"Whose Life Is It Anyway"

I remember the movie so well. I guess I saw it sometime in the early 80’s. And now the renewed interest in Euthanasia triggered by the Court ruling on a petition to assist mercy killing, begs that I get the movie DVD and see it all over again.

That was a memorable movie “Whose Life Is It Anyway”, with Richard Dreufus in the main role of a sculptor who is consigned to the hospital bed as a quadriplegic, paralyzed down below the neck, after a car crash. He eventually wins the case for his right to extinguish his life.

The life of Aruna Shanbaug is no life for the past 37 years. One has to look at assisted dying without the prejudice and emotions attached, and necessarily sans the antiquated philosophy camouflaged as ethics, incited by religious conditioning. The court made an admirably enlightened observation in the ruling on the mercy killing petition that a carte blanche acceptance of Euthanasia on the statute would be dangerous in the society we now live. It said that the ethical values are abysmal that the law will be misused by the unscrupulous society. I liked that comment. When someone introspects and tells that indeed we are mean. It is refreshingly in contrast to the hyped moral and ethical values of the society that many often trumpet.

Disconcerting and ridiculous is the reaction of the medical staff of the KEM hospital where the unfortunate woman has been confined as a piece of vegetable. Though the medical staff have providentially taken care of the quadriplegic and orphaned woman, their sloganeering in praise of a long life for the crippled woman and death to the petitioner who sake the court ruling to accept euthanasia was conceited and bizarre. The very same folk who braved and demand their right to take care of Aruna Shanbaug until her natural demise was crying for the blood of the petitioner. Is this hypocrisy, illogical passion?

Euthanasia must be legalized and with sufficient riders that will ensure the law is not and never misused and arrogated.. The anachronism in our criminal law is the section 309 which punishes attempted suicide. Perhaps the gentry who demand capital punishment as retributive justice may even think of sending to the gallows a person who killed himself. The British did that on the corpses of the Diwan of Travancore, Velu Thampi  and Kunjali Maraikar, the Admiral of the Zamorin of Kozhikode. They killed themselves before they could be captured and in fury the British hung their dead body on lamp posts. Can we term those suicides as cowardly acts and indulgence of sick minds? Apart from the psychological factors that may push a person into the extreme ground for suicide, I  see it as violation of  fundamental right if one is  prosecuted for deciding enough is enough in this world. If one does not have the right over one’s life, is that not against the very foundation that ensures fundamental rights? Similarly if a person who is absolutely perfect in his bearings decides that he has had enough of agony and suffering from the terminal disease he is afflicted decides to seek assisted euthanasia, why not?

What right do we have to say that one has to suffer and wait till a natural factor consumes life? It is cruelty and unethical. As for Aruna Shanbaug who has spent the last 37 years as brain dead, it is travesty of justice for her. “We will not let go her until natural death intervenes”, says the staff of KEM hospital. A group of hospital staff who love life so much in the same breath shout death for the petitioner.

The bottom line is if we cannot play God and alleviate the hardship why secure that the sufferer suffers till the day natural cause intervenes? All the more in cases as special as this?

It is crocodile tears of a society, moral outrage of a society that is awash with false and archaic notions, that deny mercy killing. Euthanasia must be legal. It is for the courts and the legislature to think and devise riders that will ensure the act is out of ethical considerations only.

A society driven by edicts of faith, still consign the dead to the funeral pyre or dump in pits in back yards of churches and temples instead of donating the cadaver to medical dissection, and thereby enhance the value of learning and opening new realms in human physiology for posterity; a society that still desist from donating harvestable organs after death, should not cry against the idea of Euthanasia. Legalising Euthanasia will be a right step forward.Help people live with dignity if  that is impossible let them die with dignity.

"The Copulating Lions"

It is not quite usual to write a post on a post. Generally comments are posted in lieu. However since no such written rules or precedents are in place I thought, I rather write something I felt on the post of Balachandran "So that you know how much I loved you",and his follow up observations with the bewitching verses of Richard Ebehart.

Those were powerful and glorious ode to the act of taboo. The word “taboo” is not of my volition. It is something I felt like interposing after noticing that only a few responses came by.The act of copulation is still

considered  abhorring to speak about. The poem “The lions copulating” on the great African plain brought out like in a three dimension picture the greatness of the vast continent and the majesty and dignity of those beasts.

One of the most fascinating account of Victorian social life and the intertwined hypocrisy was unleashed with subtleness and vehemence by D.H.Lawrence in “The Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. The novel depicted the amorous physical liaison between a aristocratic woman and a commoner. The book could not be openly published in the U.K. And ipso facto was banned in many countries and includes the ban in puritanical British India and followed up by independent India as well. In the late seventies and early eighties,when I was frequenting the British Council library in Thiruvananthapuram, I had frantically searched for the book but in futility. In 1982, I finally got a good print edition from a road side vendor in Connaught place, New Delhi. Reading it was different experience. The notoriety and the explicit passages were subservient to the more contrasting mind and body of human beings. It is in one's noticing and comprehension that obscenity and beauty is born.

The ruling of the court in the U.K when the publishers of the book were hauled up in the 1960’s is an enlightened example. The publishers could defend the “obscenity trial” and prove the literary merit of the novel. It was convincingly argued that the word “fuck” was certainly not lewd, and the act of physical union was only a primitive biological factor,detached from the human mind and body..

The Lions on that vast plains in the African savanna are unique examples. If bringing in  physical relationship of opposite sexes, man or beast as subjects into literature is filthy, repugnant, obscene and abhorring then it is obvious that the vast majority of men and women are indulging in the very nefarious conduct in real time. And beasts too!Quite a few of the mythical and religious classics must be banned or restricted The Gods may also be hauled up for salacious conduct.

