When shame becomes our master

Somewhere in the social jungle of Wazirabad, pride got redefined. Respect became about control. And instead of hearing "You've raised a champion," he heard "You've lost authority." And in a desperate attempt to win that authority back, he pulled a trigger. Five times. Not once.

- DEEPAM CHATTERJEE

"Log kya kahenge?" It always starts there. Not with law. Not with conscience. Just that one slippery line whispered like a warning and echoed like a curse. We've all heard it. We've all lived under it. Some of us still do.

This fear—of society, of neighbours, of relatives you barely like—manages to exercise more control over our lives than perhaps any government or religion ever has. And sometimes, that fear doesn't just twist decisions—it ends them.

A few days back, at Gurugram, just a couple of kilometres from where I live, five shots rang out in the early morning. A tennis player named Radhika, state-level, young, driven, was cooking breakfast in her own home. Her father, Deepak Yadav, a man in his late forties, walked up behind her and fired five bullets into her back and neck. She was his only daughter.

Deepak didn't act out of madness. It was premeditated. Cold-blooded. One could ask what kind of monster would do this, but the truth settles heavier than that. He acted out of something disturbingly ordinary: shame.

Not his own, mind you—but the kind handed to him by the village grapevine. People had started mocking him. "You live off your daughter's coaching income? "Gira hua baap!" they sneered. A fallen father.

Ironically, Deepak had invested 2 crores in his daughter's tennis academy but the society's label seemed to weigh heavier than the fact that his daughter was thriving, independent, and in many ways, honouring the very values he hoped for.