This Covid-19 lock-down has taught us many things and, more importantly, we’ve discovered things that were deeply buried in our mind and soul. This 24×7 staying indoors has its effect on us, physical and mental, and people engaging more and more in social media once again brought forward the many positives and negatives of the said medium. And as you can imagine from the title itself, I’m here to talk about the negatives rather than positives.

Why? Because when I was penning down ‘Somewhere in the Jungle of North Bengal’ I was in a roll. But then came the dreaded writers’ block. Since then I’ve started two stories. I have chalked out the outcomes and most of the story line of both the stories in my mind, but all my futile tries resulted in 500-1000 words and then my mind blocked out the literature. But again, fortunately for me and unfortunately for those who are reading this overly boring article, by definition, I can write anything I want on Libberish. So, here I am taking a sledgehammer and attempting to break through the Writers’ block that’s boggling my mind like a parasite.

But, that’s it. Enough about me. Let’s begin. The idea of this article came to my mind first with a series of incidents that concluded with me watching the CBS TV Show ‘Evil’.

This TV show features three main characters; priest in training David Acosta (Mike Colter), clinical psychologist Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers), and the tech guy Ben Shakir (Asif Mandvi). These three are appointed by Vatican to Investigate and Debunk seemingly weird or unexplained phenomenon like demonic possessions and miracles. In the pilot episode we see a man named Orson LeRoux, who killed three families and subjected some of his victims to post mortal rape, but he claims he ‘blacked out’ and don’t remember committing any of those crimes. His wife claimed that Orson had shown signs of demonic possession, and Kristen, the skeptic herself saw such evidence. But their detailed investigation revealed that Orson is, a serial killer and a necrophiliac who got help from a man named Leland Townsend over social media on how to fake the signs of a demonic possession to get away with murders in mental health grounds.

After this revelation, Orson went to prison, and David said something to Kristen,

“There are people in this world, who are… connectors. They influence people. They have day jobs; teachers, stockbrokers… expert witnesses. They pretend to be normal, but their real pursuit is… evil… Encouraging others to do evil. You don’t have to believe in the supernatural to know that there are people out there who do bad things and encourage others to do bad things for the sheer pleasure of it.

The world is getting worse, because evil is no longer isolated. Bad people are talking to each other… They are connected.”

David Acosta, ‘Evil S01E01’

Yes, as long as are quotes are concerned, that’s a freaking paragraph. But please, humor me… Go through it once again.

What do you think ‘Evil’ means? The deeds of the devil? All the Satan’s doing? But look closely. People like Orson and Townsend might be living much near us. They are fictional characters no more. The ‘Speak no evil’ is buried deep inside our minds a long time ago, and now people who still insist on ‘seeing no evil’ and ‘hearing no evil’ will be called blind and naïve.

Speaking of evil in our doorsteps. Anything comes to mind? Does ‘bois locker room’ ring any bells? What do you call a bunch of teenagers (boys and girls) who plan on gang raping women over social media forums?

Are they demons? Vampires of Werewolves? Genetically they are homo sapiens sapiens. But psychologically, well that’s an entirely different story.

Conspiring and encouraging to kill maim or rape people is pretty high on the ‘scale of evil’ if there is such a thing; but evil lies in grassroots. An apparent harmless social media post or a WhatsApp forward. Next thing you know, it went viral, it’s blown out of proportion, taken out of context, now the post you shared is classified as hate speech.

People are just waiting for an excuse to tear each other apart. We, the privileged class enjoy the Eid’s biryani and Puja’s prasad. But whether we like to admit it or not, deep inside our secular and liberal crust there exist a tiny bit of hinduphobia or islamophobia. Just waiting to come out and wreak havoc.

Like I said, there are layer and levels of evil, when elected governments feed on our false sense of religious superiority and sheer blindness, and nurture that speck of hate deep inside, disasters are just around the corner, waiting to happen.

Someone posted a video on Facebook, showing someone stomping a kitten to death.

What do you call that? Evil? Many will lose sleep seeing such horrifying and inhumane act. I know I did. But many people will scroll through it, leaving a ‘love’ react on the post.

Yes, there is a community, where people pay good money to watch people torture and kill rabbits, kittens, turtles, puppies. And they get disappointed when the animal doesn’t suffer enough, or the video was not gory enough.

What do you call that? Evil? Or just a bunch of people with no empathy.

EMPATHY! EMPATHY!! EMPATHY!!!

In many of my articles I’ve elaborated how important empathy is. And how disastrous the lack of it can be. Forget about that. People who spend time in deep or dark web have stumbled upon live streams where women are brutally raped and killed ON A REGULAR BASIS.

You think this is my idea of a sick joke? Nope… luckily, I’ve never seen any of such streams with my own eyes, and most importantly, I don’t go looking for it.

Amir Khusro wrote,

Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto, hamin ast.

If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here. But all due respect to Janaab Khusro, I don’t see heaven. But hell, and purgatory are well within reach. I don’t believe in ghosts; I don’t believe in demons and stuff because they don’t scare me… People does. Because I started by crucifying social media; but just imagine if more and more psychopaths, more and more collectors start building groups and communities, and when social media influencers start encouraging rape and murder; where does that leave us? Like-minded people tend to stick together. But, when more and more of these communities of evil start to pop up, do we really possess the tools and courage to counter and nullify their collective evil?  

How do I know the man sitting next to me is not plotting to rape and murder his underage neighbor? How do I know the person standing in front of me takes great pleasure on inflicting pain upon creature and human beings alike? How do I know? Social media is a great place to connect and share ideas, but it’s even a better place to hide. Creating fake profile is child’s play, but someone dedicated enough can easily mimic others’ activities to build an entire fake self-image and an equally fake digital footprint.

Be very afraid people. A microbe just shown us how pathetically tiny and inconsequential world smartest animal is. And When people spending their smartness to do evil, well…

I’d rather get possessed by a demon, and black out… Forever…

Pe***

Neel