The media’s role in fomenting values should never be underestimated. As students we were influenced by great writers and books.without the salacius details now available toanyone. Thanks to media wthout borders, even a child knows more about sex than an adult. Even as I key this message in, there is a threat hovering in the background that a porno pic may pop in. In my home country India, certain spots have become tourist haunts. drug trafficking and worse make these spots, rich with cultural legacy, a no, no spot for traditional tourists. Life has its place and moments for sacrosanctcy. certain relationships are beyond description. Lurid display will degrade the holy union between a husband and wife to just an exercise in cohabitation. I am not suggesting that we are free from defects. till recently we had our priorities cut out. the profane and the vulgar were not for all. that was adult talk, done in adult company.
What do we have now? What Hollywood was preaching and practising perhaps a few decades back is now the chosen life mode of young’uns in my city. Couple swapping, permissive sex, drug highs and what else . The socalled globalisation has brought in funny mores, and our only consolation is a wag’s comment: things will get a lot worse before it gets better.
Four letter words are intespersed in ordinary conversation.Porno messages were occasionally seen in toilets. Now even the elevators in offices are not free from them. What should be done in private is displayed in public places and what is public is relegated to secret chambers of intrigue in adminstrativer circles.
My only consolation is that the media, like the path to infinity described in the scriptures, is a double-edged weapon. if it has blunted sensitivities and boosted base values, well. with determination, well-meaning people could effect a turnaround. and propagate finer values. it is a task crying for attention from all of us.