Shallow, short-tempered and violent

Once again viewing television programme has been a cause of a tragic death. This time it is more than death -a plain murder, to go by reports carried in the media. Once again, the watching involved one on the Indian TV channel, Star Jalsa. This time the killing of a husband at the hands of his wife over the viewing of her favourite programme on that channel took place at Telipara in Gazipur district. This tragic incident follows last year's suicide of a girl who asked for what is known as a 'pakhi' dress the heroine of a serial shown on the Star Jalsa channel wore. Her poor parents could not afford the dress and in great distress the girl took her own life.
In the Gazipur incident, however, the wife got furious when her husband wanted to shift to a different channel from her favourite Jalsa. Embroiled in an altercation, the wife in her early 20s stabbed her 28-year old husband to death. Tastes for food, entertainment, culture and life's various passions differ. But when can a wife stab her husband or a husband his wife only because the other has grabbed the remote control to change the channel to a different one? An immature young girl's crave for a particular dress is quite normal. Her deep frustration at the possibility of not possessing the most favourite article might have turned her so desperate that she did not hesitate to take her own life. At least she was not made blind by her black rage.
In the other case, though, the young woman went insane when her husband intervened in and caused the dissociation from the emotional oneness she felt with the programme, most likely a drama serial. This incident actually brings the issue of the quality of those serials to the fore. Should an irate wife go as far as to stab her husband only because she was momentarily denied the viewing of her favourite programme? It is yet to be known if there was an element of incitement in the serial or programme she has been engrossed in. The fact is classics like the Greek tragedies by master dramatist like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides dealt with far more complex issues of human life and murder was not foreign to those dramas. Shakespeare, another iconic dramatist of all time, also depicted killing on stage. Yet the greatest enemies of all these maestros could not complain that they traded in cheap sentiment and induced the audience to commit such acts of violence.
True, drama serials, as shown on different channels, particularly on the Bangla channels across the border, graphically detail family life. But presenting life as it is hardly qualifies to be art unless it lifts the inner being on a higher plane and there takes a slow but sure transformation of the heart for a sobering experience. Even through the tragedy that befalls the hero or heroine, the audience undergoes a process called catharsis and the subsequent mental illumination and elevation attained are the lessons left for them.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the drama serials the elasticity of which is tested beyond limit. Shallow and replete with cheap sentimentality, they in fact instantly appeal to various emotions not at the subterranean layer but on the surface only. Reactions are crude and at times violent that the formation of mind gets distorted right from the beginning. Shallow mind gets frayed on the smallest of pretexts and outburst of frenzy is a common outcome. The majority of the young generation are so steeped in the culture of violence, courtesy of computer or video games, that it is really difficult to maintain a balance between practical life and the surrealism they are bombarded with cartoons and on-screen games.
This too is a kind of search for the apotheosis on the part of the new generation. Technology has brought alien cultures and improper materials on to the young men and women's finger tips and what they are indirectly getting initiated to is beyond anything their parents ever had any knowledge, let alone experience of. Many of them are becoming slave to technological gadgets rather than them mastering those and getting the best out of those. Inebriate in terms of technology, life's delicate instincts become all but unfamiliar to them.  
Fine sentiments and human attachment have been replaced by robotic efficiency so much so that today's young people in most cases can no longer respond normally to situations involving human relations based on tolerance, empathy and love. To them their satisfaction is the last word. Their capacity to feel for others is limited. Even the discomfort and anxiety their near and dear ones go through make little sense to them. The impression is they are growing more selfish and self-centred than before. Or, is this just the outcome of what is called generation gap? The failure to understand each other and gradually growing less caring!
Whatever it may be, the worlds of both the early and new generations have fallen apart. No one claims that in the world that was, murder was absent. Sure people got killed but hardly people took life for trifling reasons. Apart from the duel westerners fought, the contentious issues were grave indeed. No such custom of fighting duel can be found in this part of the world. But as epics here would give evidence, princes assembled to compete in skills of the highest quality to win a princess. The Ramayana and Mahabharata have stories of Sita and Droupadu to that effect. Aggression assuaged through games and sports thus help keep order in society. But today's serials and computer or video games seem to be inciting the murderous instinct in both men and women.
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