Last night watched Star News give wearisome details on the forensic lab in Gandhinagar which will conduct the narco-analysis. All this harping on analysis, and very little on investigation. I’m guessing that the authorities are content to sit on their bums, and twiddle their thumbs while the week-long analysis is going on.

Whatever happened to good old detective work ? What IS the police doing now ? Why no further details on who-what-where ? Because this racket was not just conjured by the said twosome. There have got be more people involved. The accused must have talked to people, met others. He must have associates, friends, acquaintances, phone records. Someone must have seen something.

Such trust in forensic procedures which cannot even be admitted as evidence in court !

Meanwhile the entertaining Yadav brothers regale us with platitudes such as this (from NDTV):

“Such incidents happen in every state, but in this case we were able to expose it,” said Yadav who is the brother of Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Such magnificence ! Let’s get credit for even exposing this crime, no matter that we do nothing to prevent it now or in the future.

And this (from NewKerala):

“Such small incidents keep happening,” Yadav told reporters after visiting Nithari village to distribute additional compensation of Rs three lakh each to the parents of the victims.

All I hear on desi TV is about the Noida killings. On the phone with family, everyone asks if we’ve heard of the heinous matter. Yes, we have. Again and again, publicised on TV as the “Shame of India”. Really ? And is that all ?

This really turns me into the Cynic-of-all-time. Why is everyone so surprised that something like this has happened ? Why is everyone so “shocked” to know (this time forcefully) that the Indian poor might as well be invisible as far as rights (human or legal) are concerned ? Didn’t we already know this fact ? NDTV conducted a poll asking people to air their views on whether justice was dependent on your financial status. Well, DUH ! Was there a need of a poll ? Is it not already amply clear ?

Why the horror, the shock and awe now ? Why no horror when one sees little kids begging ? Why no horror that at the same market where you see a group of small children wallow in filth picking through the overflowing trash heap, you see a cavalcade of cars hurrying away some minister in absolute luxury ? Why no horror when comfortably ensconsed in one’s AC car, you look out and see a raggedly clothed kid, wiping the car’s windshield at a red light ? We know, you and I, that if someone abused or killed this raggedly clothed kid, no one would give a shit.

The “shame” is everywhere. It’s in that moment when I buy my kid’s ice-cream from the ice-cream vendor at the neighborhood park and a little group of urchins gather to eye the ice-cream, because God knows if they have even had any food, let alone ice-cream, yet. It’s in that moment when at a traffic light, a boy as old as my kid’s comes up to try and sell little toys thorugh the window. He’s barefoot, dressed in tatters, and running around amid traffic trying to drum up some business. If he’s crushed by some oncoming car, do you think anyone will mourn ?It’s in my mother’s voice, thin and faint and broken over the phone, when she tells me of her visit to a kid’s school, a school for the very poor kids. She tells me that she has changed her mind to gift them pencil boxes and frivolities for Diwali and will instead take them a full meal, because she saw what they had for lunch. “Sukhi roti” she says, no sabzi, not even a little achaar, or onion, nothing else.

The shame is in seeing kid’s defeacating in the open drain of a little street, because they have no fit toilet to use, and then remembering all those inane emails I get about India’s achivements.

It IS shameful that while poor kid’s are considered dispensable the entire state machine is churned up when a “rich” kid is kidnapped. However the real shame is in the fact that we are surrounded by atrocities everyday, atrocities which we are inured too, and we don’t even squirm at their mention. We have withing us the knowledge that the law doen’t work for the poor. They are largely ignored, batted away. The rich have always had it good. The poor have always had it bad. Nothing new there. The Noida episode might just be the tip of the iceberg. Kid’s and women are trafficked, sold, live and work in places unfit for animals. However either it is under-reported or relegated to the back pages of the newspaper, or that we don’t care for the horrors of the poor around us, that we bat not an eyelid.

So, why the pretense now ?

I am not too gung-ho about make-over programs but some of them I do like (like TLC’s “What not to wear”). There is also “10 years younger” which I’m not much into because the anchor of the show (who’s a young man) is pretty cruel, when he is pretending to be sympathetic. I know nicey-nice doen’t make the ratings go up, but really we are human, so let’s try and be kind even when verbally shredding someone’s look. Except ofcourse when you’re doing movie reviews (like me) and then you can shred to your heart’s content.

Anyway, “10 years younger” is on one day, because it followed “What not to wear” and I am too lazy to switch off the TV (the remote’s too far away – it’s actually on top of the TV – such intelligence !). And I’m not really looking, just subliminally hearing, because I’m working on the laptop (Wireless networking really is one of the wonders of the modern world !). But I hear the word “India” and my ears perk up. And then I pay attention.

What’s happenening is that in the program, they’re doing 24-hour makeovers on random people off the street, and trying to make them look 10 years younger than they actually are (that’s the theme of the show). So, the anchor (this nasty man I was talking about) is roaming around looking for people who need “help”, and he comes across this young woman. She’s dressed in very loose capris, a tank-top and flip-flops on her feet, and kind of looks gaunt and tired. So he stops her and guesses her age. Apparently he’s a mile off because she gasps – she’s much younger. She also agrees to be “made over”.

Well. in the initial interview part, he looks at her earlier photos (where she’s much prettier) and asks her why she’s let herself go, so to speak. And she says, I went to India and got really, really sick – like for a month. With malaria. The anchor screws up his nose. They don’t say anything but you can tell what they are thinking. Then he asks her how she got it – did she eat something that make her sick? To this her reply is, that she thinks pretty much everything she ate in India, probably made her sick.

OK, I can sort of undeestand how she feels – how would I feel if I went on a vacation to another country and there got sick really badly ? Not too warmly, I’m sure. But to see a picture of India baldly painted on TV, as a veritable hell-hole where esoteric diseases like malaria still lurk, is not pleasant. And really what can you say ?

Americans probably only confront diseases like malaria and the plague when they travel abroad. And India does have poor hygeine, and heallth conditions. There’s dirt, and grime and poverty. But we accept this, because we have become inured to it. But for a tourist who comes to India, with visions of seeing incredible India, poverty, lack of infrastructure and general filth are very big issues ( you have to talk to some of them to find out).

For the tourist trade, all those “Incredible India” ads on TV are nullified by word-of-mouth, or word-of-mouth-on-national-television testimonials by people who’ve been to India. Then, all the “incredibleness”, and India is incredible – it is indeed beautiful, and colorful and wonderful to see, doesn’t help.