26 June, 2008

The Versatile Corpses of Middle-Class India

The WTF generalisation of the month comes from the formidable Malavika Sanghhvi, who writes that “if one goes by present trends ... [t]oday’s India is indicating that the best way to end an affair is murder!”

Everyone seems to be doing it: MBA students, BPO employees, private airline crew, TV actors, defence personnel, politicians, middle class housewives… I can’t remember a time when we have woken up each morning to so many crimes of passion.

[...]

Today, urban murder for matters of the heart seems to be one more facet of reform India — like multiplexes and caramelised pop corn.

And there are corpses strewn everywhere. Attractive, upwardly mobile, Japanese car-driving, Macdonald’s burger-eating, mobile phone-using corpses, who all lived the middle class Indian dream… until an ex-lover’s ire caught up with them.

The emphasis is mine, because I’m super-impressed that corpses can drive Japanese cars and use mobile phones. The next time you’re at McDonald’s and the gentleman besides you seems to be walking stiffly, watch out. And if the attractive lady besides him behaves coldly with you, well, there you go.

I really hope P Sainath writes an article responding to Sanghhvi’s piece. There are two approaches he could take: One, he could agree with her wholeheartedly and blame it on India’s liberalisation, because of which rich corpses use Japanese cars and mobile phones while corpses of farmers committing suicide in Vidarbha do not have access to such facilities. Two, he could berate her for writing about deaths in the city and ignoring rural affairs, like the rest of our middle-class obsessed media. Either way, fun would come.

PS: While on Sainath…