Shades of Grey

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!