Hope springs eternal

Personally, this past year was tumultuous, to say the least. Life threw a lot of curve-balls at me. I struck out more than I’d like to remember. It was baptism by fire. But I survived. And I live to tell the tale.

Let There Be Light.

People live in fear. Fear of what the future beholds. Fear of failure. Fear of what others think. Fear, it seems, is what makes people do what they do. I was no different. I was considered a go-getter; an achiever. And I admit, stripping down my facade of modesty, that I reveled in the attention. But life has a way of beating sense into you. It wasn’t long before I started disappointing everybody, including myself. To quote a cliche, I broke under the sheer weight of expectations. That was when fear set in. The fear of ending up as a nobody. Everyone around had me moved on, fledglings setting off on the flight of their lives. While there I was, the achiever, struggling to break out of the shell of my ego; swimming in a melancholic yolk of self-pity. Brutal irony.

There is nothing more pathetic than when your destiny isn’t in your own hands. All you can do is hope. Hope for an act of God to release you from the chains of your own inhibitions. Oddly enough, that was when I found inner strength. That was when I started believing. And to be honest, I didn’t have much of an option. I realized that I had been a spiritual road-kill all along.

Hope springs eternal. A little faith can do wonders. When you are down and out, accepting that things are beyond your own control is the first step to recovery. I quit worrying. I had faith that things will work out. When everyone else around me started doubting, that was when I started believing in myself. And trust me, that’s all it takes. And a miracle happened. Something even I wasn’t prepared for.I’ve been released by a higher power. Now I live not in fear, but in faith.

This year hasn’t been easy on me. But it has been the most rewarding. I’ve rediscovered myself. My inner fire is burning like never before. And all it took was a little faith. Now, I believe. I don’t let my insecurities dictate my life. I’ve learnt to let go.

‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.’

-Alexander Pope

The blind lady with the scales

In a bid to escape those cloying ads imploring you to understand the importance of your friends, I was watching the news over dinner tonight,not that I escaped them completely. But, I happened to watch portions of ‘The Big Fight’ on NDTV with the issue in question being that of the death penalty.  That set a train of thought in motion and hence this post.

I was recently reading a John Grisham novel titled ‘The Confession’, which revolves around the same subject.  Although it might not be his best work yet ,it did raise some relevant issues regarding the death penalty. His main concern with the awarding of the death penalty, and he puts it quite explicitly, is that a person shouldn’t be put on death row until and unless it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that it is a deserved punishment. Of course, the ethical question of the death penalty even being a legal resort of justice is another issue in itself . Although I might not be a staunch anti-capital punishment supporter like Grisham, I cannot argue against the point he makes, purely because it is a matter of common sense. To put in current perspective, a person like Kasab who is undeniably guilty, purely based on all the evidence in the form of video footage and eye-witness accounts, deserves the absolute worst punishment, which today is seen as the death penalty considering the magnitude of ,for the want of a better word, ‘crime’ committed. By the same logic, a person like Afzal Guru, shouldn’t get the death penalty, because of the allegations of evidence tampering having been committed by the police. Till the allegations are investigated and proven wrong, there is still ‘reasonable doubt’. If you’ve watched ’12 Angry Men’, you’d realize that no case is water-tight and there’s always room for ‘reasonable doubt’.  In its essence, these two cases present a study in contrast. The magnitude of the ‘crimes’ they have been accused of committing are equipollent, but one deserves the absolute worst punishment and the other doesn’t (till more evidence comes to the front).

Now to the ethics of capital punishment. Watching tonight’s episode of ‘The Big Fight’, I realized, and quite alarmingly, that the audience was so partisan in its view that capital punishment is the ultimate form of justice, that there wasn’t even one dissenting voice in their midst. In times of mass hysteria, like the Lokpal episode, I feel dissenting voices are the voices of reason. But today, the nation which was founded by a man who once famously said that ‘ an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind’, is hellbent on implementing capital punishment. Honestly, you can’t blame them. Given the frequency of terror attacks and the resultant paranoia, you expect such a reaction. They are hoping for closure and capital punishment might be the means to an end. But I sincerely doubt, if the question of euthanasia was put forward to them, would it have evoked such a lopsided response? Why such double standards then? I know that euthanasia has its own quagmire of moral and ethical issues, but essentially both euthanasia and capital punishment boils down to the act of committing ‘legal murder’. And purely on the basis of that, I believe any state which allows capital punishment should also allow euthanasia.

Interestingly enough on the show tonight, there was a survivor of the Mumbai attacks who was against capital punishment, even for Kasab. And oddly enough, his argument made sense. Why is capital punishment viewed as the ultimate form of justice? Even if the Supreme Court passes a judgment (pardon my legal knowledge and correct me if I am wrong) that a life imprisonment sentence means imprisonment until natural death without the possibility of parole (evidently in India you can get parole after serving 14 years of a life imprisonment sentence), it would still seem meek to the Indian populace. It would seem that they’ve been stood up by justice. Capital punishment today, and I quote the gentleman from the show ‘sells an illusion of justice’ and that’s the only thing the people are willing to buy.

On the other hand, the family of Vijay Salaskar, who had been slain in the Mumbai attacks, were on the show and understandably for them, this issue is not  polemic. It has only one solution, the implementation of the capital punishment. They deserve closure,as do thousands of others affected by terrorism throughout the country. If I had been affected, perhaps this wouldn’t have been a calm narrative.

