Tuesday, June 3, 2008

To dear Londoners...

In a reputed daily, I came across these knife-stabbing statistics: 454 kniving cases of which 227 of serious nature and most done by teenagers; in London. Now the City of London is bracing against this menace by vigilant, strict policing and shock advertisements that convey the gravity of stab-wounds and the life of those unfortunate victims.

Would this be effective? I doubt. It doesn't address the root-cause of the problem. It's like swabbing the pus off a wound without treating the septic wound within. The whole issue needs to be viewed in a different perspective.

The answers must be sought elsewhere. Or else how can we expect a teenager understand the seriousness of a knife-wound when he does the likes of it, umpteen times, by playing interactive games, that comes with novel features to maim and kill, albeit they are virtual opponents?

Isn't it naive to hope that an young generation fed of high doses of violence and rage through movies and the like, would appreciate the true value of life and the accepted norms of societal living?

Though these incidents have been reported widely there, such acts are not secluded to that part of world alone. Teenage violence is on the increase elsewhere also. Campus shootings in America were sort of some out-of-movie act for most Indians until we heard such an incident carried out in a school in New Delhi.

Life's hectic pace is taking its toll in many lives, in many ways; teenage violence is just one manifestation of this appalling situation in the life of the society, in general.

What we can do is steer life out of the fast track, find time for loving, caring and sharing, spending some (yeah! the much cliched) 'quality-time' with our children, parents, pals and relatives, and wean our children from the undesirable influences they been addicted to by replacing it with love, affection and attention.

Let's hope and do it, atleast for Hope-sake! Meanwhile pray to God that may good sense prevail in the impressionable minds of youngsters in London and elsewhere...

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