Before newspapers published the details of the Facebook -
Whatsapp deal; the applications themselves posted it and the word spread like a
fire. Every 7 year old kid is aware of it, forget about others. Later, on the night of 22nd
February, 2014 there was some server issue with Whatsapp and the hype it created
was flabbergasting. Many people got onto Facebook to confirm that it was a
general problem and not their individual problem (after being confirmed they were obviously
relieved), groups and fan pages started uploading funny images mocking at the Whatsapp buyout and the digital star - Mark Zuckerberg. The gloomy reaction was as if “The
Whatsapp” was their virtual cosmos and somebody had just taken away their life from them.
It made me wonder for
quite a lot of time how fast the people were in creating the much needed
awareness and hats off to their Zuckerberg loyalty.
But I was thinking on the separate
lines. What disturbed me were some of the gruesome facts –
- · - A crime is recorded every three minutes in India.
- · Every 22 minutes a woman is raped somewhere in India, every 76 minutes one child gets raped and every six hours a girl is subjected to domestic violence.
- · - 15 Suicides took place every one hour during the year 2012. (More than one lakh persons (1, 35,445) in the country lost their lives by committing suicide during the year 2012). It is observed that social and economic causes have led most of the males to commit suicides whereas emotional and personal causes have mainly driven females to end their lives.
- · - A total 3, 94,982 accidental deaths were reported in the country during the year 2012.
- · 2,44,270 cases were registered for various crimes against women during 2012 which includes - rape, abduction, kidnapping, dowry deaths, assault, insult to the modesty of women, cruelty by husbands, importation of girls, immoral traffic, commission of Sati and Indecent representation of women.
- · - 3,823 murders have been recorded in the category of the people aged above 50 years during 2008-2012 and 311 victims of culpable homicide not amounting to murder & kidnapping & abduction have been recorded in the category of the people aged above 50 years during 2009-2012.
It is strange for a
nation like India to hype the non functionality of a message application just for
an hour, wherein almost 3 girls are raped and 20 crimes are committed in an hour
all over the nation. It pinches deeply to notice that the people lately have been too busy to read or share a word of wisdom with the community and spread
awareness of what’s happening around but the same people have enough time to
chat on such messengers and even complain for its non performance. Had they complained
for the non performance of the country, we’d have seen India as one of the
developed countries long back.
Mistakes are pardonable
but once. But it is observed that these mistakes are being passed on from generation to
generation, as we youngsters are doing same things – talking about latest mobiles,
new software, originating a genre of music and dance, keeping a tab on famous
people and so on but we don’t know whom to vote, why to vote and the effects it
has on the entire nation for years and years to come. We have got our “Cool”
stuff to think about and the grave national issues are simply pretty uninteresting;
in the next decade or two we as well will be witnessed whining about the system
and the trend will go on and on like a legacy until we grab our minds now and
sit thinking about it.
Let us at least take a few moments out of our lives for
the real causes rather than the virtual ones. Although not everyone might want to work on it, but each one of us can spread the awareness and help campaign against evil. After all it’s
our society, our people and our nation struggling and the good thing is this hardship can be a
little short and easy, if and only if we start working on it hands in hands; for
it’s a weak person who simply blames the present system but a strong one acts
to change it for him and for the generations to come.
All in all, it’s never
wrong to be tech-freak or music lover or any goddamn thing, but it is also
important that we don’t get estranged with the things happening around us – we ought
to bring a whirlpool for every oh-so-wrong thing, be it Whatsapp, Facebook,
politics, the crimes in the country and the world and whatever wrong comes our way and perhaps show our fidelity towards the online and the offline world.
(Source of Data - National
Crime Records Bureau, India)
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