Little more than a month ago, an unfortunate incident occurred wherein the body of a dead newborn was found in our garbage area in basement 2. Of course, the law will take its own course. The police would have scanned CCTV records, spoken to various people in AOH, tracked possible suspects & questioned them.
The AOA & Facility Office would have provided all possible help to the police to find the culprit.
But today I write about the sensationalising of such gut-wrenching incidents that inevitably happens. The day this incident happened, the news spread like wildfire in AOH, as is wont to happen with any such news.
WhatsApp groups buzzed continuously with residents sharing bits of whatever they had. The very first message itself was inflammatory – “The housekeeping staff found it dead and dumped there.”Our elitist mindset loves to believe that we ‘educated & cultured’ ones can’t do anything like this.
Then speculation! Because nobody knew anything for sure. “It happened in T7.” “In T8 if I’m not wrong.” “A 24-hour maid.””Heartless mother!”Obviously, there were the horrified reactions too but the curiosity to know what had happened & who had done it overpowered all else.
And then the print media did what it does best – added false information to the unfortunate incident to grab eyeballs. A Hindi newspaper had the headlines ‘‘नोएडा की पाॅश सोसायटी में रखे कूड़ेदान पर मंडरा रहे थे पक्षी, नवजात का मिला शव’’.
Basic journalism would have informed this newspaper that our koodedaans are kept in the basement where pakshi can’t hover over them. But, I guess, that’s too much to expect in a world where exaggeration, gossip & negativity rule.
May the poor newborn rest in peace. May the culprit be brought to justice. May we all become good neighbours & model citizens. & may only masala stop mattering to us!
