Games children play!
Here I am again, miserably pained by the news brought into my living room by the north-westerly satellite signals. As I sit brooding about the sickening era of political theatrics, where even a great Mohandas is mistaken for some imaginary Gujarati dude called Mohanlal by one of post-independent India’s most powerful political beings, here comes another shocker.
My poor soul is awfully shaken, as kids – little kids – take drama out of some bloody flick to the corridors of their school. Gun wielding kids have arrived in the land of the Mahatma. What more do we need? What more do we look for? India has suddenly turned a developed nation. Development after all has just one bench mark. It all depends on how effectively we ape the Americans.
Kids shooting down school mates are just ordinary stuff for the Americans. We in India have enacted the aping game with perfection. If ever Gurgaon, not very far off the national capital, is remembered by posterity to come, let it be for this.
For the visual media, the games children played in a Gurgaon school somehow came as manna from up above, it seems. Panel discussions, special programmes and a bit of comparison with Big Brother US ruled the airwaves. I agree, this indeed was news, a shocking one at that. But why did even the most respected ones in the elevated telly space look at it as a warning to the parents.
Kids, even when they play with guns, have a great deal of innocence that rules them. Guns, Barbie dolls or the way puny Jerry makes mincemeat of dumb Tom seldom make much of a difference to them, do they? For them everything is a play thing. Here in this case too, they played with the trigger of a loaded firearm.
Instead of telling the kids what to do and what not to, why don’t we tell ourselves that? We, adult humans, happen to be thinking beings, or so they say. Why don’t we tell the parents, who take pride in praising their kids at open fora, to act as examples that can be emulated? Why do we have to watch crime flicks on TV along with the kids and lament later as our wards do the same?
Who is to blame for the Gurgaon episode? If the kids in the US go on a shooting spree in school, is it a must that our kids too should do that here? Why don’t we at least decide not to buy kids even plastic guns when they ask for toys? Why don’t we desist ourselves from sending our kids to schools that take pride in just name building rather than teaching meaningful stuff? Why do we fall for the international tags attached to schools these days?
Gandhi is at least a ‘Munnabhai gone awry’ for today’s kid. The next generation, brought up on a staple diet of bullets, suicide bombers and plane hijacks, are sure to know nothing about a man who lived all his life for non-violence. Ahimsa doesn’t have a meaning in even modern day Gandhian parlance. Why blame the kids?
Instead of discussing what went wrong, it is high time we thought about how not to go wrong. We don’t need a Gandhi to be reborn again to do this. The cops have arrested the kids involved in the Gurgaon school shoot out. Wouldn’t it have been wise to penalize the parents of these kids for corrupting the minds of their wards to such an extent that they sneaked into school with guns hid safe in their socks? The parent is liable to admit being the criminal force here. What say?
Here I am again, miserably pained by the news brought into my living room by the north-westerly satellite signals. As I sit brooding about the sickening era of political theatrics, where even a great Mohandas is mistaken for some imaginary Gujarati dude called Mohanlal by one of post-independent India’s most powerful political beings, here comes another shocker.
My poor soul is awfully shaken, as kids – little kids – take drama out of some bloody flick to the corridors of their school. Gun wielding kids have arrived in the land of the Mahatma. What more do we need? What more do we look for? India has suddenly turned a developed nation. Development after all has just one bench mark. It all depends on how effectively we ape the Americans.
Kids shooting down school mates are just ordinary stuff for the Americans. We in India have enacted the aping game with perfection. If ever Gurgaon, not very far off the national capital, is remembered by posterity to come, let it be for this.
For the visual media, the games children played in a Gurgaon school somehow came as manna from up above, it seems. Panel discussions, special programmes and a bit of comparison with Big Brother US ruled the airwaves. I agree, this indeed was news, a shocking one at that. But why did even the most respected ones in the elevated telly space look at it as a warning to the parents.
Kids, even when they play with guns, have a great deal of innocence that rules them. Guns, Barbie dolls or the way puny Jerry makes mincemeat of dumb Tom seldom make much of a difference to them, do they? For them everything is a play thing. Here in this case too, they played with the trigger of a loaded firearm.
Instead of telling the kids what to do and what not to, why don’t we tell ourselves that? We, adult humans, happen to be thinking beings, or so they say. Why don’t we tell the parents, who take pride in praising their kids at open fora, to act as examples that can be emulated? Why do we have to watch crime flicks on TV along with the kids and lament later as our wards do the same?
Who is to blame for the Gurgaon episode? If the kids in the US go on a shooting spree in school, is it a must that our kids too should do that here? Why don’t we at least decide not to buy kids even plastic guns when they ask for toys? Why don’t we desist ourselves from sending our kids to schools that take pride in just name building rather than teaching meaningful stuff? Why do we fall for the international tags attached to schools these days?
Gandhi is at least a ‘Munnabhai gone awry’ for today’s kid. The next generation, brought up on a staple diet of bullets, suicide bombers and plane hijacks, are sure to know nothing about a man who lived all his life for non-violence. Ahimsa doesn’t have a meaning in even modern day Gandhian parlance. Why blame the kids?
Instead of discussing what went wrong, it is high time we thought about how not to go wrong. We don’t need a Gandhi to be reborn again to do this. The cops have arrested the kids involved in the Gurgaon school shoot out. Wouldn’t it have been wise to penalize the parents of these kids for corrupting the minds of their wards to such an extent that they sneaked into school with guns hid safe in their socks? The parent is liable to admit being the criminal force here. What say?
Comments
It is really frightening to think of the future, when gun-totting kids would terrorise not just their classmates, but the society as a whole.
The sense of right and wrong, already blurred by the strong winds of capitalism and ill-gotten wealth, would cease to be an idea even. The ME-firsts would swarm the earth, slaughter the meek and invade the Heaven!
As you have rightly pointed out, it is the parents who are to blame. We, who are willing to dance their tunes, who try to fulfil the most absurd of their wishes in the name of love and
who never let them know how money is 'made'.
Another thing that is equally dangerous is the WWW fights routinely showcased on TV. The brytality on display, so horrible and benumbing when watching for the first time, become just a sport, or rather a fast computer game.
I have seen a kid grabbing his little sis by the hair and hitting her spine with the elbow! Simply, he has no idea that his blows can cause pain. Of course, he will go mad when hit back in the same coin!
Anyway, thanx for the post. You have reminded me, a parent, that one's responsibilities don't end with providing for the material needs.
Murali, Kochi
America or global schools are not to blamed. We can only hope parents, teachers, media, social activists, NGOs and others try to prevent such atrocities in India or else where, for the pain that stabs the heart is universal.
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