‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’
That’s Shakespeare-speak from Hamlet. Forget heaven, which at present sights, looks well beyond our reach; there are enough things to not dream, but dread, just on this earth. ‘Good’ may have won many battles, but ‘evil’ has so far won the war. And it owes this unassailable historic lead to just one single, strong and supremely reliable source: The human mind.
For other species bad behaviour is a spontaneous response to stimuli, a character innate to them with no chance of choice. But with us humans, actions, reactions, responses and recriminations that follow stimuli are conscious decisions despite the choice. The sixth sense, which is supposed to differentiate between right and wrong, invariably leans towards the latter. Or probably, there is still no consensus on what is R or W.
Whatever, but the result has been unabated crime, from macro ones like wars, genocides, racism, slavery etc to micro matters as murders and mugging. The criminal bent of the human mind is best evidenced by the various moral or religious injunctions against such behaviour. As Freud or one such usual suspect reasoned, ‘Thou shall not kill’ only proves the inbuilt instinct to kill! By that logic, the number of prescribed don’ts establishes our criminal credentials beyond all doubt. Crime is child’s play for us. Remember what you did to that black ant scurrying across the mosaic as a kid? or the stone directed at a dog as a teen?
And as we grow, crime grows on us. Law and culture can only keep the brute majority comprising the first five senses under check, but can never erase their suppressed potency. Reason why when the sixth too joins the chorus, as it often does under some pretext, the seamy side of the soul issues forth with full force. To it, the illicit and the illegitimate hold an irresistible charm. Apart from depravity, abject deprivation too acts as an agent provocateur, all making crime a very organic outcome. It is easy to justify crime. Even in masala movies the baddies sound so convincing throughout, often cornering the honours, while the good but desperate hero needs the aid of the script writer to triumph just in time at climax.
The human mind is at its creative best when conceiving or conjuring up a crime. Its uncanny ability to cook up ingenious schemes to cheat, steal, lie, kill and what not is vast, varied, versatile and vigorous. If an idle mind is a devil’s workshop, an active mind is the devil incarnate. Endowed with genetic seeds tested over generations, a fertile field called the world waiting to be harvested and the tools of the trade abundantly at hand, all it takes is a favourable climate to make a, er, killing. As we see, few opportunities are missed.
This may look like a gloomy view of humanity but a honest inward search will reveal this reality. Fiction will fall flat faced with this not-so-strange truth. Badness is the default setting; being good, such as to overcome something as petty as laziness, needs an effort. Remorse occurs only when caught. Be it the villains of history or the voyeurs on the www, they have all shown up the criminal or carnal tendencies as the most dominant through their diabolical deeds. But it is the testament of the pious and prudish and what is known of their private lives that is more telling. Instead of taking names, suffice to suggest that very few past greats will pass the test of public scrutiny.
Which is what is making a difference now. Crime and lawlessness have been the order of the day always. And they have always been gender-neutral too. But it is the craving of the masses for sleaze, sex and sundry salacious stuff and the eagerness of the media to feed them for its own survival and succour that is making the scenario seem overwhelming now. A thrice-married lady bumping off her daughter, no sister, — no, daughter it is at the time of going to press, is surely news. But not new, if we ignore the no. of marriages, which is what is subconsciously making the whole thing suspiciously alluring.
Similarly, since crimes for profit have already numbed society, it takes a passionate wife to kill a woman professor who stole her husband to really shock. Also, since TV serials have already poisoned to death or killed through contracts many mothers/daughters/sisters-in-law on screens which are no longer small, raising the family crime bar by many rungs, the criminal mind, in reel or real, has to leap to much higher levels to attract public attention. Luckily for them, crime offers the perfect platform for their vivid imaginations to run wild.
Only morons will moralise or mourn over such morbidity. Crime is the common denominator of politics, cinema, news, society and our streets: all pervasive and perfectly in sync with the Maker’s recipe. Now, does that make Him an accessory with a sinister streak in Himself? Is He the devil’s alternative? God knows, but it will make a damn good story for a movie or mega serial, ideally titled ‘Creator’s crimes’!
e-mail the writer at [email protected]