The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal
(Rated Mature)
A relation between ‘media writing about rape and society reading about rape’.

1. Media Covers Rape

The media knows all about rape. How it happened. When it happened. How many and what they did. If they are connected to someone powerful. What was the girl wearing. The time. If she was alone. Should she be alone. If she shouted. If she was gagged. Her sisters or brothers. The family of the rapist. And much…

Kartikey Sehgal

Rated Mature.
Swami: A title given to a monk or a spiritual master

It may be an uncomfortable truth but swamis have hair on their body. When they recline on their bed and if the robe around their body is loosely tied, then it will pull up, exposing to anybody interested, hairy thighs. Sometimes they may even scratch those thighs.

Yet when they sit in their robes and talk about spirituality and science, many listeners don’t imagine such…

Kartikey Sehgal

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The respondent is unconcerned about the topic. She is unaware of discussions on casteism and racism in the media. She tells me that there are many like her; they have belief in dharma and don’t bother about what allegations others put on their way of living. Often I have to reconfirm what she says;  “there was lots of bloodshed between the brahmins and kshatriyas” where bloodshed means that the boy’s…

Kartikey Sehgal

I came upon this information during a conversation on casteism. The lady told me, “There has never been much caste problem in my home town [Jammu] )".

She continued:

“We recently discovered that a family belonging to the shudra caste is actually a brahmin family. The ____ (surname) were brahmins at one time and shifted to a lower caste probably to defend themselves.”

Here’s the backdrop; two families in Jammu have been friends for many decades thought they are from…

Kartikey Sehgal

• Suppose that a man is unfaithful to his wife but stays on for the sake of their child.
• When he is caught cheating, would we say that his action has compromised the future of the child.
• Would he be considered inconsiderate to his child.
• Does the fault lie in his cheating or in not divorcing his wife before cheating.

                                  ……………………………………

Why do you cry, father?

Because I am bound and yet I seek…

Kartikey Sehgal

“How do you refuse your assailants? They are many, you are one. Kishore refuses the food. The group knows that Kishore knows.”

Now, readers. You know that Bihar is a dangerous State. It’s capital, Patna, is a dangerous city. Naturally—you must imagine—the interiors, the smaller towns and villages would be dangerous as well. The dangers extend to robbery and murder and a little bit of every type of crime. Little economic development, and the people have been eroded from…

Kartikey Sehgal

(Written in 2005, a few days after the floods of 26TH July. The garbage collectors are often blamed for inefficiency.)

“We collect garbage, we are not garbage ourselves.”

These are the words of the Solid Waste Management Department (SWM) of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The SWM, with 24 centres spread across 24 wards across the city is responsible for Mumbai’s garbage disposal and maintenance.

Tuesday, July 26. The rains had paralysed the Mumbaikars but the…

Kartikey Sehgal

Mayawati is right about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi when she says that “…he was responsible for depriving the community of certain special rights and privileges by getting the Poona Pact passed on September 24, 1932."  (source)

Mohandas was not very concerned about Dalit rights. He felt that Hindu society would disintegrate if special privileges were given to Dalits. His concern lay not in the progress of Dalits or Brahmins but in the welfare of the nation.

If I further…

Kartikey Sehgal

About the personal and cultural disintegration of a tribal village

There is a small tribal village in India. Malathi belongs to this village. The women here are happier than women in Delhi.

After puberty, Malathi was inducted into the village dormitory where she learnt weaving, knitting and other arts from the elder women and men. She also learnt the art of love-making through practice. By the time she was out of the dormitory, she was sexually and socially confident. Unlike the city girls, Malathi and her friends did not face ‘growing-up problems’ or ‘attitudinal disorders’ that lead you to the psychologist.

Kartikey Sehgal
I cannot accept the mirth of trivialities. Of a living below life. I’d rather joke with the honest labourer whose design on the wet brick is hardened by the sun; harmony between nature and men.

But I am given, and society has ordained, the acceptance of rooms without sunlight, precision defined within dark windows and glass doors.