The better half

For some days, I have been reading articles in the newspaper regarding the respective roles of the husband and the wife in the family. Although commenting on this is beyond my scope, still I will make an attempt to put forth my opinion on this.

The first and the foremost is that both husband and wife are equal shareholders in the well-being of the family. Both have equal responsibilities and both have equal right of their fruit. It is in the best interests of the family that neither of them is slighted or left out of their due equal share of running the family. If one spouse begins to assume the powers and load the responsibilities on the other spouse, there will be chaos in place of the family order.

The second is regarding what is called the "division of labour". This was needed when man was largely clustered into hunter-gatherer societies and had to survive on a daily basis. But in today's modern technological milieu, the professions are no longer gender dependent and are interchangeable. But human biology is independent of technological progress. Hence today's division of family responsibilities are still needed and the other spouse (whose professional advancement does not have biological limitations) must take an equal, if not greater share in the family welfare to restore parity.

This is for the individuals, the couples, the families, the societies and the nations concerned to decide. But any decision taken must be in consonance with the basic principles of human dignity and human rights. Any line of thought in dissonance is bound to invite ridicule and condemnation. Thus we must strive to solve these problems by confronting them.

Is the growth of children dependent on one particular parent, or is it dependent on both parents, or is it independent of the gender of the parent? Child psychologists must answer this question in a convincing manner because any answer of theirs will be treated as gospel and be used to promote a certain system of family values. I myself do not know the answer to this question.

All this is food for thought for answering questions that concern societal culture and human dignity.

Promoting non-issues

A little while ago, I was discussing with one of my friends regarding the sequence of incidents when the Shiv Sena and its allies in Maharashtra sought a ban on actor Shah Rukh Khan's movie "My Name Is Khan" over some remarks by the latter on India-Pakistan relations. My strong feeling is that the whole thing was stage-managed to promote the film. This brings me to the present spectre of promoting non-issues.

Around the same time, there was this issue of Chetan Bhagat demanding due credits for his book in the film "3 Idiots". His main grouse was that parts of the film were taken ditto from incidents in his book. If some law had been violated, he could have approached a court of law without raising a hue and cry. Again, I strongly feel that this issue was hyped up so that his book could ride piggyback on the success of the film. 

What are the standard tactics to promote non-entities? Get them into the thick of a controversy. Generate a debate with sparks flying all around. If possible, inflict damage to the the physical and the mental. This way, a general curiosity will be raised in the public mind. The concerned book or film or media element will pick up in popularity and sales. The owners of the media element will laugh all the way to the bank.

This is just one of the ways of promoting non-issues. There are a number of other ways to do it also. Most of the controversies that do not concern the general publics' welfare and are sleazy by nature are also artificially created and stage-managed. 

The sad part of the whole story is that We, the Gullible, repeatedly fall prey to these tactics. We don't even seem to think what might be the motives of the concerned parties and who might be reaping the benefits of this controversy. For us, all of this is entertainment value. We are happy as long as our base nature is being satisfied. There is no question of us thinking a little over the matter and asking ourselves whether all of this is really necessary.

But, in attending to these non-issues, we seldom bother about the issues that are really confronting us and need immediate attention. We are far from being a perfect society or nation. Pressing problems need prior attention; deep-seated wounds need drastic measures. We need to work hard on all of these, instead of deriving entertainment value from these and other kinds of non-issues.