Whose side am I on? For once in my life, I honestly can’t say. Whenever an issue is raised, I stand by the side of reason. But when it comes to something as primal as avenging murder in equal measure and kind, I honestly can’t choose. Maybe this is why this issue has been eternally debated. It is too dynamic to put your finger on one solution and cry ‘Eureka’. I prefer to tread with caution. While the issue gets politicized and plays out dramatically on our TV sets over the coming weeks, since Omar Abdullah has already caused a storm in a teacup with his tweets, it is important to realize the dynamics of the issue and not be overtly prejudiced about the issue. Capital punishment might be a strong response to terrorism for some, for others we are stooping to the level of terrorism.

Emotional Baggage

The sands of time have slipped through my fingers,

The accretion sometimes bemuses me.

I had been cloistered by these very walls,

Which seem claustrophobic now.

These pathways seem to have narrowed,

These ceilings , they seemed to converse with the empyrean,

Now they are an arm’s reach away.

These lawns were a sea of green on which I floated in thought,

The sea has dried into a blot of green.

But as I prepare to leave this haven,

I have packed more memories than clothes,

The emotional baggage , heavier, but gossamery ,

The  accrual of experiences with the years gone by,

My childhood has been peeled by now,

But inside, deep inside, I’m still raw.

These memories, this nostalgia,  is not taking a step back,

But taking two steps forward to whatever awaits me.

Calling All Lost Souls

You wake up to find that you’ve been sleeping too long,
You turn over and find its just you in your solitude.
The silence is deafening, the air feels morbid,
Then comes the nausea, the what if-s.
What if you had said that loving word,
That loving hug, that loving kiss.
What if you were there when she needed you,
To hold her, pacify her, to lend a shoulder.
But no, you had the world to carry.
You had the world to tend to, the world to care for.
If only you knew, you were her world.

You wake up to find you’ve been sleeping too long.

A blue summer

7 reasons why this summer has been a blue blue one 😦
1) Salman Khan starts twitting.

Either his fingers are too big for his Blackberry or  he has dyslexia, but I have yet to see him tweet something coherent. Its not that hard even with the 140 characters limit Sallu, if Mallika can do it, so can you .

2) The heat.

Unfortunately in India, at this time of the year, you don’t really get to see the bikinis. But you can see lots of shirtless sweaty men with their not so enviable bodies. F*ck you America for selling us these dreams. So much for Baywatch.

3) The Kochi IPL team controversy.

Frankly, for us , the Malayali diaspora, we’ve had enough. When Sree Santh was slapped we didn’t complain  ( on the contrary  most of us wanted to get our hands on that kayiveri ). When Sree Santh was  fined for clapping, we clapped along.  But when all this ruckus was created about the Kochi IPL team, it hit a nerve; a sensitive, emotional Malayali nerve. Give us a break. Trust me you don’t want half a million Malayalis folding their lungis and curling their moustaches in unison like Mohanlal (GOD) and kicking the crap out of everyone standing in our way ( Lalit Modi you wily little ***** , I meant you ).

4) Twiteroorgate.

Poor Shashi. What else should I say which has not been said already. Poor Shashi. ( On that note, Lalit Modi you scum, wait till us Malayalis get our hands on you.)
5) Sania got married.

The sole reason why hormonal Indian teens (mostly guys … mostly) started watching Women’s Tennis. ( Personally speaking , watching the Williams sisters play was a mind-numbing experience and I gave up watching Women’s Tennis afterwards). Now the sole reason for a million heart-breaks and even more anti-Pakistan SMSs. Lets hope for peace (Aman Ki Asha).

6) The heat

7) Salman Khan is twitting !

Yeah life has hit a low hasn’t it?

Too much estrogen is injurious to health

DISCLAIMER – THIS IS PURELY A WORK OF FICTION. NO GIRLS WERE HARMED DURING THE MAKING OF THIS BLOG. AND IF YOU KNOW ME, YOU KNOW I’M KIDDING 🙂

I hope I didn’t lose the readers after such a *ahem* queer title. But to tell you the truth, I’ve been surrounded by too much estrogen all my life. Translated into English that means I’ve had more than my fair share of female company ( very little of it romantic, sigh) . Throughout the history of mankind, wars have been fought, kingdoms lost and blood shed for the want of the-fairer-kind. Considering that, I’ve had it pretty much easy ( not too heavy on looks nor build but surrounded by girls all the time 🙂 ) . Although this might sound like showing off, it really isn’t…. trust me. The estrogen drug has kind of overdosed on me. So out of self-pity, I am going to give some of you single-ready to mingle guys (doods) some tips, so listen up coz I really know what I am talking about

1) LISTEN – NEVER SPEAK – Girls should be treated like radios, let em go on and on. Don’t even bother to interrupt except if it is to answer calls (the phone as well as those of nature)

2) SOMETHINGS ARE PRICELESS – The age-old cliche that girls dig guys with money ( I mean literally DIG )is lame. I’ve seen guys in my college who look like they’ve survived the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and have come off the street dating BABES. Anything can happen.

3)GIRLS HAVE FACES TOO – self-explanatory

4)COMPLIMENTS WORK – Only in moderation . But never compliment a girl for her facial hair.

5)WATCH OUT FOR RHETORICS – Never try answering a question during a date. Q : Am I looking fat? A: Not Today Darling *REST IN PIECES*

So go out there and get em.. off my back B) . But the one disadvantage of being surrounded by girls all the time : After a point of time, you start to think like them. Then you start looking in the mirror a tad bit longer than necessary. You keep a constant check on your waist size. You start noticing guys. WTF .

Touchy Feely

If all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely actors, then I am the one who got no dialogues, no scenes and a rat’s ass chance of kissing the heroine. In my latest attempt at grabbing attention, here I am wasting my time and pounding my keyboard typing this blog and trying my best to sound funny, which evidently I am failing at. New to WordPress, New to blogosphere, getting to know what this sh*t is all about ( homie lingo).