Victim's Rights

I watched a piece of news today (on the interwebs, I no longer own a television) about a young girl, 11, who was raped on a train in India. While reporting the news the channel, owned by a prominent Indian newspaper, repeatedly showed the young girl, her face covered with a piece of cloth, being led away by some adults while news cameras chased after her. Let me mention again that this girl was only 11 years old.

This isn't the first time I have witnessed this particular phenomenon. News channels in India, desperate for news to fill their wall-to-wall coverage of every single thing that goes on in India, have no qualms about hounding victims and showing their pictures on TV, or even giving out their name and personal details. Unfortunately, very often in this country, those victims happen to be minors.

How come there is no regulation on who gets to disclose the names of victims, or for that matter criminals, who are under the age of 18? In countries in the west, the US, the UK, France, etc. press services and legitimate news organizations do not, DO NOT, give out the names of any members of a story, if they are under the age of 18. This is done to protect the privacy of the minor child. What is more, in most places in the world, they are legally prohibited from revealing sensitive information about the minor, such as their name and location to prevent any further trouble from befalling them.

Does this not seem like a useful measure for the Indian government to implement to keep rabid journalists with little regard for the future of the child, at bay? It is not the duty of the media to protect the privacy of the child, it is the job of the government and the police. You can not expect the media to be judicious and take into account what is best for a child that has just been raped or assaulted, it is the job of the government to do so.

So, here's the thing, I am not very fond of children, I think that has been repeated ad nauseam on this blog, and as such, can now be counted as fact. However, I am unflinchingly right-wing on the matter of protection for minors. And this seems to me a big and glaring shortcoming on the part of news organizations and the Government of India, which no one seems in any particular hurry to fix.

Dancing Baby Visions

I wonder how you overcome neuroses. Not the kind of neuroses that you see in Ally McBeal or Grey's Anatomy, rich, entitled young people acting up because they believe themselves to be 'outsiders' or 'different'. No, when I say neuroses I'm not thinking about Calista Flockhart's dancing baby visions. When I say neuroses, I am thinking of the deeply entrenched quality of 'fucked-upness' that comes with never ever really having been a whole, happy human being.

Is it merely a condition that you overcome? A disease that you fight? Or is a simply an affect that you put on to make yourself feel more special than your neighbour, to make your pain have greater meaning, to make your sorrow out to have a reason above the sorrows of all others? Is it a mere luxury the wealthy and privileged have, a sense of melancholy that permeates your being, because you do not have to wake up every morning and worry about 'roti, kapda, aur makaan'?

How do you explain to all the people who call you weird and laugh at your "quaint little eccentricities", that you aren't putting on a show for their benefit or for their attention? How do you paint a picture of the world you live in, the people and places that inhabit your memories? And finally, most importantly, is it such a terrible thing to be so completely different from your peers? Not the kind of different that people celebrate, but the kind of different that invites confusion and bemusement from all others, is that kind of different such a terrible thing?

I find that I am so entrenched in my differentness, in my neuroses, that I can not even reach for the things that I seem to want despite myself. My motto has always been:life sucks, then you die. It is a motto that is born from deep consideration and 25 years of experience. It is my truth, life sucks, then you die. So how do I overcome all that baggage, to live comfortably in a world where people can not understand why I am still single, or why I don't drink, or why I can't sleep. Perhaps that is the crux of the matter, inhabiting this world, with its rules and norms on other people's terms. Why is that necessary to a secure life?

Mostly, it seems to me that conformity to other people's version of happiness is the key to 'fitting in', to being 'one with the world', to being 'a whole human being', to being all that malarkey that books and magazines and movies convince you is vital. You must want the husband and the 2.67 children and the house with the dogs and the servants and the cars. You must want all of those things. If it turns out that you don't want all of that, then you are merely adopting a pose to get attention, you are pretending to rebel for the benefit of theatrics. It can NOT possibly be that there is an entire person out there that does not believe these many items to be the key to the universe.

So, here's the thing, my neuroses has gotten in my way, and apparently the way of all the people who interact with me, only to walk away shaking their heads wondering, "Huh?" Maybe I am not the expert on what will make me happy, but maybe, just maybe, the world isn't either.