Twelfth Tale
While the media was stuck up with Shibu’s suicide, Rasika stayed away from the idiot box that Xmas day. But as it went overboard the next day with Shilpa, the dalit boy’s mother, on board, she could see through the media game. That’s to antagonize dalits against the emergent rightist party that rode to power in the national election and to buttress the leftist coalition that lost its sheen. What with the election to the state assemblies round the corner, the dalit suicide seemed to be a godsend to bust the rightist dispensation. Being a dalit with political ambitions, Rasika knew that her caste mattered in the politics of the day, and so watched the non-stop Shilpa show for the next six days looking for the winning ways at the hustings.
Came Twelfth Night and Rasika was tensed up as to how her son Rohan’s suicide would be handled by the police and played up by the media. Having carpet covered Shibu’s suicide, what if the media were to conclude that there was no novelty left in her son’s case for it to milk. But then, won’t the moneybags that back the party out of power induce the media to stay focused on the common agenda to hurt the upstart rightists? Why not showcase the anti-dalit character of the central government with two dalit suicides in a row? Rasika was bogged down thus, as if her own life depended on the media coverage of her son’s death, and the arrival of the police, at dawn, to conduct an inquest provided a welcome distraction. But with the arrival of the media-wale, her apprehensions about their interest in the incident returned to the fore, and as they left she glued on to the TV to await the verdict. The idiot box began to beam the ‘breaking news’ with more manufactured outrage than before and she breathed a sigh of relief. As the victims happened to be poor and ‘promising’ students, the central government had a lot to answer for the caste discrimination on the country’s campuses, so went the ranting of the anchors.
Surfing the channels unceasingly, she began to contemplate.
Today it’s all about Rohan’s body and his suicide note but by the morrow, won’t the media-wale come back to milk the story? And her son’s youthful photogenic face should only add to the story of his hapless suicide. Also, he was a research scholar in a premier institution, a leftist bastion at that. That she was a middle-aged beauty and educated as well should help the media in making it a wholesome affair. That’s the heady mix that afforded Shilpa an unprecedented media-exposure in the wake of her son’s suicide. And why should it be any different in her case? But unlike Shilpa, who played the dalit card to no avail, won’t she cut her political suit according to the electoral cloth, and that should make a difference in the voting booths. If not, of what avail is sacrificing Rohan at the altar of opportunity.