RIP

There is an irony about eulogies; there is an element of hypocrisy too in some expression of commiseration, let it be about death or other forms of misfortune. Don’t you think so?

Honestly, I have desisted from thinking twice about certain people’s demise or their plight. And I do not see it even an iota truthful when expression of condolences are made, empty rhetoric of concern is  soliloquized when somebody had passed, while it was true all the while during the life time of the deceased that he was widely and severely detested or he was unjustly hounded, abused and trampled.

I remember writing in this space about a person whose passing did not evoke a tiny bit of sympathy because while he lived he was among the most devious of mankind and displayed utterly loathsome character. He trampled upon many without remorse and guilt. Well, this thought will be directly antagonistic to the philosophy of Christianity.

It is a fact that there are detested and abominations walking around. And while they live they disperse only misery and agony. There is another kind, the unfortunate lot who are hunted when they live and when they are gone, canonized.

Coming to the incident, I want to discuss- yesterday one of the bigwigs in the organization saw a personal loss, his father passed away. The deceased I guess was in his early seventies. Mentioning about the son, one cannot refrain from saying that he is perhaps among the most devious and specious person. Arrogant and reprobate he is silently and overtly detested by both people higher up in the hierarchy and commoners. Except for the big boss for reasons known to him alone, no one, virtually no one but for his couple of cronies would stand for him. But since he has some stranglehold over the ‘Big Man’ and has him in a garrote, he could continue with his charlatanism and chicanery with almost uninhibited impunity.

I have had a running feud with him and he is very uncomfortable with me around. He wanted to see me exit from the day one. My character being such and devoid of diplomacy and salesmanship when it comes to such people, I would not care a hoot about what becomes of him. So the news of his father’s demise yesterday morning and his taking the flight to his country immediately was of least bearing to me and I seldom thought of it further than when I heard the story. However some who has had open confrontation with him and had outspokenly branded him all that he really is, took no time to place telephone calls to him and express condolences, concern and etiquette of what we call civilised hypocrisy.

One can argue as some did that when death visits one must forget all hostility and disapproval. I was unsure for a while and then this morning, I placed through a call to his mobile phone. It rang its full length of ring but he did not attend the call. Perhaps he was busy with some subsequent event or perhaps he cared a damn to attend my telephone call.

Another Chance

                                      

        “Give me some sunshine, give me some rain;

          Give me another chance I wanna grow up once again.”

But then, if wishes were horses and if horses could fly….!                                                                                    

Well,because there is no restraint on what one could dream. And every one does, I do. Dreams that are no holds barred, dreams about cunning, avarice, love, fear, death, pain, happiness, Jubilation, profanity, lust, titillating dreams, dreams that will wrench away the mask and expose hypocrisy naked..…  .The list is endless. Since my divorce with organized religion and God many years ago in my teens, the gentleman has not come into my dreams. Good for him and me, as you will agree it all boils down to self-respect, I shan’t blame him for that!

“Give me some sunshine….” resonates with desire that has no seam. A longing that is not lustful and covetous, but of yearning for a chance to relive, fully aware that there is beauty in sunshine and even much in the rain! I wonder if life without pain and loss, sadness and parting can relish or attain the beatitude of life. It was Van Gogh who said,” A man who has not suffered has nothing to tell with his paintings”.

That said, I do not think that if life was not a roller coaster as it was until now, I would think of a second innings as a wish that is endearing like the endless horizon caressing the ocean. Metaphors apart, equating rain with the dreariest moments in life that went by is quite rude and ungracious.

There are essentially many things that would be put on the block for correction and paths that will be trodden that never have been before. The fear of the unknown, I certainly want relegated. A mystery stays mysterious until you know and perceive it. It is ephemeral, isn't it?

Well talking about something that is foremost is the woman in one’s life. It was rather a fascinating and jovial coincidence that I and C have two more lives where we cannot be separated-so said the revered astrologer to my mother. I wonder if I would see him around in the next life! His predictions or rather call it statement is comforting as I doubt, if my disposition would ever change in a reincarnated life and in that event no woman other than the poor C can be apposite. Tough days for her in that eventuality, because if I seek to change from what I’m, the raison d'être of a second chance will be consigned to triviality. However I wish her unrequited affection and love is garnished with more of logic and sensibility, lest ….!

