..is a totally alien concept to most Indians, I know. How the hell can one just stay away when there’s a tempting morsel of gossip just out of reach? Normally one just takes this to be a regular feature of life and moves on. But when some pious individuals go out of their way to spew their venom about someone recently dead, someone who has no way of defending herself, I cannot help but be incensed.
When I first read about the Rinku Sachdeva case, I was shocked. How this was such a regular couple, him in IT, living in Bangalore etc that made it all seem too close to one’s own life and as a result, tremendously shocking at the way it ended. But other than feeling sad about the lives lost and hoping the grieving Sachdevas can somehow find a way to carry on, I didn’t think I could do anything, not having known any of the main characters. But then, on reading some of the articles on some websites, where some holier-than-thou sickos had praised Amit Budhiraj for his actions, I feel thoroughly sickened.
Here’s a sample, from Deccan Herald:
by Rajani Rao on 3/24/2008 6:44:48 AM India is abandoning the cultural values of generations by following blindly in the foot steps of rotten west.
Rinku is representation of venmous trends that are taking place in India that are failing in America.
This is a wake up call.
Amit you have done an excellent thing. Some one has to make sacrifices to bring matters to the fore.
Peace be with your soul. You did not just killed the bitch but also highlighted the alarming developments that are eroding the essence of India.
by Ram on 3/23/2008 5:03:56 PM I feel sorry for Amit. He had no choice. Had he gone for divorce, life would have been a hell for him. These days laws are heavily tilted in favour of women. All kinds of false cases would have been filed against amit had he gone for divorce. I do not know why Amit did not think of finishing off his wife’s paramour too. As women get liberated, these kinds of incidents are likely to happen often.
Who are these mahanubhavs? ‘Eroding the essence of India’? ‘…representation of venomous trend’? ANd of course, women’s lib is to blame for all this, right? Whilst repeating that I do not know anything about the people involved to make personal comments, I still feel that no person has the right to take another person’s life – which was what Amit did, when he smothered his wife with a pillow. Whether she was cheating on him or not was another story (that the police could find no evidence of this allegation is telling) – but does that give him the right to take her life? Furthermore, does it give anyone the right to cast aspersions on her character and commend him for his ‘sacrifice’?
What kind of sickos are these? Proud Indians, am sure they call themselves. These are the idiots that give humanity a bad name. They should be shot and made examples of, I say.
Look at his orkut profile. You will find more of such sickening comments. I can’t believe people like the ones you quoted exist.
And these are also the people who give Indians a bad name. Create intolerance, and spread venom all around them. Yes, if they think what Amit did was right then they will agree that shooting them in the name of humanity is also the right decision. Right??
OMG, who are those guys talking such nonsense, not only they believe in such nonsense, they take pride in giving their view point…disgusting…and that Amit fellow, he is an A**hole….what if she was having an affair? She should not pay such a heavy price for happiness.
My husband and I had this conversation long back..when we had just started dating, about what we would do if the other cheated…and we happily agreed that we would kill the other. Last night we had this discussion again…with this gruesome incident at the back of our minds..
Amit for sure was mentally unstable, why otherwise would anyone take this extreme step? I feel so bad for his family and of course Rinku’s…The poor girl did not deserve to go this way…I wonder how these families will ever be able to come to terms with this..
DotMom
Yep saw the orkut scraps. Sickening is not the word for it. I hope all their spouses see it and decide to walk out on such psychos.
CeeKay,
But of course! Bastions of desi culture are these! What are you talking about?!
Jaya,
These are the ones purer than the proverbial driven snow, with no skeletons in their closet whose lives are absolutely peachy. Yeah right.
gooddaysunshine,
I think you’ll agree that there’s a massive gap between saying ‘I’ll kill you if you ever did something’ and actually going ahead and doing it! Even if Rinku did have an affair, it would have been cleaner to walk out of the marriage with your dignity intact. Of course, if he was, like you say, mentally unstable, then such a thought mightn’t have occurred to him. In which case, it begs the question, how come those near him see the signs of this instability.
Ok I think I missed mentioning the most important line…when we had the discussion last night…we said yeah there was no way in in which we would do something like that!! I re read my comment and yeah I sounded like some pshyco!! I’m not!! Don’t banish me from your blog!! What we said was the flippant crap that people in love say!!
For sure it was a terrible thing to do! No justification…the mentally unstable thing was the only explanation I could get for the wretched deal..and maybe she saw some signs when she wanted to get out from the marriage…
Lesson to self: READ comment before posting!
Ha ha! No worries. I did panic for a moment there and decided ‘nah, she wasn’t saying she was going to start chopping folks off left and right!’ I agree that he was cuckoo too – his colleagues claim that he spied on them all. I just wonder how it got past everyone without raising a red flag.
My heart goes out to her parents and sister. Imagine hearing your daughter was murdered by the bloke you married her off to and then to find her painted as a scarlet woman. How absolutely horrid!
These self acclaimed upholders of Indian culture make me sick. Blech.
Amen!
I am scared to think that there are such crazies out there, who wouldn’t hesitate to kill another human being for what they think is the right moralistic agenda. And they are proud to voice their opinion in a public forum. I can’t even imagine the pain Rinku’s parents must be experiencing.
The worst of the lot is the media – which totally (at first) painted Rinku as some sort of vixen.
My heart goes out to her family … its such a sad day!
Guilty until proved innocent, poor woman, even after her murder! Meanwhile, her husband, who killed her and himself, gets pats on his posthumous back for his good deed of the day. What kind of society is ours?
This sucks ! Our country is so behind ! I doubt if this could possibly happen in Africa ?
Reading those people, I keep thinking: well, alright if you think he’s a martyr for a cause and applaud suicide then go ahead and kill yourselves and leave all the notes you want. But why kill other people? If the entire Siffer brigade went out and killed themselves tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind in the least. I just wish they’d leave other people out of it.
As for “proper Indians” – don’t get me started. You know what I think of that holier than thou lot.
I think I lost hope when the SIF brigade turned out to be our saviours from crappy situations.
I tell you what, these idiots with their smug-ass smiles and “hail, hail” cheers would be the ones with enough skeletons in their cupboards to rival any decent cemetery. Vicarious pleasure taken to an obscene degree.
I haven’t been too active in the blogworld lately, but I like your writing. And this post, especially, forced me to delurk.
In fact, it made me feel violent, and I was wondering if I am a psycho too;)
One doesn’t know, if the girl was really cheating. One doesn’t know, if Amit was a good husband. Maybe he used to hit her/abuse her? Or maybe he was just plain whacko, a jealous and possessive husband. Since when did death become punishment for infidelity? For all those who approve it, do they take a similar stand against the men? And the women commenting this way made me want to retch. I never could stand the moral police:S
Essence of India, my foot.
I wanted to leave a acidic comment on the article itself, but then got scared of the reactions of the whackos who’d left the sick comments there!
Keep writing. We do need voices of sanity to lend a balance in this chaos:)
Take care!
Welcome to the mad house, Ritzy. Glad to see you delurking.
“Essence of India, my foot.” — eggjactly! For all those men who applauded this act, I wish their wives kicked their arses when they got home. As for the wives who said “Amen”, well their comeuppance would come one way or another. Cos I seriously believe that what goes around comes around – you sit today, clapping in glee over someone else’s misfortune and guess what, shit’ll happen to you soon enough, making you wish you’d kept your gob zipped. Then there will be other morons who’d gleefully pop some popcorns and watch the show from the sidelines.