Thursday, May 12, 2011

Will the same brand of justice ever be served in India?


I just couldn’t ignore the coincidence. In US, Rajaratnam was held guilty on all 14 counts of insider trading and back here in India we got the free for all access to Amar Prem Katha. And for the icing on top, I read a lot more about Niira Radia too. So as Rajaratnam is staring at 20 years in a federal prison, my question is will the same kind of justice ever be served in India?

Rajaratnam was no ordinary person, no. 236 on Forbes list of wealthiest people in US, richest Sri Lankan alive he rubbed shoulders with who’s who of Wall Street. He hired a team of one of the most expensive attorneys but contrary to what his peers in the hedge fund industry thought, he couldn’t escape conviction.

Back to India, how many big Corporates have we indicted? How many seen the inside of a jail and remained there? None expect for Raju (R another strange coincidence, Holy crap my name also begins with R) as far as I can remember. But what about other big shots who have been known to committing corporate crimes like Anil Ambani, Praful Patel etc.

The Niira Radia and Amar Singh tapes clearly reveals the nexus that is going on between corporate, politicians and even media now. These low life people are destroying and killing the Indian Dream when it is still in its infancy. All I have been seeing throughout the day has been mockery and cheap humour of both these tapes. But I am yet to see any action. I know many more like me think we can rise up the others and get noticed, but with tapes like this coming out don’t be ashamed of the route these people might take.

The last ray of hope we had was a unbiased media and a honest judiciary which has been literally stripped and is laughing back at us make me feel like a fool, a donkey. We dream of catching up with the West and all I can say is we are living in a fool’s paradise. We are bound to stay behind and will always be looked upon as the underprivileged, downtrodden ones unless we stand up, take notice, leave IPL for a moment and do something. I don’t know what that something can be or will be, but we will have to or let’s kill our dreams right now. I just ask one thing.

Will there ever be same justice irrespective of Caste, Creed, Domicile, Wealth or Political connections?

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Sadness

Hadn’t it been for the sadness in the world, we wouldn’t have had some beautiful poetry. We wouldn’t have Shakespeare’s tragedies, Homer’s Iliad, Vikram Seth’s A Doctor's Journal Entry. Hadn’t it been for the sadness in the world, we wouldn’t have Happiness...................

That one again

When I was alone,
I feared it.
When you were gone,
I felt it.

But it came with such a pain,
That all went in vain.

I tried to cry,
But with these dry eyes,
How could I cry.

But I went on with the thought,
What upon me had I brought.

I had no answer,
And also none to seek one.
For I once again,
Became that one again.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Osama, Obama and Why a Terrorist?


Last week while going through my timeline on twitter, my brain crashed, went abruptly into a reboot and booting was only possible in safe mode. That meant going offline, disconnecting myself from all sources of media. But was that possible, yeah you all predicted right, it wasn’t. I was soon back online. Going through my timeline, flickering through web pages, looking at some, where it said Obama killed Osama and sometimes in pursuit of being fast, the other way around.

But it was a treat for the media and the twitter world. Both sections went abuzz. For media it was something they dream every day, a spectacle to be given proper coverage. So totally senseless articles such as TOI’s fictitious description of the Navy SEAL also made their way in, once again displaying new lows our Journalism has achieved. But apart from these a bigger question loomed.

I have always been confused, thinking about why people choose the path of becoming a terrorist. Everywhere one sees, it is said that a terrorist has no religion one country etc. But although the former one is very controversial, the latter one seems to have been found. Of late Pakistan has been seen as a country which not only shelters terrorism, but also is now the hub.

But all these things aside, again the same question rises how one can take the dramatic step, how can one be so brutal. Have we ever thought who is a terrorist and who is not or we choose what our media tells us to? I decided to take some help from a professor of ours. Professor Google. As I expected there is no internationally agreed definition. We all think a guy who spread terror is a Terrorist. Well if that is the case I have faced a lot of terrorists in my time at school and college. So as it is goes, it is up to a nation’s discretion or the big daddy controlled UN’s.

They say everyone part of the Al-Qaeda pledged allegiance to Osama himself. A guy who they thought lived in caves, away from the riches that he would have inherited. A guy who was a veteran of a war that saw the Soviets bite the dust. A guy who people thought has only one mission, to see the west go down. But was it that people chose to be a terrorist just because of that one guy. If it was so, then I guess we’ll soon witness the end of Al-Qaeda at least.

I decided to go some years back, some 30 years, when Punjab was under militancy. Another person having credentials of the same magnitude emerged there also. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was seen as a charismatic man, a man who revived a movement of extremism in Punjab. Whose only motive in the later part of his life was to have a separate Sikh state known as Khalistan, exactly on the lines of our beloved neighbour Pakistan. But then many horrifying incidents happened including Operation Blue Star, fake encounters killing many innocents and finally normalcy returned. Punjab was peaceful, En route to being prosperous again. What happened later, the politics is a different story although.

So I decided to do some thinking and came up with an answer. The reason a person chooses to be a Terrorist is the same why a person chooses to be a Cricketer or an Actor. They all get influenced by someone in that field. But then as I have a habit of contradicting myself, I couldn’t refrain from saying isn’t it those role models come after one has picked up a trade or is it really the other way around? Well this has one again left me scratching my head. If anyone of you readers have some theory please feel free to comment. For the moment let me scratch my head a bit more, I think I have some itching problem #$@)*%

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Robin Hood was a terrorist!

Last week all of us were given topics to speak on, for the last evaluation of our Effective Business Communications sessions. Like the rest I was also given two topics, one being the title of this post and the other one being “The creative artist’s freedom to creativity is a threat to social stability”. The second one was so long that I lost my breath when I read it the first time, so I decided to stick to the first one, which I thought would be easy to prepare, although that was not the case eventually. But nevertheless I went forward and below is what I thought would be the script, which again was not the case.

Honestly speaking I was perplexed when I first looked at this topic. Robin Hood is and has been one of my favourite childhood heroes. I had no answer, not even any idea where to look for them. No clue at all.

But then it reminded me of Krishna sir and I saw a ray of hope with secondary research. I decided to dig deep and read as much as possible about Robin Hood and Terrorism.

I was surprised to find out that there was no fixed, universally accepted, agreed upon definition of terrorism or who is a terrorist. The closest I came was this UN General Secretary report which stated “Terrorism is any act which causes bodily harm with an objective of intimidating a larger population”. And terrorist is anyone

Whose methods are violent in nature,

Whose aims and motives are Political in nature,

Whose actions have a wide psychological effect than the immediate victim,

And who works with an organization with a clear cut chain of command.

After reading this, I was even more confused. I thought how Sherwood’s Prince of Thieves could be one of such.

Yes his methods were Violent in nature. Yes his action had a far wider psychological effect than on the immediate victim, so much so that even King John felt it. And yes he had an organization called the “Merry Men” with him being the leader.

But what was it that he really did? He robbed the rich and gave it to the poor. He was what a lot of economists call today a believer of “Equitable Distribution of wealth”. If he would have existed a few centuries down the line, his name would have been taken with the likes of Lenin or even Karl Marx. He championed poor’s cause, a hero of the poor, and a messiah for the oppressed.

He cannot be termed as a terrorist, at best a communist. I believe Robin Hood was a terrorist or hero depends upon from which side of the fence you are looking through.