Are you enjoying the ride yet?

Ok, so this post was intended for lashing out at past week's Mangalore pub fiasco, in continuation of my question to mr. moral brigadier.

I'm not going to do so.

In one sentence, I believe it was all purely political and with the elections drawing close these incidents will happen more, peak during the elections, and dormancy will prevail for the next 4 years ... in the fifth year it will start again.

In the aftermath of the incident, mr. moral brigadier has downplayed the hooliganism of his monkeys, the NCW pointed fingers at irresponsibility of the girls who got beaten up (bummer?) then retracted and blamed it on the pub security even demanding cancellation of that pub's license, Ashok Gehlot has opined for an end to mall and pub culture saying that he is against boys-n-girls holding hands in malls (would you prefer boys-n-boys sir?), Yeddyurappa has ruled out action against Ram Sena saying he wants to wait and watch (???), Ramadoss has in all glory and authority stated that pubs are detrimental to Indian culture and society and an end should be brought to the nuisance ... let me stop here, the list is endless and meaningless.

Boy, are we being taken for a ride or what? Ram Sena, Maharastra Navnirman Sena, Shiv Sena, Hoysala Sena, Anand Sena, Saxena oops! sorry, no Saxena but ... its like a friggin' virus! I even have the unwanted privilege of knowing a guy back in Mumbai who proudly speaks about his MNS membership and how his 'ideals' are valued in this 'struggle'. There are thousands rather millions like him across our country; disillusioned with their state in life - due to unemployment, poverty, big list - and they are easy targets for these self-proclaimed leaders who use the anger of these millions to achieve whatever they want. These creeps can get them to do just about anything , why pubs, they could get them to even vandalize schools and colleges, breakdown hospitals, libraries, museums ... its not just their blind faith in their leader that makes them do these things. This vandalism makes them feel power-drunk, authoritative and dominant; for that brief period they feel important ... you can't reason with such a man. Any talk of morality, society, conscience, values is alien to him ... in his opinion he has gained nothing from those things, the society in question has rejected him long ago, whereas here he is suddenly a part of a peer-group that is willing to accept him for all his hooliganism. All he has to do is break and destroy more than the other guy ... I find all this extremely disturbing.

There are a large number of voices asking for a ban on these Senas. It won't work that way. It's like the phrase 'War on Terror'. You can't fight terror, you can only fight a person. Finishing him doesn't kill the ideology. We have to look beyond the who and come to the why in these cases. Why is it so easy to mislead them? You know the answer ...

In no way am I saying that those b******s should not be punished. They have to face the law and they should get the treatment that their crime deserves. We are not fuckin pushovers! We need to twist their arm before they can hear us speak. But let's speak to them ... let's not brush this issue under the mat like shoe dust.

We are far too quiet, and that we includes me. We are resilient, but maybe not by choice. We are resourceful, but maybe because we are forced to be so. We are far too quiet ...