To Depravity, our middle name

Ten days ago a girl two days short of her fifteenth birthday was killed. Ten days later Arushi, we have killed you on an average of ten times everyday. We have ripped you apart, shredded your life, your being and publicly devoured it.

We have picked you to the bone, maybe even the marrow. I say ‘maybe’ because, I stopped at the bone, couldn’t see any further.

They say that the soul never dies, that it is a voyager on the road to forever. I know now that it is not true. Cannot be. After all we had subjected your soul to. Just when it stepped on that road to forever we caught it by the scruff and buried it alive.

We the living have buried your soul alive, suffocated it to death, just so because you don’t leave our TV, newspapers and our very sick minds for some time.

Since your death newspapers and TV channels (try as I may, can’t call them NEWS channels) have been on a screeching overdrive that would have shamed a banshee.

First, we shouted it was the servant who killed you. So we spent endless hours debating the wisdom of hiring them. In passing we even touched upon the far important point of treating them like crap.

We began to endlessly theorize, helped undoubtedly by a lot of women in chiffon saris who came on TV and shared their miserable experience with these muck-of-the earth people. The whole socialite brigade was there, you know the rich women, who throw parties and give poor Ramu the leftovers.

You know the kind who were wearing conservative diamond/platinum jewelry because it was supposed to be some kind of a solemn moment, after all a young girl had died and the domestic help was the culprit number one. Till now that is.

Then the police, under much pressure from the TV channels, who still have to find a replacement for Ramayan, Mahabharta kind of melodrama, changed the whole damn argument. It was not the poor beggar. How could he have killed the poor girl? The damn chap was rotting on the terrace, killed on the same night.

God! Somebody at India TV must have got himself drunk on happiness on the poor sod’s death. Zee, Star and the others wouldn’t have been far behind.

For some days, this drama, this vulgar, voyeuristic drama unfolding before us could even beat the hollows out of the TRPs those epic dramas ever enjoyed. (BTW were TRP’s even in existence then?)

And so began another disgusting spewing of theories. How? Who? Endless dramatic enactments of the alleged event that nobody saw, that nobody had any inkling of, that nobody could logically trace back in time.

Heck, it was our time for playing Sherlock or Bymokesh, God! Rest their souls. The same old gang. The same old nonsense.

By this time the Noida police was working overtime. Heavens! It finally cracked the case. It was the father, silly. Who else can kill a little girl but a father. Hell, we are embarrassed it took us so long.

This time the sold-on-muck people, the crime show anchors and reporters across India TV, Zee, NDTV, Star, would all have died of “sudden cardiac arrest perpetrated by unexpected gain or windfall.”

The frigging father killed the girl and the servant. The Gods of Primetime television were never so generous. Everything else followed. The father was having an affair with a colleague. The daughter knew this and was upset. She told the servant, because you see, even they were kind of playing snuggle-cuddle with each other. The monster dad couldn’t stomach all this, so he stomached half a bottle of alcohol and killed them both.

The mother didn’t know anything at all. The tired creature just kept snoring the night off.

The TV channels had their pound of flesh. So we kept seeing more dramatic representations of the event, even more graphic details of what might not have happened.

Of how it can’t be substantiated that the father was the killer, we heard very little. Who the hell cared enough to raise these questions anyway? We have our primetime taken care of. We have our eyeballs not glued but implanted on TV. This is such a godsend for us. Who the hell are we to care about anything else?

We had both the women in question giving their story. We liked this. Will any reality show ever get this real? We also had, you know that new kid on the block, the new upper class way of showing our pain, hurt and ketchup-bleeding hearts; the candlelight vigil.

We had friends of the girl praising her. All made up and saying things their parents spent the whole night making them rehearse. This was their murderous claim to fame. Another check mark in the CV that parents make for their kids. She came on TV and parroted off with such aplomb they will say.

The clock of the tragedy had by now circled its grotesque, vulgar, depraved life. We still don’t know any better. Tired of damning the father and having our share of gratification by making two women defend their character on primetime, we are back at the beginning.

We need something to feed our depraved souls. Nothing less than an uber middle class murder tragedy born out of wedlock, of lust will dot. Or so we would like to think.

But what about the WHATs

What if the father did not kill the girl or the servant?

What if he never had an affair with another women?

What if he is really mourning his daughter?

Whhat about the mother?

What have we made of their lives?

What have we made of their remaining lives?

What have we made of the life of that other woman and her family?

WHAT ABOUT THE WHAT? WHY DID WE NOT GIVE IT A FAIR CHANCE?

Do you think they care about it? Our editors who are feeding off other people’s tragedy. Our reporters, news- gatherers who are getting their bylines and PTCs

The only thing they care about is when will the next murder happen? Will it have this irresistible mix of sex , lust, adultery. And just to be on the safe side will it have a young girl, just old enough to have an affair herself, but of course a minor, who will preferably be butchered with a blunt instrument?

Hell, India TV maybe even carrying out a secret Havana, some Kaal Kappal sick mind would even be establishing a direct hotline with the Satan. Star, Zee, NDTV would be keeping their finger crossed. To dispel any bad omen in the way, you see.