads, candle-lighting,
suggesting that we let aphrodisiac-fed male gorillas into a cage full of
convicted rapists as if gorillas don’t have any standards left, Facebook
sharing, tweeting or simply wishing that you were actually caring while being on a vacation like this blogger … what ever their shit is, folks ... Whatever their shit is
…
It is a scary
thought, after all. Everyone feels not-so-special now. You could be the next. I
could be the next. I get all that tough guy talk, "shit happens" way of looking at
life but Being raped until your guts literally
fall out ? COME ON … goddamn lunatics,
man … goddamn lunatics …
The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
Why aren't we spared
of those gruesome details ? Why can’t
they just tell us there was a gang-rape and we would behave exactly as we
usually do, "oh … that's sad …
". After all, sparing the details and mythologizing everything works like
a charm in our country, not just with respect to women-related crimes but
nearly every class of crime. Why
couldn't they have used the same habitual non-threatening language incapable of
evoking any imagination, words like "molest", "rape",
"harass", "tease", "misbehave" that the media
uses to conceal the details of the sins of our horny male loonies. May be, a
lot of rapes have the same kind of unspoken, unreported details … may be, each
victim would have gone through a similar excruciating experience. After all, no
one just lies down there and enjoys it because it is inevitable … every raped
victim would have been lying there writhing in pain, but at the time, media
would have deemed the whole thing not ratings-worthy. Poor media, what can they
do too ? These things happen in India @ 1 rape / 10 minutes each. Besides, will
there be any money in starting a "Rape TV" channel ?
That's what these
rapists exactly are. They are sociopaths, psychopaths, lunatics. Iron rods …6 men, 1 helpless girl, falling guts … running bus … Holy shit … !!! People who ought to be in mental institutions are let loose
into the society and are roaming the streets freely.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And everyday the paper boy brings more
Biting and
befitting, those beautiful lines. Aren't they? And
everyday the paper boy brings more … he brings more the stories of the
lunatics. It would be naïve to think that lunacy comes only in the form of
raping an innocent girl or laughing wickedly at a street lamp before pelting
stones at it. Lunacy comes in infinite forms. Lunacy is rampant. Don't it
shudder us more when we hear of a rape of an innocent girl because the violence
involved is biological . Our minds need
that visual horror to comprehend the real danger. Graphs, statistics and scientific models don't mean a thing.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, live ammunition, brutal assaults, blood, gore, war,
bombs, concentration camps - extreme visual horror is required to remind us
what we are. Mad men then become visible, the world is black & white, the
threat well-defined …
Yes, I had to go there. How can I miss the
metaphors ? You thought I will pass up a
chance to rant on human nature? This gang-rape lunatics are not alone and fell
out of the sky. They merely fell out of the bull-shit membrane where we keep
thinking it's not all that bad. The lunatics come in all colorful shapes and
sizes, gloriously gang-raping in their own way. Some get identified. Many
don't.
And everyday the paper boy brings more
… We
are all standing up, taking notice in this gang-rape case because of two things
… ONE - we know the face of the victim and … TWO - because the violence is
biological. The moment you think a little further … Look a little deeper, see metaphorical
meanings for the "rape" and "violence", you open a can of
colorful lunatics . Aren't there many kinds of rapes ? Isn't there violence
that involves no blood but does the job anyway ? Rape of economy, the Rape of
natural resources, the rape of fundamental rights, the rape of religions and
communities? the rape of our children's
future when we can’t provide decent education for them? the rape of the planet?
Isn't most violence today bloodless? And it's victims faceless? Mostly
perpetrated through economic and socio-political policy making ? Selling away
national resources to global companies for private profits, driving our own
indigenous people away from their lands to mine for the minerals underneath,
seed companies driving farmers to suicides, pharmaceutical companies using poor
people for illegal clinical trials, building dams and industries without proper
environmental clearances recklessly endangering the lives of people around,
maintaining sweat-shops to produce excess stuff as cheap as possible, blocking
stocks of grain to sell them at higher price after inflation while people are
starving ... If this is not crazy. What
is ? these people are goddamn mad too …
no difference …Let's not pretend these perpetrators are not lunatics on some
level … That disproportionate fixation to property over people is stark
exemplification of an imbalanced mind, that insane levels of greed is a
condition that belongs in a mental hospital ...
