Shubhli Bhalla's Take on Manu Sharma

Reader op-ed, originally contributed by Shubhli Bhalla. Editor's note on the facts: Manu Sharma shot model Jessica Lal dead on April 29, 1999, after she refused to serve him liquor at a Delhi party. Acquitted by the trial court in February 2006, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court in December 2006; the Supreme Court upheld the life term on April 19, 2010. (He was granted premature release in June 2020.)

जानता नहीं मेरा बाप कौन है ... My mornings are sort of incomplete if I don't devour The Times of India along with my tea. Yesterday's headlines about Manu Sharma made me add an extra spoon of sugar in my cuppa — for the very mention of his name leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Manu Sharma: a boy who had everything one can possibly want, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, now having to spend the rest of his life behind bars, locked up in a tiny cell, with only fragments and dreams of his past life to give him company on those long, lonely nights. As I looked at his photograph — his facial expression, his eyes — for a minute there I actually wanted to get into his mind and read his thoughts, wondering what I would find: anger, helplessness, despair, or maybe regret. And the process started — all the "WH" questions. But the one figuring prominently in my mind was: is Manu the only one to be blamed? Did a five-year-old Manu, while playing with a toy gun, imagine that one day he would use a real one to take a life, murder an innocent girl? What role do his parents, society, and educational background have to play in this?

Boys like Manu Sharma and Vikas Yadav belong to the category who live under the legacy of their father's name, money, and fame. Every minute, every step of their life, they flaunt their dad's money and status — hence the famous statement: "जानता नहीं मेरा बाप कौन है ..." Their surnames often bail them out of difficult and unpleasant situations. The society they live in also fawns upon them and unconsciously nudges them onto the path of evil, for which they later repent. I am not saying that all those born under such circumstances turn out to be murderers, or that a person born and raised on the street doesn't. But it is shocking, and it hurts more, when one such case comes forward — for it is not expected of educated children from such high social backgrounds.

The late Nargis Dutt admitted that she had a major role to play in Sanjay Dutt straying. She did everything possible to cover up his negative actions, including lying to her husband — the result: a drug-addict child who had to spend a few precious years of his life inside a jail, not to mention the physical and mental trauma he had to endure. So when boys like Manu Sharma become the headlines in the newspaper, don't you think a lot of credit goes to their parents also? The nouveau riche, who hold a brazen attitude, who actually employ spin doctors to give favourable interpretations of unfavourable events to the media, thereby covering up their children's follies. Such parents, with their false bravado, actually make me feel nauseous.

I believe that on the social ladder there will always be someone above or below you. It's our duty as parents to teach our children to treat everyone equally, to sympathize and empathize with those on the rung below us and not get influenced by those on the rung above us — and to never, ever feed the flames of their ego. Delhi being a political hub, you come across such people every day. You in fact find rich men's sons at every nook and corner. To respond to their favourite statement, all I can say is: "क्या तू जानता है की मेरा बाप कौन है ... नहीं ना, so then we are even." Hee hee.

And as for boys like Manu Sharma, all I can do is quote a few lines from my father's diary: "सूरज लहू लुहान है, हर शाम देख लो, सूरज लहू लुहान है, हर शाम देख लो, ए ज़िन्दगी, गुरूर का अंजाम देख लो।"