WHERE ARE THE UMBRELLAS?

 

“People are sheep. The TV is the Shepherd.”

Jess C. Scott

Some thirty years ago, one afternoon, it’s raining heavily. I had kept my classroom door closed, and my students and I were totally focused on the proceedings inside. There were some forty or forty-five students inside, who had parked their umbrellas and windcheaters in two large buckets which were placed outside. After the class got over, when my students went outside, there was a commotion… All the umbrellas and windcheaters had disappeared from the buckets!

We were all shocked! Missing of one or two umbrellas or windcheaters would have gone down our throats, somehow… But, this wouldn’t. Being their teacher, and the owner of the class, I was answerable. “What is the mystery? Is it a theft or some freak accident or whatever that is?” … We had no clue. My students were kind enough not to create any scene, and, they all – young colleges students – merrily dispersed getting drenched!

For a week, since then, I tried to crack the mystery, but with no success. Meanwhile, neither my students nor their parents made any big fuss over the spilt milk…

I completely forgot about this incident. Then, one evening, a Punjabi woman, who lived nearby, came to see me. “Sir, I am ashamed to tell you this,” she said without any hesitation, “I came to know from someone, that my son had stolen the umbrellas and windcheaters of your students… He keeps doing it, regularly, to buy weed. I am his single parent and have not been able to get him out of this habit. I have brought some cash; please pay your students.”

I was speechless! I couldn’t bring myself to accept cash from this honest and helpless mother. The young boy was, eventually, sent back to their village in Punjab, where things worsened. Meanwhile, as many families do this mistake, they got him married to a village girl…A baby girl was born, soon… The wife of the young man left the place leaving behind her addict husband and the baby… The young man’s mother managed to bring the li’l baby to her place, here in Bombay… and she raised her as her own child. Today, the girl is a college student… She is extremely confident and articulate… Extremely well-mannered. The woman – the grandmother – is one of the most graceful human beings I have ever known. She isn’t educated… The weed has already killed her son… But, whenever I meet her, I can feel the warmth and love.

As I see this insanity on our mainstream media – Sushant, Rhea, Kangana, Deepika, Sara, Shradha, Karan, Salman…. all and sundry from Bollywood – the drug mafia… the drug cartel… Muje drug do, drug do… Nashedi gang… the vultures… the chase… the poison… the Bollywood clean up… and nonsense… madness… the inhuman and cheap obsession… the destruction of people’s reputation… and a nation’s addiction to something worse than drugs…

Yes, as I see all this, I think of the mother of the man who is now not around … I think of his college-going daughter… I think of so many families, right from my own college days – my colleagues, students, relatives, fellow community- members, children of my close friends – here as well as abroad – yes, I think of all of them… I think of so many parents, who have come to me to seek my advice, some comfort… I wonder what must be going on in the minds of these fine individuals when they hear this irresponsible, mean, toxic criminalization and condemnation on Primetime: ‘Nashedi gang’…and all that!

God, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing!

They know not?

Except one or two – including the boy who stole my students’ umbrellas and windcheaters that rainy day – almost everyone, who I knew had been through this ‘experimental phase’ in their lives, has grown up in life as fine, compassionate and, even prosperous, fellow-beings. They belong to some amazing families around us…

Well, the media, who conducts this dirty game every day, has a clear agenda behind it. But, I wonder about millions of my fellow-beings, right inside our houses – who are addicted to this nashedi substance from the media, day-in and day-out…

It’s not any kind of clean-up, Sir… It’s a massive pile-up…

Of mess within!

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic's.: pixabay

 

Video: Zee Music Company