the madness is in every sector of the economy … if they can value of
human life sometimes even less than a Cadbury éclair's toffee … we got people
not satisfied with thousands of crores of personal property and still wanting
more, still making deals to smash the poor out of what little is left in their
lives … Can you explains what's all
this? Ambition is becoming a border-line
mental condition in this country … these
people are goddamn mad too … I see no difference … LOTS OF LOONIES …
ho ho ho ho … People who ought to be in mental institutions are let
loose into the society and are roaming the streets freely …
biological violence that scares the brain most, so we
react more … but the more deadlier yet softer one still lurks. You won't even
notice it's gait, it won't show it's face, but it spews its poisons through all
our veins ... Continues to leave behind a lot more permanent damage. … Yes, I had to go there … I can't help not drawing the
similarities …
And everyday the paper boy brings more …
You can't miss the
connections, folks. We are part of this
giant organism. One lunacy gives rise to another. The cycle continues. People
without a penny in their pockets are being driven in large numbers from the
deliberately neglected rural areas to cities
with their horrible water quality, air
quality, garbage disposal, infrastructure and so on. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the
profit-making class is interested in creating this large pool of desperate
people that can become cheap, disposable labor easily to become servants,
menial construction laborers, mining workers and - kind of an economic slavery, a way of
replying to the pesky human rights groups that won't let the real slavery
happen anymore. All this is being deliberately designed to be precisely so, or
continued on basis of "life feeds on life"
philosophy … Let's not pretend these
perpetrators are not lunatics … Unstable families, uncertain livelihoods ,
constant stress, utter hopelessness, living like a zombie … what do you expect
us to become? Greet each other with a smile and a tip of a hat ? We are going
to be mad at each other forever. Today, middle class people are being
told to be happy if they clear
their housing mortgage in 35 years without being fired in the meantime. …
Lunacy is lurking everywhere … We are living in a world of the crazy and
some crazies are more crazy than others … when we keep reacting angrily only on
one form of lunatics and interview the
others on TV for their ideas on economy and policy, doomsday for our species might just be around
the corner … we accept these sociopaths
hanging around us because the violence is not biological … I am sorry but I
CAN'T SEE THIS RAPE AS AN ISOLATED AND ONLY CASE OF LUNACY …
My only complaint . You ask? I sincerely salute the awesome noise everyone
made for the poor girl by going ape-shit crazy over the lunatics … let us take
this chance to recognize all kinds of lunatics, sociopaths, crazies performing
all kinds of metaphorical gang-rapes …
Some lunatics are
visually violent, the others - the invisible ones are more lethal and slithery
… we got to keep paying attention … The male friend of the gang-rape victim
lamented that people saw them lying on the side of the road and several auto
rickshaws, cars and bikes slowed down but none stopped to help. He says the
most important lines : "One cannot change
mindsets by lighting candles. You have to help people on the road when they
need help,” … LET'S START PAYING A LITTLE ATTENTION to the wounded
people on the streets … A LITTLE
ATTENTION to things happening around us …
Got to keep the loonies on the path …
The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
Posts
5 comments :
NO. No, you can't do that. "Unstable families, uncertain livelihoods , utter hopelessness, living like a zombie … " doesn't cause one to put iron rod into a woman. No, I have no sympathy for those being crushed by globalization forces to become beasts that torture their own species. No. I won't be guilty of that infectious part of this giant global organism of which you say we are all part of. I would rather put a brave face while I cut that out. There are a lot of ills, a lot of aches and pains that bother the organism (social, economical, blah blah blah you say), but THIS doesn't fall in to the same category of all those other silent killers. They kill us all eventually but there is a difference between diabetes and infected wound with rotting flesh. You don't treat both the same way.
It is not limited to India. It happens to UK school girls by a network of "South Asian" men. It happens to 16-year-old in Ohio.
NO. I won't accept the human-ness of them. I won't accept them as part of "human" nature. There is more to being human than walking on two legs. The only thing that reaches such brains is the fear. For the basest acts need the most basic of emotions for control. The threat of chemical castration and a long life with that result is the only deterrent for the rest of them from becoming beasts.
