No this article isn’t about the crappy
novel by E.L. James.
But now that I have your attention let’s
talk about Shades of Grey.
World isn’t like a piano: All black and white.
Nothing can be labelled angelic or pure
evil.
Every sage has his past, Valmiki was a
robber once...
However, in the social age, we are always
eager to label things as Good or Bad.
The recent example was the #TilakNagar
incident.
Prima facie, everyone was quick to react
and support the girl. Obviously, she has the guts to stand up against
eve-teasing, lets support her. Everyone from media, celebrities shared her
posts and the government announced a Rs.5000 prize (Seriously!)
The guy was immediately labelled as the villain!
(I don’t say the good guy here, please note!)
Then came the sensible reaction, someone
somewhere thought that lets look into the facts and so the media dug up dirt on
the girl, came up with on-lookers who reported the so-called truth.
Was it really the truth?
No one cared to find out as again, the
charade started with people shifting their stances and now labelling the girl
as bad and the guy as good! Celebrities tweeted their apologies.
See how fuzzy, blotchy and hasty our judgement
is?
I have few observations to make here-
Obviously, being human I can also label
things as good and bad so let me get it done with first. The girl shared the
guys pic on social media, making him infamous. Everyone shared his pic openly
and he was the culprit. No blurry images here for protection which is the norm
legally! That was wrong. We talk about gender equality so let’s be judicious,
so she had his bike number, why share his picture? Would she have liked it if
her picture was shared like that?
I won’t
be surprised if he or she is approached by #Big Boss as contestant or dances in
a reality dance show next. How we love to make celebrities out of bad boys!
But guess the final judgement by the social
media, while the police is still looking into the matter (A sorry state of
Indian legal system) is in favour of the boy.
He is indeed a good boy, and it was the
girl who wanted publicity.
Having said this, I think this is how the
incident really played out.
The girl was minding traffic and the guy
said a few choice words to her.
She decided to act out of vengeance and
played her political connections to punish him. She obviously miscalculated the
jagrut media. And soon, her 5 mins of fame changed to a nightmare the Vanilla Sky way!
My take comes from my personal experience
of visiting an ATM in my home town some years back.
So I
go inside the ATM to withdraw cash, and two tall, hefty, middle aged men walk
in while I am still withdrawing cash. Obviously, I feel threatened, so I calmly
tell them that, "you are supposed to wait outside when the ATM is in
use" What follows can best be written out in **** and ### as
they told me very impolitely that they aren’t interested in my money and I
should mind my own business.
Mind you, they were educated, well dressed
MIDDLE AGED men!
My mistake? Not shutting up apparently!
The thing is both could be wrong, the boy
in using choice words and the girl in her act of vengeance, but why are we so
eager to place the blame on one person and make the other go scot-free? No one’s
black and white here.
Obviously the next step is to find out who
was more wrong and then the culprit turns out to be the one who tried to strong
ones case by covering tracks and lying. Does it change the fact that maybe some
words were uttered to outrage her modesty?
That she had to walk out of that place red –faced the way I did from
that ATM?
The
media has moved on, the re-judgement passed. The balance is finally restored.
But in future maybe we can learn and concentrate on some things-
1. Think before acting.
2. Avoid pressing that "share"
button when it comes to such incidents.
3. Give an equal benefit of doubt
irrespective of gender.
4. Stop being judgemental
To end on a positive note, if entertainment
for you is really watching Bindras, Sawants and Radhe Maas on reality TV, let’s
make celebrities out of such incidents!
