Nerve Endings Firing Away

It is Satya, Company, and D all over again. Two kids ran away from their homes to pursue a career not in the movies, but in the mafia. The lure of easy money and feeling of false power in their hands brought on by scores of Bollywood flicks was enough for them to make a beeline to Bihar (?). What happened to good ol’ dreams of being a movie star by running off to Bombay only to be drafted as one of the extras in a hundred-strong Bollywood PT drill; err; dance number?

Samrat Ghosh, 14, and his eighth standard classmate, Abhijit Guin, always wanted to be feared criminals. So, they left home last week to achieve their ‘dreams’. “The boys haven’t gone to Mumbai to make it in Bollywood,” they (the parents) told police, “They wanted to become mafia dons.” The parents knew because the boys would often talk of the underworld, goons and easy money. The families said their sons were greatly influenced by Hindi films and would imitate the gangsters portrayed in them [source: Rediff News].

Now please don’t tell me that the government is going to ban portrayal of gangsters in movies; the smoking ban already is enough. But in an increasingly hostile society that often trumps gun power over rational thought, these kids certainly are prone to temptation of an easy life filled with the proverbial wine and women (not to mention the added rush of power over educated but shit scared mortals). Randeep Hooda, in his recent portrayal of Deshu in Ram Gopal Varma’s D showed us that motivation to join the ranks of underworld needn’t be too high. A few wrongful slaps by an errant police officer over a witnessed murder was enough for Deshu to cross over to the dark side. Youths filled with misplaced angst do not need Anakin-level motivation to succumb to the wrong side of society. Suketu Mehta alludes to this fact in his book, Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found. It is merely a game for the youngsters often leading to disastrous consequences. The justification is that they would rather lead eventful short lives rather than long frustrated ones. Scary, eh? The only way we can deal with this sudden crossing over to the underworld is by de-glamorizing the mafia. How do we do that? I, honestly have no idea.