Protecting the seeds of future

14^th April 2011. It was a cool afternoon on Thursday after  a drizzle in BGR Township, IOCL, Dhaligaon, Assam. Everyone was heading to Nehru Park near Refinery Club cum Community Centre here. The interest was common; to attune the body and mind with Mukali Bihu competition at Nehru Park. The sounds of Pepa (the wind instrument made of buffalo horn) with the rhythm of Dhols started mesmerizing the spectators in the ground. Everything went joyous with the residents of this beautiful township. But everything was not fine with Shri Lakshmikanta Das. The devil already had chalked out a plan. His only son Ridip was not back home. Seconds, then minutes and finally hours trickled down the clock. Anxiety engrossed L K Das and his family as he was not able to trace his only son’s whereabouts. Yes, Ridip had gone missing and the latter part of  the story is well imaginable. No one could save the life of this innocent boy who left his mother’s lap for another home above we do not see. The next couple days Assam witnessed two more incidents of killing by teenagers putting their playmate to eternal peace very untimely.

            My topic is not about the tragic death of Ridip. We lost Ridip, a life or a seed of the future generation for ever and this is irreversible. I pray - Almighty keeps the departed soul in peace. But let us stop here and ponder a while about the counterpart involved in the death of Ridip. Two teenagers; aren’t we losing two more seeds of the future generation which have been the yield of today’s damaging environment and are on the road to hell. They, I consider, might not even be able to count how many zeros are needed after five to make it fifty lakhs rupees, the ransom they planned to demand from Ridips parents. Doubt crops up about their being smart to such a level to kidnap a boy for a ransom of fifty lakhs rupees. Yes, these are the fruits of our laxity and rather uncontrolled cravings towards indulgence where we see a nauseating & distorted image of the future society we are shaping for our kids as safe heaven where morality would be stranger and mortality a cheap merchandise. Is not every one of us accountable for this? To day we are so self-centred that we live in a state of euphoria where there is nothing to worry about what is going on around us and just live our own life the very nuclear family way. There is every possibility that these boys when come out of the juvenile correction camp will fall in wrong hands. The judicial system, whatever stringent measure it has in its hand, is still weak to handle these problems. I am not for sentencing these boys for rigorous punishment of  but certainly I will advocate  for stringent social bindings to forestall conditions that give rise to such atmospheres capable of alluring the juvenile section to commit crime of this magnitude.

            The stark reality is that out of total population in India, not less than 50% is below the age group of 25 years.  Let’s preserve these seeds of our future in a secured way. Or we may have to bring back East India Company once more and a new Mahatma Gandhi will simply be an impossible episode.