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S P Singh

Moninder Singh Pandher. A man very much like us. Educated at elite Bishop Cotton of Shimla, St Stephens of Delhi, successful businessman industrialist, a house in Noida. And just to complete the 'normal' picture, he had a bit of family problem also. An estranged wife. Many of us often have similar problems. But Mr Pandher had a side hobby: luring little kids to his home, sexually abuse them, kill them, cut their bodies into little pieces with the help of his domestic servant Surinder Kohli, then dispose of their bodies in the drain. 

In a country where travails of those fighting for justice for Jessica Lall hogged hours and hours of prime time TV coverage, scores of people cried in vain for months that their children had gone missing from Noida's Nithari village and surrounding areas. Their cries did not reach the media.  

And police was too busy dealing with crimes which figured in TV programs and chat shows. 

No one dug up old bones. Till of course the old bones started appearing in Nithari's drains. Soon, more and more skeletons were spotted. TV suddenly realised that even poor people are victims of heinous crimes, not just upper middle class models serving liquor at mid-night parties at unlicensed bars run by chatterati-glitterati queens currently modelling as saviors of truth. 

As Pandher happened, chat shows (ok, news programs. Is there a difference?) were swift to catch the new tune: Is justice only for the rich?  Whether media is also reflecting the concerns only of the haves is still to make it to panel discussions.  

As Indian television was telecasting night-long non-stop dances by scantily-clad starlets to celebrate the advent of the New Year, Nithari's drains were throwing up more bones.  

But even as the ghastly story unfolds, middle class India has a point to ponder: Wasn't Moninder Singh Pandher, till a few days ago, very much like us. Elite middle class wanna-be-rich Indian respected by the society?

Is there something wrong with the very model of development the society is projecting? Or should we sit back and relax, sure in the knowledge that two people slitting small children into smaller pieces, cops not taking any action despite scores of missing children complaints, a media too busy with travails of Manu Sharma, all this is simply an aberration? And that all is well with the world? Well, if that is so, please don't tell the people of Nithari. The mobs haven't gone home as yet. 

Also, there is a problem of perspective in the way we see a phenomenon like Pandher. What he did was unspeakable. But how do we see this unspeakable? As something outside of the human race? India's Hindi TV channels have found words like 'Nithari ke nar-pishach'. I also hear the news punctuated with the word 'rakshas'. English channels are preferring 'pervert', 'monster', 'mentally challenged'. Now we are on to 'brain mapping'. 

What are we doing? 

Saving ourselves, to be frank. 

Implicitly, and explicitly too, we are trying to stress at a chasm between ourselves and the perpetrators of the crime. The stress is on proving, perhaps to ourselves, that Pandher is outside of the mankind. "How can anyone do this?" is the question many of my friends are asking.  

Clearly, what we want to stress is that people like Pandher are made of stuff different from which we were made. 

When I read E.H.Gombrich's obituary in the November of 2001, the only question that occurred to me was "How can anyone do all of this in just one life time?" And I had only read the Story of Art in those days! 

How can a Mother Teresa do so much of good? How can some philosophers contribute so much in one life time? How can a Shiv Batalvi pour out so much pain in just a few years? 

Clearly, the philosopher, the poet, the sage, the art historian are made of stuff other than what we are made of. 

They are differently endowed. 

But we rush to claim the philosopher, the poet, the sage, the art historian as one of us. We do so because they enlarge the construct we call human. We call Pandher the 'Butcher of Noida', because that's how we want to see him. Quarantined. 'Nar-pishach' quarantines the Nithari duo.

It also quarantines 'us'.  

It is here that we are making a mistake. Calling someone 'mad' quarantines us. Accepting the philosopher, the poet as one of us enlarges the human construct. Pandher may be reducing this construct, but he is a part of us. Madness is also part of the human race. Madness of the horrible too.  

We will see many such people who expand or reduce the idea of humanity, but quarantining is not the answer. That way we will all soon need quarantining. A lot many bones had poured out of Nithari's drains by the time Mallika Sherawat began her exertions to entertain you on the New Year night. Did you watch? How less a 'monster' are you than that of Nithari? Would you like to be quarantined? You are also a part of mankind. It takes all to make a mankind. Even you. 

January 2, 2007

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