Our obsession with quick fixes

I remember the time Fevi Quick first came out. It was such an exciting product that most of us would just want to play with it. We would usually get our fingers stuck together in an instant because if that. I grew up a little and I saw pain killers were the next quick fixers. Got a headache take a painkiller and get on with life.

But the last couple of weeks I've observed that quick fix has gotten into our attitude where we just want to quick fix things rather than fixing them right.

A girl gets gang raped in Delhi. Everywhere people discuss it and give opinions. Even on Facebook everybody gets busy putting status updates. But things that came out pretty strongly and hit me was what people suggested should be done. It mostly circled around chemical castration for the rapists or capital punishment. Someone even suggested send them to Saudi for better punishment. And let's not talk about our brain dead political class.

And I sitting here thinking how would this reduce rape cases? How will this deter rapists? How would this make my beloved Delhi safer for all my friends?

All these questions were left unanswered. But it told me most just wanted a quick fix and get on with life. Nobody bothered to think of making places safer (obviously which would require more thinking).

Take for instance bank robberies. Did making a harder punishment reduce bank robberies or making them hard to rob did? CCTV cameras, security guards, electronically guarded vaults made them a difficult target. I'm not denying bank robberies can't happen, but its difficult to rob a bank nowadays and it happens rarely.

So shouldn't we focus on making places safer for women. Like for instance making sure places like that munerika bus stand are less in number. Or deserted places are watched by CCTV cameras or frequently patrolled by police. Reducing police response time, making sure there is safe transport possible for women at night.

Why don't rapists choose a place metro station. Because of the fear of getting caught easily or not enough deserted a place to carry out the crime.

Coming back to punishment. It's purely my opinion that a society's role is to reform and not to discard. Throwing away a dirty shirt is an easy job than to clean it. They might have committed the most heinous crime possible, but can we use this as an opportunity? Can we reform them and perhaps use them to give messages to people. I still do agree a long sentence like a life sentence is a must.

If our parents, teachers, society discarded us every time we did something bad, this world be a very difficult place to live.

We really need to get rid of our obsession with quick fixes and start thinking of real solutions.