Das Wunderbar Kunta Kinte: You managed to render me spechless, yet again! And yeah, as for the Great Black Beak and the Greater still Munir.Akram; May God, and hopefully Jesus Christ, save they little partisan souls! (Sacrcasm duly intended)

Vivek Sharma: 'blood more viscous than honey...', yeah, I like it. By the way Vivek, I agree with you. Thanks for commenting.

Dr. P E S Kartha: I agree with you that we should not try to 'run away' from this media/news deluge, whatever. Rather objective analysis and detachment would help us see things more clearly, make better judgements and then do whatever little good our shrouded lil' lives can manage... Still, it still depresses me!!!

Supriyaji,

Congratulations for seeing things the way they are. Many may not/refuse to accept your standpoint. Some may argue that it is the sign of our times as if the Time has a special interest to conspire against we people!

I won't recommend you to run away, as one of our friends indirectly suggested, from the news-deluge. Instead, we may watch the media outpourings as 'outsiders', so as to find where this collective/individual/sectional/ partial/secular/whole madness takes us to.

Some times I am constrained to think, we are trapped in a sort of space-time warp, similar to  the one that caught little Alice once. Who knows, I may be true. Because, nothing else makes any sense. 

The freshness in your  approach and your insights are quite refreshing.

P.E.S.Kartha

The comments are as interesting as the post.

I believe most of the neuorsis is a consequence of "chalta hai" approach that has made our blood more viscous than honey, and we like to close our eyes. If we all see that things need to be better, we are the ones who should do our bit to make them better!

Das Wunderbar Kunta Kinte: What can I say? Very slowly, line by line, I went through your comment... a part of it was intelligible too... I liked the line, really, 'And in vain they die, for in vain they were born'...

By the way, Thanks for your exceptional insight...

Keshav: Thanks for your comment. Yes, I know we were as mad a hundred years ago as we are now... I agree completely. Actually, I never contested that fact anyway. My question, 'Epedemic of Madness?' is purely rhetorical...

And yeah, it is, the other way around, Cain killed Abel, the first murder, remember?

No Supriya,

I don't agree. We are as mad as we were a hundred, nay three hundred years ago. Nothing more, nothing less.

What we have now is an information overload. We are getting to know about it as it happens. In excruciating detail. Today, I know more about Pramod Mahajan's intestines, than my own. Of what earthly use is this information to me?

We have news screaming into our ears and eyes 24 x 7, from TV screens, newspapers, SMS updates, internet websites, e-mails......ad nauseum. What's new about all this? Man was killing man from time immemorial. Brother has killed brother since the time when Abel killed Cain (or was it the other way around?). Or Arjuna killing Karna, if you are inclined thataway. Men killed each other merrily through the ice age, stone age, iron age, etc till this miserable apology of an age. They also killed and exterminated many many species of fauna on the way.

The only difference is that, communication being poor or non-existent in those violent times, the common man didn't get to know about it. He only got to know when young man Gutenberg invented the press and kick-started the birth of the media monster. A monster that feeds on itself by hyping/inventing news even when there is none.

Does that answer your question? Take my advice: Don't spend more than ten minutes every day reading the newspaper or watching the Telly news. anything more will send you screaming for Prozac!

Regards,

Keshav