Thursday, January 31, 2013

The Beginning, and The End




So much to speak, yet so little time.


“In the midst of winter, I found within me, an incredible summer.”
                                                                                                                    -Albert Camus



It doesn't matter what you want to write. For the moment you hold the pen, the moment the pen touches paper, your heart will break the barriers that the mind has imposed upon it. The heart shall flow, and let it flow. Let the words flow from your heart, as blessed water from a forest stream. Let the words glide, as effortless as the wind that graces the skies. Let your heart and soul reach that place deep within yourself, that temple of incredible calm and peace.

I've always liked temples. And churches. Temples at dusk and early hours of dawn. Churches in the day.

There are few sights in the world more beautiful than a quiet temple, lit in the darkness, surrounded by a hundred mud lamps. Chuttuvilakku, it’s called. The light of the hundred mud lamps flicker and waiver, yet they hold steady, in unison. Like the heartbeat of a hundred children. Like the marching beat of a hundred soldiers, who march in the knowledge that they will not return. The silence and the calm within the walls offer solace from the noises of the urban world. Even the occasional cry of the “ Chemboth” does not break the silence. Temples are beautiful.

In the distance, the mullah calls for the evening prayer. It is a melancholic semi song, and I realize I do not know what it means. I remember something from childhood- that I used to try and learn what the mullah sings. I also realize, I've never been inside a mosque.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Execution of Sanity




Ever since the heinous crime in the rape capital of our nation, the country has been flooded with demonstrations and protests. The social media is abuzz with self proclaimed justice keepers baying for blood. In reality, this crime has revealed the dark side of the society- the side that normally remains suppressed, the primal,blood thirsty beast within everyone of us. It is appalling to see young minds describing in gory details the exact nature of the punishment they want to inflict on the accused.

A common argument usually being put forward is that in certain countries in the middle east, torture and violent execution is handed out to rapists, so why not implement it here? The simple answer to this argument lies in the human rights records of these nations. For it is in these same countries that women have zero rights and freedoms, and very little in way of justice. In these nations, the law of land demands that females who commit adultery should be stoned to death. Is this the state of affairs we want to see our India arrive at?

For all those clamoring for death sentences for the accused- if that punishment would prevent rape,by the same logic, our nation will be free of murders and terrorist acts. Punishments hardly serve as deterrents, for criminals do not think about the consequences of their actions. Education, sensitization and open dialogue prevent crimes before they happen, and that is the right direction we should focus our thoughts in.



Friday, January 18, 2013

A memoir to Rorschach





There have been many caped crusaders and masked marauders who have captured our imagination. They have flown through the sky, rappelled through skyscrapers, and crashed through the window of our conscience in to our memories, forever treasured. A dark knight, a certain reporter for a local daily.. Its not a very short list, yet, if I had to pick one man who stands above the rest, one man through his greatest strengths, which is surprisingly not a superpower, it would be Rorschach for me.

I have encountered him only in a single movie, “The Watchmen”. Yet this ultra conservative, violent socio path etches himself in to the blotting paper of my mind. And what pattern does the blot make? What do I see in this man whose most conspicuous characters are that he is uncompromising, hard headed and paranoid? Precisely that.

Living  in a world where everyone makes compromises to push the wheel of life forward, right from the hordes of lowly salaried men to the white clad, black-hearted political class, It is impossible to be unmoved by a faceless man delivering justice in black and white. All the while, he loses no focus, weighing both his enemies and friends with the same scale. And pity the man who tips the scale in the wrong direction. For then a shadow will awaken him in the night, exacting punishment in swift, cruel and merciless ways.
In his last moments, before death at the hands of his friend, he states the single, unwavering, unflinching philosophy he has lived by all his life-

"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon. That's always been the difference between us, Daniel."