It will be uneventful and ennui if I should not meet the people who I may want to be distanced now, for it is such creatures that give us the lessons of unconventional wisdom that no erudition and university can impart.

I might want to be a different adolescent, and understanding teenage son so that poor ones at home who rear me may not feel the pangs from my delinquencies.

If good old blokes who are friends are not around the nimbus is lost and one is halved as human being.

“Give me some sunshine, give me some rain;

Give me another chance I wanna grow up once again.”

The Sham

                       “Oh hang your head in shame

                        Oh, doesn’t your conscience ever bother you

                        Every time you hear my name

                       Well, try and think all that I’ve gone through

                       And then you hang your head in shame

                               And cry…” RC

Conflicting views and opinions that are at logger heads have been aired by many from different quarters after the execution of Mohamed Afzal in the terror attack  on the Indian Parliament.. Much of the observations, statements, outrage, sadness and all other forms of humanly possible expressions have been based with the eye on political brownie points, besides they were mostly bigoted, impetuous and moored in the perverted philosophy of retribution that we camouflage as justice meted out in a civilized and morally conscientious society.

Foremost, every Indian must ask unto them, why a man accused of (indirect) complicity in an act of war on the country itself, was condemned to die by the Indian Judicial system even when it was apparent that the case against him was only circumstantial, when many pegs did not match the holes and when the accusations against him were not impervious nor fool proof. To put it in simple words how conscientious and prudent was it to send a man to the gallows based on circumstantial evidences? When it is often seen these days by the unnerving dissection of judicial pronouncements by the media and the thinking intelligentsia, that the learned college of Justices do err , it was Afzal Guru’s misfortune that he met the fate he eventually got. I ‘m not in any erudite position to dissect the judgment of the highest court but it is apparent after scouring through analysis and comments on the charges framed on Afzal Guru that vital links are amiss. If death penalty is warranted for the rarest of rare cases surely circumstantial evidences and lack of proper legal recourse for the accused, besides the glaring flaws in the case filed by the investigating agencies will in them question the sentencing to the gallows.

Secondly it was immoral, and cowardice of our society and the government that the man was killed in secrecy and without following humane principles, ethics and decency that other abominable felons were provided. It was an Orwellian morning last week for the biggest sham –called Indian democracy!

When the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination were given reprieve because of being confined in the death row for an agonizing length of time, why was not that largess or equitable consideration provided to Afzal Guru? He was certainly not a terrorist, though he did have a shadowy past as an aspiring jihadist and later disillusioned by the jihadist philosophy came back into the social stream of the Kashmiri society. Are we trying to believe that there is no place or chance for reformation in a civilized society and in the human mind? If so there is indeed a glaring fault in the very idea of Christian philosophy for instance! And the action of the Indian State sends disconcerting signals to the discontentment boiling among the youth of Kashmir and also a lesson for those disillusioned with fanaticism and jihadist life,- those who want to integrate back into the main stream..

Thirdly, the hoarse braying for Afzal Guru’s blood and for retribution that was heard on and off and the endorsement of his hanging reeks of a vermin psyche. Does it do justice to what we claim to be a civilized, democratic and just society? If his life was to be extinct to save India, the fact is there are plenty who are at large in different walks of life and even cocooned in the immunity of our legislatures who bear direct and indirect threat to the very fabric of civilized society and democracy.

Finally, Afzal’s execution and the swift course of the law towards that once the Presidential pardon was denied, deter separatist tendencies, militancy and negate all reasons for Kashmiri youth to take up arms against the Indian State? Why has the Indian State failed miserably in transforming the outlook of Kashmiris? Why do they foresee or believe that a bleak future and serfdom awaits them and their posterity if Kashmir remains in the Indian Union?Why do they want to opt out of the Indian Union even when they know the misery of the twin nation theory and the abysmal state of Pakistan next door? Why have the Kashmiris not emotionally integrated with the concept of India? And this, even after sixty six years of independence and signing of the instrument of ascension by the ruler of Kashmir, speaks disparagingly of various governments in New Delhi, opportunistic politics and insensitivity of the Indian State. It speaks of total failure of Indian polity. And such judicial outcome and the execution that rivals the secrecy practiced by the former USSR after confining a person eight years on the death row smacks of political expediency and are not helping the cause of sealing militancy and terrorism in the valley.