Hell, I don't usually post at all.
But I ended up ranting about the Aarushi Case on Facebook Chat a while back.
the Transcript goes a little like this.
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Dylan:Was it you, who posted a link on FB
about Arushi Talwar case
Me:yeah\
I got that from Mystiques blog though
Dylan:is there any way you can get it agaian?
Me:yeah one sec
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/worse-than-a-daughter-s-death
Me:whats the occasion? fancy a re-read?
Dylan:Just wanted to link it to Samadrita.
Me:
Ah. She hasn't read it?
Dylan:maybe she has read it
I dunno.. but she says she thinks that the parents killed her
Me:oh shiiii-
But who can really tell, man?
I mean, the article was compelling and all
Dylan:Yeah I guess
Me:but what kinda ninja would get into a house, kill two people, get out, and not even steal anything AND not wake anyone.
Dylan:http://twitter.com/#!/AuraofDreams/status/61027885619744768
Me:This looks like a job for detective school Q
Dylan:yeah its all very strange
Dylan:sad
Me:Sad?
whats sad is that a shitload more people die everyday in various places in our Country
it never gets reported, and the police pin the blame on someone convenient and call it a day
the only reason this one got attention is cause the victim was well to do
Dylan:...and with the murder pinned on the dad the media could sensationalise it
Me:also, Aarushi was a 'Gen Y' person or whatever.
so she was more relatable
'Today her. Tomorrow it could be you'
thats what the media was trying to say
Nobody mentioned the servant
who was also killed
Dylan:oh yeah
Collateral damage
Me:cause he's poor. Who gives a fuck about poor people if they aren't starving in africa, ay?
those kind of people aren't relatable to the average TV news viewer
give more coverage to the rich kid, pull out her facebook pictures, check her 'morality' and shit
Middle class people gonna lap that up
Me:...
wow
Dylan:and they did
Me:I'm ranting aren't I
Half a mind to copy paste this and put it up on my blog
would you mind if I did?
Dylan:Not at all
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I just got down to watching 'Natural Born Killers' recently. Maybe thats why this topic stuck in my mind when it was brought up.
The movie, for those of you who haven't seen it, is basically about how society perceives violence vs. how murderers perceive violence. It's filled with caricatures of media people and thinly veiled parodies of 'America's Most Wanted'.
Lemme break it down to explain what the problem is:
The media loves violence. I doesn't mean to encourage it, or foster it, No sir, don't get the wrong idea.
But violence is powerful stuff for a media person, and thats because the general public gravitates to it like flies on meat.
Why?
Maybe it's ingrained somewhere in our collective psyche. Maybe we're all creatures of violence and thats why we're so fascinated by it. It taps into some primal part of our psyche and just can't look away.
I don't mean in television or the movies or whatever. Few months ago I saw a drunk man on a railway station get clipped on the shoulder by a train when he stumbled too close to the edge of the platform. Poor guy was bleeding out right there on the platform, and people walking by at the peak of Rush hour stopped in their tracks.
Seconds ago, they had things to do and places to be, but then they all took time out to watch the man bleed.
And don't tell me it's because they were going to help. Most people were content to make comments in the crowd, about how drunk people were the worst, he deserved it, yada yada.
Seconds ago, they had things to do and places to be, but then they all took time out to watch the man bleed.
And don't tell me it's because they were going to help. Most people were content to make comments in the crowd, about how drunk people were the worst, he deserved it, yada yada.
Simply put, it brought out a sort of morbid curiosity in people.
Maybe its evolutionary. If we see what happens to our fellow man, we may be better prepared for if it happens to us.
Whatever the reason, it works.
It stays in your mind, and thats exactly what the media wants. In a nutshell, they want your attention, and they get it by getting you nice and afraid.
Thats basically what was done with the Aarushi case. Victim was a bubbly, sweet, mall-going, facebook using, 'Gen Y' teenager. The kind of person we all might know. Someone we could relate to
They never used the exact words, but they presented all the facts with the implied underlying meaning that said 'If it can happen to her, it could happen to you'.
At that point you might step in and say that te media can do as they want, it's up to the people to make their own decisions.
The problem is, all the media attention put greater pressure on the investigators. For all we know they may have manipulated evidence just to get the case closed as soon as they could. Or they may have done their job well, we don't know. Fact remains though, the minute they declared that the victim's Dad was the prime suspect, it was almost as if every news network in India had a simultaneous orgasm.
The case turned from murder to family drama. They called it the breakdown of the Indian Family. Irrespective of the fact that over 40% of murders occur between victims and offenders who are relatives. No, hell with that, THIS case is where Indian Family values have been killed, never to be seen again.
Then they started questioning the victims 'character' which just fucked my mind completely. Who gives a shit about that? Would you abandon the investigation if it turned out that the victim had 'loose morals' (whatever the fuck that means)? Are you saying that promiscuous people deserve to die?
And there, the media could finally link things to the other big daddy eyeball magnet of the masses. Sex. The 3 things that always interest the middle class. Scandalous Scams, Sensational Violence, and Salacious tales of Sexual escapades. If they managed to link, lets say, a land scam to this, I'm sure a lot of journalists would have been able to make enough to retire right then and there.
No respect for the dead. No peace for the living. Her parents must've gone through hell by that point. And thats why I'm ranting.
Come on,man. Have some respect. Honor that girls memory and don't be dwelling on those aspects of her life that got nothing to do with anything.
After all, she's someone we can relate to, right? A mall-going, facebook using, 'Gen Y' teenager
