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to create exotic stories, I have not yet been able to identify or understand it.

A SAD & STRANGE ABERRATION- SHOULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED - BUT IS THAT ALL YOU NEED TO SEE ?

For almost all Indians, the incident of Roop Kanwar's self-immolation was another sad and strange case of suicide that could not be prevented in spite of people knowing about it because of certain legends and traditional glorification of women said to have given away their life on loss of their loved one. All Indians support the Government today in preventing its glorification or repeat. However, most people of that country are far more troubled by the actual vices they face in real life - crime, corruption, poverty, lack of education, inadequate infrastructure far more compared to a one off incident, however strange, sad and undesirable it might have been. For those who may not know, since 1987, India has lost many thousand times the number of lives lost on 9/11 in United States due to terrorism sponsored by religious fanatics and overambitious governments around the globe. Even more importantly, an equal number face the possible loss of life every year due to disease and malnutrition.

However, if you go by international media coverage, it would seem that loss of life is never newsworthy, unless it is associated with something exotic and incredible.

A SECRET ? IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE ?

If one single incident in over forty years can attract global attention more than anything that has happened in India otherwise, I do not understand how it can be a secret. Moreover, such self-immolation or Sati - has acquired such marketability as a newsworthy event that it cannot possibly be kept a secret today. Most people know that even a hint about such an eventuality will make such paying news that even the dead husband may not hesitate for a minute before getting up from the pyre and leaking it to the news hungry media!

We know self immolation of widows do not happen, and we all wish and pray that they will never happen again. Let legends and myth be only read and heard, not emulated.

Learn more about this author, V. Kumar.
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