Comment

It is not often that our bloodthirsty and voyeuristic avatars get such incredible fodder as the two murders that have overtaken our conversations in the past week or so. A father accused of killing his daughter and a domestic in a fairly gruesome manner and two lovers accused of killing one’s other lover and then disposing of the evidence in an even more gruesome manner. Several factors add extra spice to these stories — and not just because the TV news channels are behaving as if they’re kids locked in a candy store — the victims and the accused are from the middle class or above, the stories involve either sex or sexual intrigue, the severity of the crimes are inexplicable, and they force us to question human relations we take for granted: father-daughter, mother-daughter, boyfriend-girlfriend and so on.

Here are some of the experts which have emerged from these two murders.
The forensic fexpert: We’ve all been reading detective stories for years and besides, after watching television programmes like CSI and stuff, we’re au courant with the latest forensic techniques. The poor cops have nothing on us — they’re like PC Goon or Mr Plod, for those of us from the Enid Blyton generation. Words like criminal psychologist and forensic pathologists and carotid artery and surgical precision roll off faster from our tongues than ‘pass the chips’. We can see that one culprit is a psychopath and the other a sociopath and mix the two up as well.

The ‘Urban Life is killing us’ woexpert: There was no crime at all till about the middle of the 20 century and we all moved to cities. Mohenjo-Daro (mound of the dead?) and Cairo may have been cities in the ancient past but we don’t care much about them. They must have been perfect anyway, since they were long ago. We can see that urban disaffection, disassociation, dystopia and other words beginning with ‘d’ have caused so many problems, especially urban crime. There is no such thing as rural crime, for instance, as there is no ancient crime. Would a dentist be accused of murdering his daughter in the dim and distant past? Would a girl have helped her fiancé to chop her lover to bits in the olden days? Of course not. Had all these people lived in villages (unlike us) instead of Noida and Malad, these murders would not have happened.
The ‘Sex is responsible for this’ sexpert I: Moralistic version. We are all appalled at what is going on. There is too much sex everywhere and this is causing people to get over-excited. Earlier, there was no sex so such crimes never took place. Girls didn’t wear short skirts or want to act in movies, so where was the question of crime? How could a father tolerate a servant being with his daughter in a “objectionable but not compromising manner”? Young people all lead fast lives and have too much sex which is bound to lead to murder.

The ‘Sex in the head’ expert II: Prurient version. We find the sex angles fascinating. Why was the father so outraged by the “objectionable but not compromising manner” stuff? And how did his supposed love affairs fit in? And just what were the other two in Malad doing, having sex every half an hour with a dead body next to them? These and other questions can keep our prurient minds trembling a-quiver for this week at least, or till new facts are revealed or new possible culprits emerge.

The ‘Society has come to an end’ socspert: This stuck record bemoans every event as if it never happened before. Their lives are made by misery and our fabric is falling apart, our family systems are breaking down, humans are horrible and so on.

The ‘media is responsible’ mexpert: No matter what happens, it is the media that is to blame. Before the media, there were no murders, sex, chopping up of bodies, naval officers, surgical precision, love affairs, dentists, actors, media executives, knifes, petrol, nothing. There was nothing. The media has caused it all.

I have to say, I agree with all of them.

Email: b_ranjona@dnaindia.net