The New New World

It finally happened. One Delhi student got pissed off with his classmate and killed him. The real eye-opener is how the boy killed the other. He took his father's firearm and five bullets escaped the cozy environs of the bullet compartment and got rid of the full metal jacket when they hit the teenager’s skull and chest. Reading about such incidents happening on a scarily ritualistic basis in the Western hemisphere, I always wondered when would such a thing happen here? Don't get me wrong. I might be a crazy fella but I'm still a long way from loosing it completely and one schoolboy whacking another ain't my idea of a kick.

The way children emulate what's on TV and other such places, I think it was just a matter of time before something like this happened in India. The kids play the same video games, use the same cell-phone, talk the same lingo, follow the same basketball teams and dress the same way as their Western counterparts. Scary to say the least.

The other evening a friend and I went to a Chinese joint to have some soup. My friend, I have known him for 11 years now, has an issue with teenagers who are or pretend or come across as 'cool'. There was a group of 19 year-olds who threw a surprise party for one of their friends and my pal just couldn't take it. He exclaimed that he'd love if this rather dubious future of India did a better job at concealing their happiness. I reminded him that they were just kids but the unreasonable rage on his part baffled me. Trust me if he had the authority or god forbid a weapon he'd have done something for the heck of it.

Perhaps that’s exactly what the kid did. It’s difficult for people to come to terms with certain things and this becomes doubly hard when you are a teenager. We all know that for we have been there once but I just can’t get over the harsh reality of what was it that the other kid died for?

A moment of stupid, juvenile rage.

Take a minute and think what made an 8th class student steal his father's licensed firearm and kill in cold blood? Perhaps he believed that one could get away with it. There is hardly any dearth of examples that augment the claim; our society ensures people get away with anything. It's this notion that made him believe that life was perhaps an Xbox 360 game!

Kids are allowed to get away with almost anything these days in the name of political correctness. My mother's involved in the teaching business and if you listen to her stories you'd think she's the writer in the family! The biggest problem rests in the approach that parents, schools and every one has towards kids. Don’t get shocked every time a kid does something stupid for stupid in 21st century would surely be different from stupid as we knew it.

Its not what it used to be people, it is what it is and it's really sad for we have started believing that everything can be mastered by trial and error in this new New World where kids decided to post a video on YouTube before going gun crazy in school.

Image Courtesy: www.boston.com