Who killed your mother?

There are days I am embarassed to admit that I have worked with news channels and I’d rather claim to be a lifestyle writer who writes on trivial stuff such as beauty and fashion. Days like 26/11 and now this when the media makes an ass of itself.

Here a four year old son, Bitel (?) tells the news channels and police that his father murdered his mother.

Where does one begin with pointing out what is so wrong with this?

At four my son has a vivid imagination and he routinely tells me that he’s just returned from a jungle and fought off a huge python, that he was on a rocket ship and went to the moon and that its not made of cheese, and much more. On my old blog I have a post where he told his father when he returned from office, that I broke his hand – displaying Item 1:  a perfectly fine, chubby little baby hand.

Most days he can be told anything and be trusted to repeat it if you teach him long enough. Be it happy birthday or something totally embarassing. The power of suggestion is so strong where a child is concerned and the lines between fantasy and reality often blur.

I don’t know if this was a dowry case, a suicide, or a murder – but I do know that I wouldn’t be counting on a four year old for accurate testimony. It’s so easy for either side to sway him. To say nothing of the fact that he’s going to be called upon to repeat this traumatic statement over and over again in court and to the media ad nauseum.

The next part –  how can we be so insensitive as to shove a mike in a child’s face and ask him ‘Beta aapki mummy ko kisne mara?‘ (Beta, who killed your mother?)

The rest of us must be terribly foolish for protecting our kids when there is a death in the family. Perhaps this is the best way to do it – shove a mike in the face of a four year old whose mother is dead, whose father is accused of murder and whose life is turned upside down – to ask him who murdered his mother.

Even if he is a key witness or whatever, what is his maternal family thinking of when they keep subjecting him to the media and public eye? I understand that it’s a dowry case and the family is doing it’s best to get justice for the dead one. But should they forget those who are alive and put such a small child through the media circus?

It makes me want to sue them for insane sums of money to pay for the therapy he is sure to need in later years.