With the headlines in India raging about the swine flu and the machinations of a certain woman in the opposition there seems to be precious little coverage about something that's going to hit India like a tonne of flaming bricks in the coming year. Apart from three to four minute sporadic snippets each day about the situation, no one is addressing the elephant in the room. Drought. No rain. No food. Dying farmers. Dying animals. Yes the PM addressed the situation in a scant outline about what needs to be done. Are the farmers buying it? Afraid not. Have they received the benefits yet? Afraid not. Is this situation getting enough indepth coverage? Afraid not.
Why? Because blackmarketing pharmacists, panic over a pandemic that's claimed less than thirty lives nation-wide and mud-slinging political antics hold juicier value for an audience. Who cares about boring old farmers and their uncoiffed, unsophisticated opinions and their ugly sagging bulls and cows, right? So who cares if I don't get rice next year. I'll eat pasta. Imported. I'll buy a burger. Imported. Seriously, it's not a big deal. We have this shitty problem with the rain every year. Heard it all before.
No one is showing the abandonment. No one is showing the pictures of women shrieking and fleeing across desert lands to find one drop of water for their dying babies. No one is showing the slow collapse and eventual death of a hardy animal like a camel. Because it's not juicy. It's not interesting and it's not happening at your doorstep.
Here are some interesting statistics:
Swine flu in India- affected cities- 12
Drought affected districts in India- 161
Expected swine flu death toll- less than 100
Certain drought death toll- over 300,000
And who gets more coverage? Paranoid people with masks.
Welcome to dystopia. And you don't even know it.
And oh yeah, Happy Independence Day. Let me know if you find something worthy to crow about.
Why? Because blackmarketing pharmacists, panic over a pandemic that's claimed less than thirty lives nation-wide and mud-slinging political antics hold juicier value for an audience. Who cares about boring old farmers and their uncoiffed, unsophisticated opinions and their ugly sagging bulls and cows, right? So who cares if I don't get rice next year. I'll eat pasta. Imported. I'll buy a burger. Imported. Seriously, it's not a big deal. We have this shitty problem with the rain every year. Heard it all before.
No one is showing the abandonment. No one is showing the pictures of women shrieking and fleeing across desert lands to find one drop of water for their dying babies. No one is showing the slow collapse and eventual death of a hardy animal like a camel. Because it's not juicy. It's not interesting and it's not happening at your doorstep.
Here are some interesting statistics:
Swine flu in India- affected cities- 12
Drought affected districts in India- 161
Expected swine flu death toll- less than 100
Certain drought death toll- over 300,000
And who gets more coverage? Paranoid people with masks.
Welcome to dystopia. And you don't even know it.
And oh yeah, Happy Independence Day. Let me know if you find something worthy to crow about.
2 comments:
It's so sad Kamal, and hopeless. What can be done about it? What can we, "normal" people, do? What can I do? I always wonder about that. It seems to me that everything always boils down to money, business and corrupt governments.
Hi Dana! Good to hear from you. You know this is like the chicken and egg question. There's no real answer but I do believe the one thing we can actually do is continue to raise our voices in the hope (faint as it may be) that someone somewhere will wake up and change a few things. I struggle with this everyday too. Whether it's in Europe or in India, I've always felt that the day I stop caring enough to even write it down, that's the day the bad guys will really win. It's what's happening to those wonderful independent journalists in Russia and Chechnya. Their voices are being silenced so we're not even half aware of ground realities.
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