jabdakhata

Life has many interesting dimensions. The reason why they are interesting is that you can draw so many parallels and analogies. One of the analogies is, for instance, stock market. Like stock market life has ups and downs, and the volatilities may vary from person to person and from period to period. For some periods life is drab, boring, monotonous, which means very low volatility or extreme form of stability, while at other times it is stormy, with extreme volatility, so that it gets difficult to cope with. The other aspect is that like stock market life is influenced by so many factors in the external environment – relationships, economy, weather, many of which are beyond our control. The ups and downs are temporary phases, every upswing will pave the way for a downswing and vice versa, only the period of fluctuation may vary. Like individual stocks in a portfolio, the events in a life can move in different directions at different phases. While some may move up, others may come down

Remember Manjunath Shanmugam, the IIML graduate and IOC officer who was murdered in cold blood by a petrol pump owner because he brought on them charges of corruption? Yesterday he received another blow, this time from Indian Judicial system, a system so arcane and dismal that it cannot deliver justice in 5 years (and we all know cases normally drag on for a lifetime in Indian courts). Earlier in March 2007 district sessions judge (DSJ) Lakhimpur Kheri, S M A Abidi had given death sentence to the chief architect of the crime, Manu alias Pawan Mittal, and the rest of the gang were given life sentence. Honest people were relieved that there is still some sanity in judicial system. But now in December 2009, the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court felt that the crime did not belong to the “rarest of the rare cases” and therefore does not justify death sentence, they commuted it to life imprisonment. Not only that, the high court has freed two of the accused. These guys will obviously f

History is full of ironies. The fight for separate statehood so as to gain identity, which is happening in Andhra Pradesh whereby as usual unscrupulous politicians are taking advantage of ignorance and thoughtlessness of ordinary people, is a mirror image of what happened 105 years ago in Bengal. The partition of Bengal by British had a hidden agenda, of diving and ruling a state which was leading the voice of dissent and was getting more and more vociferous in its demand for a national identity, even though the justification was administrative convenience of smaller regions. The proposed partition idea bounced back as people of Bengal found their voices, rose united against the proposed division and was largely led by great intellectuals of the stature of Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (later sage Aurobindo of Auroville in Puducherry). It was a mass movement against partition which also gave a fillip to the hitherto dormant nationalist movement called “swadeshi” movement

Ruchika Girhotra was a young promising tennis player who was molested by a high profile director general of police, S.P.S Rathore . The incident took place in 1991, 19 years earlier. The story does not end here. It was witnessed by one of the friends of the victim who promptly informed her family. The said police official (?) got panicked and left no stones unturned to intimidate and humiliate the victim’s family. As per media report her brother was tortured in police prison, the family was threatened with dire consequences, her father’s house was eventually bought off by the offender’s lawyer, rowdies were dispatched to instill fear. Eventually three years down the line the victim, unable to bear the pressure, committed suicide and her family was in ruins. But the friend’s family carried on with the fight despite all threats, abuses and attempts to retrain it from its strive for justice. 19 years later that same DGP was convicted of the crime even though he stands defiant and unre

Bhopal gas tragedy enters into its 25th anniversary. A lot has been written on it. Suffice to say that nothing will alleviate the pain, misery and horrendous suffering of people caused by Union Carbide (now Dow Chemicals). The disaster left around 4000 dead and another 500,000 badly affected. They are dying a slow death everyday. The ground water has been polluted by the incident to such an extent that people are drinking toxic water for the past 25 years. Governments and political parties have done nothing, except taking advantage. People of India have not shrunk in horror at the extent of the calamity, they have just accepted it as another ill fate. But the most unholy response came from Dow. The paltry amount given to every injured was around INR 25000 and to every dead person's kin it was INR 62000. As if Indian lives are so cheap. It seems that there was also a statement from Dow that the "amount would be sufficient for Indians". Now isn't that called arrogance

People are angry. Students are angry. They are calling strikes on flimsy grounds, burning buses, breaking glasses. They don't know the real cause of anger, all political causes are just hogwash. They just want to give a vent to their frustration, with everything, the civic apathy, administrative failure, corruption, poverty, joblessness. These are commonplace in India and so are the expressions of anger. People will say, give it sometime and the tide of bitterness will subside. This may go, but they will begin again with renewed vigour elsewhere, for apparently some other cause. Remember the mushal parva in Mahabharata! People were generally angry and fighting without any reason among themselves and a stoic lord Krishna was watching. The lord did nothing to save his own clan. He said that this was inevitable. Hope this is not the same case with us.