The "moral" brigade

In my last post, I wrote about how my perception about India and the events that happen there changed off late. My sole source of the news from India are those web-sites which are maintained by the leading news and publication channels, and my favorite being CNN-IBN's www.ibnlive.com.

Some of the news that caught my attention in the last couple of weeks were those about the "moral-brigade" in India, the people or groups that take it upon themselves to safe-guard the so-called moral values that the Indian culture has always stood for. I am sure all of you would have seen these incidents being discussed and debated by the media during the prime time.

The first one was the famous (or infamous, you can decide for yourself) Shilpa Shetty-Richard Gere kissing episode, that led to arrest warrants being issued against them and a lot of hullabaloo that followed. How can one blame Richard Gere, I can only envy him for what he did. Probably, it was just the envy that triggered strong reactions, which manifested itself in some other ways.

Then there was this incident where a group of people who had apparently shouldered the responsibility of the cleaning up Bangalore off its pub-culture went on a rampage in one of the city's pubs. I am not quite sure what they were trying to achieve. At least, the pubs gives the people of Bangalore an opportunity to get away from the bigger problems that dog the city, like bad roads, lack of power and water, corruption, traffic, and countless others.

There were other opportunities for the morality brigade to bask in the limelight of media attention. The long standing debate on whether to have sex-education in India or not came back into focus with a couple of incidents in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. And again, all the recommendations from prominent educationalists and other organizations that fight against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases fell on deaf ears. The country that takes pride in Kamasutra, denies sex education for its young generation.

We had some laugh at the expense of these stories. We also had some more coffee corner talks about this. The most interesting conversation happened when one of my Chinese colleague asked me about the Shetty-Gere episode. The news had made it to CNN in US. And my friend was struggling to understand what went wrong - "so, he kissed her on her cheek three times, and someone filed a law suite against him, is that all that happened? So, is it illegal to kiss in India?" he asked. I was speechless.

Well, what is ailing India. What is wrong with our democracy.

After a long time

The last blog I posted was ten months back. In these ten months, lot of things changed in the world, and a few things changed in my life too. The big change in my life was, I crossed half the globe and moved to US, in search of some new challenges in my career, and maybe, in search of some new adventures and experiences in life.
I did find the challenges I was looking for in my career. Life also got less stressful and more enjoyable. The ultimate dream of any middle class Indian, if I dare say, coming true for me.
But, this move into a foreign land, also brought me in touch with some interesting experiences and perspectives. The big difference I felt was with respect to my view of India. I started seeing India and the life, culture and the happenings in India in a different light or with a different perspective. Suddenly, I had this view of an outsider who could see things from a 50,000 feet view with much better clarity. I could see things in a more neutral perspective, more or less like the rest of the world. But, my knowledge of the Indian society and the culture gave me a unique advantage, I could also analyze these incidents in their right backdrop, and explain to my American, German, Chinese, Vietnamese and other multi-ethnic colleagues, who were often bewildered by many of the weird and bizarre incidents that shook the biggest democracy of the world.

But, this also makes me, and other numerous Indian colleagues and friends here, think - Is everything fine with India?

I thought it would be a good idea to blog about this, about all the discussions that we have about India and the incidents that catches the attention of the prime time media. I hope to start with this soon. So, till then, ciao.