TELEVISTA
Beware of the enemy within
Amita Malik

EVERY time we open a newspaper or switch on the radio or TV, news and images of horrendous crimes send a chill down our spines. The demonstrations by the Gujjars are on a large scale and of national proportions. But what concerns us more directly as ordinary citizens is the increasing number of domestic crimes which are shown and discussed on all these channels. TV is now within the reach of most urban dwellers.

Servant quarters and jhuggis, it seems, now have TV sets, and what concerns us even more than the items of news showing and discussing crime, is the effect it has on viewers. Do all the domestic servants watching TV get the wrong ideas from these channels or do these act as a deterrent? Possibly, considering how these murders and robberies by servants are shown almost daily on the electronic media.

Then, considering the number of elderly people being ruthlessly murdered in what should be the quiet evening of their lives, does it encourage them to register their newly hired attendants immediately with the police or, as happens, they leave it till it is too late? One saw on TV the very innocent looking face of the young boy who allegedly murdered the elderly couple in Niti Bagh, an upper class locality of South Delhi.

Those of us who have been brought up not to be too suspicious of people tend to err on the wrong side. I think those of us who literally go by face value would certainly have trusted that young face. Instead, one has to live in constant fear of being attacked inside what should be the safe walls of our homes. In fact, the daily reports of people being attacked and killed inside their homes are making such happenings seem almost normal. Which is a dangerous way of thinking.

As we have no way of finding out how the mind of a potential criminal works, it would be more practical for us to monitor our own attitudes. In this respect the media does its best to goad us into doing the right things, such as checking the antecedents of potential employees before hiring them. We should also not trust blindly the references given by neighbours' servants or the guarantee of the domestic help who has recommended his successor.

From time to time the police announce that they are carrying out door-to-door checks. But as we all know, this peters out after the first flurry following a domestic crime. We all tend to take things easy because it is difficult to get a reliable servant these days.

But what about the horror of families literally at each other's throats? In one of the most terrifying cases in recent weeks, a father has been taken into custody for the alleged murder of his daughter on the eve of her 14th birthday. How do we, ordinary viewers, with children of our own, take such a crime? How do we react to the attitude of the mother who rushes to the defence of her husband while saying loudly that no mother could forgive the murderer of her daughter, no matter who he is?

Which all goes to prove that human nature is, indeed, a very complicated one and we never stop being surprised at how people react in the most unexpected ways when face to face with a crisis.

For sports lovers there are a number of exciting national and international events which clash with each other and strain our loyalties. Do we watch how Sachin and Jayasuriya fare as opening batsmen or switch over to Roland Garros where the world's best tennis players are slogging it out in Paris? Well, I usually choose the foreign event because we see quite a lot of our home heroes around the year.