Curator cruelty

“Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.” –

Rabindranath Tagore

All generations have one thing in common – their struggle to find common grounds with preceding and succeeding generations. We’ve come to identify this struggle as ‘generation gap’. In the wake of the recent Mangalore resort incident many are trying to analyse in vain as to who is guilty - the partying youngsters or the self proclaimed curators who man handled them? Well, it’s a conundrum easier debated than resolved.

The idea of recreation has evolved over the years and like everything else that undergoes change it too has its pros and cons. The New Indian Economic Policy of 1991 exposed Gen Y (usually those born somewhere from the late 1970s or early 1980s to the early 2000s) to a life style totally different from that followed by those who came before them. We not only started using global products and services but also consequently began imbibing global ideas and aping global culture. Overtime the threads of this ‘new way of life’ were inevitably sewn into the fabric of Indian culture; for better or for worse. Today, we follow a blend of various cultures; not just those since LPG (Liberalisation Privatisation Globalisation) but even long before that. A classic example of unity in diversity, India has tasted many a foreign rule and is the melting pot of a plethora of traditions, customs and cultures that these foreigners brought with them. How then can one individual or institution decide what ‘Indian culture’ is? One could only state inclusive definitions and not exhaustive ideas of the same.

The lifestyle change ushered in by global exposure trickled down to the minutest of aspects – food, clothes, language…Wearing baggy jeans or donning a tank top doesn’t spell indecency; it’s mere evidence of ‘the change’. In the past decade or so we have witnessed an alteration in the male-female rapport paradigm. This can be attributed to many factors like increasing number of co-ed schools, cumulative effects of gender equality initiatives and portrayal of the new male-female equation by media. It’s not surprising that the youth today enjoy a higher comfort level with members of the opposite gender as opposed to those in the past. Again, enjoying recreational activities with the opposite gender doesn’t spell indecency; it’s mere evidence of ‘the change’. So were these youngsters who were allegedly ‘partying’ at fault?

Well, sadly one only posseses control over one’s own actions and so it’s best if the youth today finds safer or alternative recreational zones. Small precautions like trying to get home early, avoiding hard drinks especially during late night parties and avoiding regular late night parties with a mixed gender group wouldn’t cost our generation much. After all, all we want to do is have fun! That doesn’t mean one stops living life by one’s own rules; it only means that ‘tis a bad bad world out there and a certain degree of compromise is demanded from each one of us unless we plan on migrating to mars. No, we cannot go about trying to change world and the sooner we realise this the better it will be for us and for those around us.

Now assuming that the group of boys and girls at the resort in Mangalore were ‘wrongly partying’, is the reaction of the self proclaimed curators justified? Was the violence exhibited by the ‘keepers of our culture’ the only solution – slapping and trashing the girls and man handling the boys? Who gave you right to discern right and wrong for these youngsters? And if you assumed the authority to safe guard your idea of Indian culture wasn’t it your responsibility not to resort to such preposterous behaviour?

The question here is not about who is guilty. Rather, we need to focus on how we ought to deal with what may be a social vice. One wrong thought, word or action doesn’t have the power to correct another wrong thought, word or action. No, we can not make two negatives a positive; this is not mathematics, this is life!