I hardly ever listen to the radio, but if ever I get the
chance I try to catch a night programme on Siyatha FM called ‘Mama kemathi geetha dayaha’ (Ten songs
I like). The programme features 10 songs
selected by some celebrity of one kind or another with short introductions
explaining why each song was selected.
On one occasion the person selecting was well-known poet and lyricist, Yamuna
Malini Perera. I remember that I was not
particularly impressed by her selection.
I can’t remember the particular song except that it referred to a
father, but I cannot forget the reasons offered for her choice.
She described something she had seen as a child. A man being dragged along the bund of a
village tank late in the evening, silhouetted against the night sky, beaten
with a huluaththa or torch made of
dried coconut leaves bound together. It
was a son, beating his father, for who knows what crime. The image had stuck. It stuck with me as well.
I knew we live in crazy times and that crazy times were
always with us, not just here in Sri Lanka but all over the world. Infanticide is not bound by time and space
and neither is patricide. All kinds of
violence takes place in this tragedy-filled world of ours. Still, that story jolted me.
Fast forward a few months and I hear another story. I am giving a nutshell version here.
A boy, son of an alcoholic father, is raised by his aunt
(father’s sister) and treated like a son and as a brother by his cousins. Time passes, the boy grows up, is helped
secure a decent job by his older cousins and ends up as a successful
businessman. He is rich enough to take
care of his father, now very sick and incontinent. The boy, now man, had a tough time growing up
and this may or may not have scarred him in ways that prompted behaviour that
is unacceptable and even criminal. One
day the father felt a need to relieve himself, but didn’t make it to the toilet
in time. He splashed all over the
floor. The son, livid, beat up the old
man, forced his mouth open and urinated into it. Worse, he called his cousin and complained
about the old man, even as the old man pleaded, ‘Putha, I am sorry putha,
don’t hit me putha, I couldn’t
control myself putha, please putha, don’t hit me, I won’t do it
again!’
Shocked, the cousin said he will come by and thrash the
daylights out of this cruel man. Both
father and son were gone by the time he got there. The son, when called on his mobile said that
he had left the old man on the road and had given the location. Beaten, terrified and utterly humiliated, the
old man had only one request: ‘keep me with you until I die’.
Ever since then the arrogant businessman has been calling
his aunt and uncle who opened heart and home to a distraught and displaced
little boy and abusing them in raw filth.
He has also been sending text messages to the cousins as well as all his
friends and relatives, spreading stories that I do not have the heart to repeat
here. Requests to desist fell on deaf
ears. Finally, the cousin took the
matter to the police and the man, in the presence of senior police officers
spouted the same kind of invective at the complainants forcing the police to
lock him up.
The question I have is not about the immemorial generational
conflict, its dimensions, its inevitabilities and the pathways of
resolution. It is about the efficacy of
the law to prevent such abuse.
Mobile phones, the internet and other such technological
devices that are part and parcel of the modern world were not invented to
facilitate abuse and to enhance the entertainment of abusers at the cost of the
victims. They were meant to improve
quality of life in a wide range of ways, enhance communication and facilitate
efficiency in business, governance, the access to and delivery of services
etc.
Right now, there are people who derive some kind of warped
pleasure by causing distress to others using these methods. There is hate-mail and vicious stories being
circulated on the internet with impunity from the laws pertaining to
civility. It is almost as though the
internet was made for character assassination, and I am not talking of
Wikileaks-type disclosures. There is no
substantiation-requirement to these communiqués and whether or not the claims
are true is irrelevant. Those mentioned
remain scarred and violated which those who vilify them or paint them in
colours they are undeserving of remain free and in most cases even
anonymous.
Phone abuse goes unchecked.
Some use caller identification facilities, but the abuser can always use
a coin-operated public facility or one of the thousands of ‘communications
outlets’ in the city to do his or her dirty work. The victims have to deal with the trauma as
best they can.
In this instance, the perpetrator is known and identified by
number and implicated by confession (unfortunately for him, since he could not
control his arrogance and hatred), even though he has sought and failed to
obtain the protection of powerful political associates and friends. In this case the officer in charge of the
relevant police station had stuck to his guns.
In this case, the victims placed faith in the law and the law responded
or appears to be responding. For now, at
least.
I am sure that had the victim been poor, ‘unconnected’ to
big-name politicians and public servants and lacking the resources to match
fist with fist, cuss word with cuss word, rupee for rupee, he or she would have
left the police station disillusioned, terrified and even traumatised. These are elderly people we are talking
about. In their seventies. Had they done any wrong, then the person who
feels wronged has to let the courts pass judgment. In this case, the abuser has all the connections
and is rolling in money. Only one things
stands out: helplessness. We are poor
indeed as a society and a civilization if elderly people have to ‘grin and
bear’ this kind of abuse. One more
thing: these are cowardly acts and reflect the character of the abuser more
than the abused.
We live in times where powerful politicians tie up public
servants to trees, invite the media to capture it all on video and gets away
scot free. In such times, are we to
assume that the law is dead and to live with the knowledge that we are legally
crippled? If the laws are not adequate,
they should be amended. If they do
exist, they should find reference and relevance in action.
As things stand, I am not sure who is incontinent, that old
man, those responsible to ensure that technologies such as those concerning
telecommunications, those paid to protect the citizenry from all abuse,
including physical and mental torture, or the law itself. Right now, it seems to me, that there’s a lot
of piddling happening in places and ways not sanctioned by decency, law and
civilization.
There’s a stink. I am
not sure where it is coming from. All I
know is that it is too strong and too widespread for us to turn our noses in
another direction.
This article was first published in the 'Daily Mirror' in August 2011
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