Minna Zutshi--- Tribune News Service
A young man allegedly morphing the pictures of a girl who has rejected his sexual advances. The sleazy pictures are made public; the girl poisons herself to death.
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Three college-going girls renting out a farmhouse to have ‘fun’ with their men friends.
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A group of not-so-young men losing themselves in the dark alleys of alcoholism and drug abuse.
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These may seem snippets of sensationalism at its worst, but they are actually slices of reality of the Doabite society.
Then and Now
Doaba has been a fairly conservative region. It has had its share of artistic, literary and creative activities. The city of Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan went in for a metamorphosis when economy here became dollar-propelled.
The aged, who earlier were major decision makers in homes, were edged out when their sons and daughters migrated to foreign lands. These old people became caretakers of big, palatial houses. Some houses now had no grandchildren to listen to lullabies and stories, while other houses had very busy grandmas, who had parties to attend to and appointments to keep. Meanwhile, money flowed from foreign lands. Drug abuse, alcoholism just sidled by. And Doaba was never the same.
Flushed with dollar-power, and with ample leisure time at disposal, Doaba has become a hinterland of morality and values. Social observers say that easy availability of money coupled with diffuseness of social and familial responsibilities is impacting the society.
“Our social fabric is being torn asunder. Relationships are losing their sanctity. The latitude of tolerance for aberrations like marital infidelity and neglect of the aged, has increased. Old cherished values have simply vanished,” says Dr Mandip Singh Sethi, a cardiologist, who has seen the city grow in the last more than five decades.
It’s not that consumerism is alien to other societies, but the NRI factor has given consumerism a new meaning in Doaba. “Money is becoming a negative value. Consumerism rules the roost here. Unlike the Western societies where consumerism co-exists with a questioning bent of mind, here passivity calls the shots. Girls, particularly, are passive receptors, who take in selective messages about fashion and beauty pageants,” explains Dr V.K. Tiwari, a lecturer at DAV College here.
For many Doabites, squandering time is the busiest pastime and they do it by boozing right from the break of the dawn to the dark of the night. “I know a good number of men who have big farms, yet they would not be able to tell the difference between wheat and paddy crops. It’s the labourers, in most cases migrant labourers, who run the show. And these landlords just booze away their day. Meet them in morning and they are sozzled. See them in evening and they are tipsy,” says an eminent professional, requesting anonymity.
Insiders also say that the labourers even manage the finances of the landlords, who hardly have time to spare from their packed-with-pleasure schedule. In fact, absentee landlordism has become one of the prominent features of Doabite society.
Doabites may not actually pronounce hedonism to be their philosophy, but observers say pleasure is the modern-day deity that is revered by a cross-section of people here. “Bombardment of half-baked modern ideas couched in equally provocative language and visuals is making the younger generation confused. All this thanks to soaps being beamed on too-many-to-keep-count channels. With no sound values to fall back upon, it’s over to money, hard drinks, drugs and ‘fun’ (a euphemism for sexual escapades) for many youngsters here,” says Dr Sethi.
Some educational institutions, too, seem to have lost their commitment to time-tested values. The accent, these days, is more on programmes that have a high glamour quotient. Intellectually-stimulating events have become just fillers to punctuate the more ‘interesting’ beauty contests and dance parties.
“Some colleges have started organising their functions in ritzy hotels. The absence of planned kind of presentation during cultural events, too, is being noticed. In classrooms, teachers do not relate lessons to social themes. Interrogative discourse is frowned upon,” rues Dr Tiwari.
Relationships, not surprisingly, have received a severe jolt. Marriage is no longer an enduring bond. It has become more like a floating relationship that can be dissolved at convenience and reworked keeping in view the feasibility, says Ms Amandeep Bambra, an advocate at the District Courts.
“Divorces are worked out to go abroad. In most cases, these divorces have mutual consent. Unfortunately, women who come in for these divorces are totally ignorant and they just go by what is told to them. They only want the much in demand foreign tag,” she says, adding that marital infidelity cases have registered an increase in the past few years.
As Dr Sukhdev Singh, Associate Professor, Department of Human Development and Sociology, PAU, says, “Doabite society is in a major flux. Old values are tottering and new ones have not yet found their place. The NRI money-power and the people’s craze to go abroad has compounded the things.
And people are groping towards Westernisation rather than moving towards modernisation.” Well, this is surely not an enviable distinction for Doaba!
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