"Mary, Mary quite contrarily
How does your garden grow?"
I was reading "The bad Times of India" a couple of weeks back when this poem popped into my head. Two news times were arranged side by side in the newspaper.
The first one was that some ruffians had gotten into a train (I forget which one), forced a 22-year old married woman into the toilet and gang raped her.
The second news item was that the Mumbai Police squad had taken moral policing to heart. They swooped down upon some married couples in a public park. Their crime was that they were sitting very close to each other and holding hands while walking. The lady police, being the great Kannagis and Savitris of our era, beat the women with lathis and used obscene language to abuse them! The couples protesting that they were married and they had done nothing "indecent" was of no avail.
Perhaps the editor didn't have the irony in mind when they put these two news items side by side.
4 comments:
you know...moral policing is something i heard about, when I was there in India and it really pissed me off. Its not like the police have arrested all the rapists, murderers and theives that they want to go after innocent couple who want to have a good time togeather.
I grew up in Chennai and spent lots of time hanging out in Besant Nagar and Marina beaches and in 21 years of my life i was there, never once did I see anything that was obscene. The worst I have seen is a couple hugging each other. Stupid dumb &$*@&%$ police. Also i wonder how they could legally do that...i mean its after all a free country and there is nothing i know of in the law which says a couple can't hold hands togeather. Looks like a step backward in India'a development.
A shame indeed ! Who's to stop all this nonsense ? Namba baattukku oru orathla okkarndhu polambaradhu dhaan michcham !
Ummm, just a small correction on behalf of all the mumbai-ites (I am not one, btw) who might chance upon this post. I think you are referring to the incident in Meerut and caught on camera and replayed for days together on TV in India.
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