Yesterday, on my way back home, I entered the Petrol pump and was waiting in the queue. A college going youth was standing just behind me. Despite the fact that mobile usage is prohibited in petrol pump due to associated risks, he took out his mobile and started typing message. I tried to convey him, not to do so and he ignored me. Thinking of safety I tried to convey this to the person working on the pump and the people around. But they also ignored as well. In fact the expressions on their face were as if "why this fellow is so anxious, everyone uses phone on petrol pump". It may be a very insignificant incident, but it made me think, have we really stopped bothering about the wrong things happening around us?
Recently, I was amazed by some news. First one presented the cricketer showing victory sign to the crowd even when caught in spot fixing and not for freedom struggle. Another one was a detailed coverage of procession of a film star convicted for keeping AK47 which he received from the one of the most wanted terrorist. Another painful news showed the top most leader and self proclaimed prime minister candidate of India waving flags for flood relief sent for impacted people in Uttarakhand as if starting the F1 race. I was not astonished by the news themselves, but either applause of certain set of society for these news and ignorance of remaining society towards them.
I remember the first series of bomb blasts in Mumbai around 1993. We all were shocked to the core. Everyone was fearing to move out the house and Mumbai was virtually closed for nearly a week. But people came out and started working after that. All applauded the courage, calm and patience shown by people of Mumbai But then ... ? It became a routine. Every year there was a bombing couple of times and people got killed. Next day or in fact within next few hours the life attended a normalcy. We all got used to these blasts. We all accepted it as part of the life.
Just a year or so before, we had a big wave of anti-corruption movement. I fail to see any change due to that in our life. Even today there are big scams becoming public. Same is the case with the discrimination of women. Even after a movement lead by a few and creation of "Nirbhaya fund" I can read news of countless rapes. Starting from small things like 'pollution caused by plastic' , 'spitting on the road' to the complex problems of 'corruption' and 'social discrimination of women', we can not see any problem being resolved. Rather these problems becoming integral part of our life.
Question is why and how our society which was once known for its sensitivity and ethics, reached current state. It is very easy and obvious that we blame all these problems to 'N' number of reasons like lack of visionary national leadership, corrupt political and judicial systems or even globalization of Indian economy, as it is very easy to point finger to others. But have we not adopted ourselves to this change, or rather are we not the ones who constitute this ruthless society?
These problems are just the symptoms, the real worry is ... Are we becoming a society of living dead?
By the way its just another random thought...
