The “been there, done that ” phase was over a long time ago. The urge to recreate is back-but that is an interactive process. As we, in terms as a civilisation, have taken long to become a sinewy, live andagile tiger ( we have it on record that a record number of about 45million cellphones have been sold till February this year) -purely interms of numbers, that’s truly staggering.

For some, owning a cellphone may appear to be empowerment. But the sub-culture that it has fawned is disturbing, since you don”t know what your own teenager(s) at home are doing with the contraption. While economic growth per se is not something that can be ignored or belittled,the fact that some 260 milion who live below the poverty line are still drawing less than Rs 360 a month makes all this “empowerment” seem very superficial indeed. One is not being holier-than-thou. But, and this is very important, if globalisation and liberalisation leave these sections untouched, there is every danger that a new type of class struggle will take place, sooner rather than later. As we know, even the most arid areas produce fertile ideas. The fact that more and more districts are now witnessing the revival of the ultra-Left has been even officially acknowledged–even by the usually unreadable, often grossly sugar-coated official reports. The country holds a world record in suicides by farmers. Recently, sensex hit an all-time high; the same day, several thousands marched to Parliament. While the first calamity was reported as if the sky had fallen on our head, the second fact was consigned to the inside pages of most newspapers. Till when can the two coexist? While the first may be inexorable, the uncomfortable fact is that the majority of children born never get to see what the inside of a class room looks like has been ever so conveniently ignored. Celebrate the Dhonis, the Pravin Kumars, the small-town Indians who have wowed this cricket crazy land. By all means, yes. But it was truly obnoxious and so uppity when the failure of Praveen to talk in English (and his captain’s own rather halting attempts to translate what the youngster meant when he got his first major haul) was so gratitutiously commented upon by some of our media. If we allow linguistic factors hamper our ways of perception, that’s a sure sign of immaturity. Business conglomerates still control the majority of our media, and it is they, their lifestyles, their attitudes that seem to be governed all the time by a sense of snobbery.

Above all, even if we ever so rightly abhor morality brigades and the thought police, are we not giving precisely the same sections a chance to continue with their abominable hysteria by being so easily carried away by the successes that we get and the failures that we so easily and conveniently ignore? We talk of our “growing commitment” to the social sector, but forget that the pharma companies all this while are using all this to increase their already enormous profit margins. Men like Robert Fisk and Don McCullan tried hard to resist getting “embedded” but most others simply succumbed because from the humble crime reporter at the mofussil level upto his/her editor, they all know which side of their bread is buttered. Sting operations often select those who even if they are genuine do not have the means to preserve their privacy and get justice. Those at the wrong end of these operations, which are getting increasingly “sophisticated” and hence more-and-more dangerous, often don’t know exactly under which section of our archaic jurisprudence system can one get redressal. Personal resolve to fight marauders is fine, but there is a limit to which once can take these highly dangerous intrusions. The era when Normal Mailers and Tom Wolfes and their ilk tried their best to highlight the atrocities being perpetrated got highlighted has given way to a benign, patronizing attitude ; but these days, not just the well established Tarun J Tejpals and Aniruddha Behls but several extremely vicious and far less conscientious men have tried to capitalize on the vulnerability of the poor. As the legendary British editor Harold Evans says, its time that publications should be subjected to DNA’s. Give it a thought- it is not a bad idea at all. (EOM)