Opening a newspaper in the morning these days is like opening your eyes to really just three things – rape, murder, and robbery. You can choose not to open a newspaper or keep your shining TV off and live in denial but the harsh reality is that that’s what the humanity has degraded down to. And someone please tell the Creator that it’s scary being part of it.

Recent incidents of brutal gang-rape and murder of a 23 years old girl in New Delhi and the barbaric killing of 26 school children and their teachers in Newton (Connecticut) are grim reminders of the mounting dangers to our civilization.

Ironically, we are exploring life in outer space but not doing enough to safeguard the life that exists on this very planet. Not even questioning enough – this outbreak of animal instincts. We are preaching, emphatically, to preserve the earth from global warming but we are okay with the idea of living with ticking human bombs. We emphasize the importance of education but are failing to teach the basic lessons of humanity.

You can give any reason to the rising crime.

It’s lack of education – some will say. Well, the terrorists who flew planes into World Trade Center killing thousands of innocent lives didn’t lack any education. Terrorists who bombed Mumbai were no illiterate either. In fact, they all probably had an overdose, or a twisted version, of it.

Some say, it’s the divide between rich and poor that compels the poor towards mindless crime. Indian politicians, if they make their true wealth public, would topple everyone on the Forbes World’s Richest list but a majority of them are still not done robbing. They continue to loot taxpayer’s money to build their own castles, to buy their own planes, or to simply stash it in Swiss banks. They make the laws – they control the enforcement – who on earth will stop them?

Some Hindu great minds will tell you that it’s all happening because we are living in Kaliyuga where our spiritual values are bound to degenerate. We are prone to hate and eliminate each other. We are slave to our lust and ego. We are addicted to material pleasures. We are bound to hurt the weakest most to feel most powerful. We haven’t seen the prior yuga (era) or the one forthcoming so don’t know if this is the special nature of the current one but accepting it as is, with folded hands, is like choosing to be an animal.

When a woman or young girl is raped, people blame her for the incident. She called it upon herself – by wearing something provocative, by being somewhere she shouldn’t have been, or by being in the wrong company. For God sake, she deserves the same rights that you enjoy – visiting any place, any time, in any dress, with anyone she likes. (Read: Celebrate being a Girl)  Damn it! Majority of rapes in India occur inside the very house that’s supposed to be hers, by the people who are supposed to care for and protect her.

In our quest for survival, instead of tackling the problem, we have learnt to live with it. Every time a shocking incident of rape, murder, robbery or some other horrible nature takes place, we have learnt to express our anger and anguish, cry a few tears out and then go back to our lives – in the same old endangered environment – accepting it as it is – being part of it – being party to it.

Year 2013 is here. It’s time we start soul searching. It’s time we question what kind of world we want for ourselves and for the generations to come. It’s time we ask ourselves what is it that we’ll do to preserve humanity, to bury the animal instincts deep beneath love and respect, to be the change that we want to see.