There are a lot of desperate situations when humans can do desperate acts. Torturing a random human for the fun of it and making a game of it is where I draw the line for rejecting them as humans.
Some argue this is only one incident. Why only these men? Life is unfair bro, deal with it. These are picked to be the example for the rest of them. Because the wound is too big you don't leave it alone. Starting the treatment even in a tiny bit is a start. What is it about tiny drops forming the ocean?
no no no no ... My point was never to explain away the incidents of rape in anyway ... and what you have said is a classic misinterpretation ...
my core thesis was about two things :
1. we live in a mad world, and this incident is something we are standing up and taking notice because it's violent and we were shown the victim
2. The real lunacy is still out there - more lethal and yet undetectable
I really want no business in blaming the globalized world ... I don't think globalization is the problem. I didn;t even use the word. Since you now brought it up ... i think it's the policies specifically designed to rape the poor which i was commenting about it is border-line lunacy according to me ... and that we should stop paying attention ...
The context for "Unstable families, uncertain livelihoods , utter hopelessness, living like a zombie … " is NOT the rape lunacy, but the metaphorical lunacy I just spoke about ...
People like this are black swans ... you never know what causes them ... like that connecticut gunman ... you can only manage the risk ... by ensuring as stable social safety nets ... but that's a whole other point ...
that's all ... I was really careful to never connect all this ... but I guess my poor editing skills at 3 am got me ... you should give people like me let their paint dry, take a nap and re-read it ... you know? :)
2.
I apologize if I misunderstood. I am just tired of people offering the so-called practical solution of "taking more precautions".
1. Agreed. But that's exactly it. The rot has finally got to a stage where symptoms can no longer be ignored.
2. That is true too. But we should begin tackling someone at some level. Just throwing our hands up since we can't solve other dangerous kinds of rot doesn't help. We can't cure cancer or AIDS yet, but that shouldn't stop offering a treatment for symptoms; even if the treatment itself has a lot of side-effects which make us feel worse.
I am sorry again because I feel that I jumped on your throat and it seems I am forever being contradictory. I should find some ways to tone it down. :)
oh puh-leeze ... no sorry stuff ... that's the fun part: careless talk and throat grabbing :)
I think you had a valid point and in some sense, my language was quite misleading. IMO, these things are always the writer's fault.
Solutions must always be multi-levels: personal, society, government. On a personal level, taking precaution makes sense but thats something the family should tell her. Not the government nor some guy at a bar 3 drinks down ... :)
Taking more precautions is total nonsense. Events like this are total disasters. To blame it as if things are in our control is to miss the point...
But, no one (willfully) commits a crime if they know they are going to be caught (policing), that is, unless the consequences of getting caught no longer scare them (hopelessness). Honestly, I got no solutions to this except:
1) beefing up the security and better rape laws ... and hey, let women carry guns ... :)
2) hoping that having a society that is not fractured, lesser income and gender inequalities and hope somehow the crazies have a good social protections and nice people in their life taking care of them ... but crazy is crazy ... there is no insurance despite the environment's best efforts ...
That can at best minimize the statistics but it's still a disaster for the raped ... I am talking statistics vs. specific instance of the random variable !!!
Feel free to keep jumping .. this is your space ... :)
I will cite three sources here -
1. Urban Dictionary (which you mentioned yourself) - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rape&defid=2994758
I quote - "Rape
1. An unspeakable act that women like to talk about a lot. The only way to ever be politically correct about rape in any shape or form is to refer to the victim as "she" because men are always the perpetrators of said act. Even if you, the male reader of this paragraph even so much as think of boobs you are a rapist and always will be. Are you happy, rapist?
2. Something ugly women are afraid of because no one will lay them.
2. Often the subject of some of the interbutt's more light-hearted and funnier stories, anecdotes and conversations.
"Take a look to you left. Then to your right. Then in four other directions. All you see males want to rape you"
"Rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape rape me!"
2. Little Red Riding Hood - http://www.newslaundry.com/2013/01/little-red-riding-hood/
3. Age of Transition - http://justicekatju.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-age-of-transition.html
I don't have anything more to add, that is all.
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