That reminds me a contrast- a post I uploaded borrowing from a source. It was on the ubiquitous 'Lungie', and I still often see comments flowing in about the post and raving it.

Not seeing, feigning to have not noticed ,ignoring the literary value, aesthetics of imagination, and magical words in a creation as in the poems in question ,is blatant hypocrisy. I wonder if the signs of absence of comments constructive or otherwise suggests only the general conservatism of the society. The silence and closed eyes may be wicked extensions of denying what is there on the surface and beneath. The openness is found wanting.

 

We caught lions copulating on the plains
Of Africa. ….,
I pressed so hard on my 8mm. color film
I almost lost this gigantic naturalism, 

…………,
But saw the King of Beasts with his head high, 
His mane imperial, no expression on his face, 
Prodding in and out of the great female 

…………………………………….. ,
For his great face had no expression at all
While his lower being worked mechanical, 

Then he fell away, and stood off, and lay 
His full length on the ancient earth
While the lioness with a sumptuous gesture 
Rolled over as I have seen other females do

.......................................,

Stood in their historical posture of superiority 
And ambled across the limitless plains in silence
Without a thought of the lucubration of man, 
Trying to signify their big natures in empathy. 

The 'detachment' in discussion is worth some deep pondering! :-)

I can only see the majesty of the beasts and the incomparable vastness and feel of the great African savanna. The act of copulation is secondary to the imperiousness of nature.And also with the subtle depiction of the  act and the vastness of time around one should be in sublime mood..

And as in the poem  "So that you know how much I loved you"

“Yet I wonder, what is it that I loved in you?

Was it the person or the persona, the mind or the body,

That I had desired more; maybe both, maybe it is that

I wanted it all, with such a hunger, such an appetite…”

“…………………………………….,

So that I bled you, my sweat stank of you

My lips and yours one

My spittle and yours one......

.

Unfortunately candid expressions are frowned or shooed underneath. Surreptitious or false notions stand out as moral values. They are like the cloak that suppresses forthright feelings.

However there were a few comments that sensed the depth of the words. Whether the detachment which is instilled in the male species as mentioned by Bindu, or the words of discernment of the Doc and other couple of bloggers, it can be seen that there are people who have the right senses to appreciate the magical words and thereby ideas and imaginations laced in works of literature and consign hypocrisy to places it richly deserves.

“Like the feline with eyes closed

Lapping up milk in stealth

I fornicated day and night

All the while I comforted in the belief,

When my eyes were closed the world seldom saw

My act of promiscuity ”.

Musings

What difference can you tell?

In my offering the lord above

Money and in kind, thence supplicate in askance,

for his munificence in abundance.

And the man in the corporate hive

Decked in attire ,princes of the past shall envy.

Coddle and bespeak the khadhi clad varlets

For their largesse in abundance.

Free , Democratic India

This is just a story that happens many times over in the free, democratic, India that upholds justice and civil liberties to all its citizens.


The link below will certainly consume quite some time if you decide to read through. But read you must. And especially the gentry that savor Arundati bashing and cry vociferously "Ms Roy keep your hands off Kashmir".
The only similarity is she is just another woman, a citizen of this country like us. But the commonality ends there and this emotional write up tells that in ample words.
So please click the link "Article" and read on about democratic India . Because our children too as well as we can be the ones seeking  justice and in the dungeon waiting for the hangman's call and ......

The Very Strange Story of the Attack on the Indian Parliament

-- By Arundhati Roy,
"To invoke the 'collective conscience of society' to validate ritual murder,
which is what the death penalty is, skates precariously close to valorising
lynch law.It's chilling to think that this has been laid upon us not by
predatory politicians or sensation-seeking journalists (though they too have
done that), but as an edict from the highest court in the land."

Article 

The Origin

Sweating out in the sweltering sun

the mud pot taking the toll.

With porridge boiled and overflowing

Libations and offerings to the powers above!

Prompting of their munificence unlimited

And pleading for the elixir of longevity.

Jostling in the church to partake the sacrament

offering gifts galore.

Reminding the powers above

of the quid pro quo in deals of us mortals.

 I pray to thee oh Lord

Give me the abundance of life,

for I shared my prise with you..

Though, thence the origins of ‘bribe’,

but forsake me not.

"Confession"

I feel the recent events in North African countries are only the result of and a reflection of what  dysfunction and morbid human psyche that remained so for four odd decades,could do to society.It is so ,be it in India, in Egypt,in Libya, in the West, in a little village or even in our homes. The absence of the will to stand up and face insolence .Even the intelligentsia was putrefying in intelligence while countries were being thieved, plundered and people asphyxiated. In the late 1920’s when Adolf Hitler came into power in Germany, he was given a rousing reception. Later when the evil in him manifested the German populace infamous for its abiding the law to the letter stayed dumb and silent. The result was there to see very soon !

There is a very strange anecdote on German blind penchant for adherence to the rule. In a remote intersection in the German Black Forest an automated traffic signal was placed. The motorists who went through the intersection were photographed by a remote camera. Ten out of ten motorists who passed by at various time stayed put when the light was red, even for as long as fifteen minutes, though it was apparent to them that vehicular movement in that part of the forest area was scanty. Opinions may vary. But the literal adherence to the rule has been in the German psyche.

Signs of ghoulish human mind have ample examples. The society we live in is in itself a perfect example. Even our homes, and people related or friends, and includes us as well. The fact is, besides the blind adherence, there is also a great element of disinclination or numbness and apathy.

But then I love armchair exploration, armchair philanthropy and armchair discourses. That serves me well! And I see my reflections in  all that around. Or am I the alter ego of the society? Certainly I have company!

Musings

When  love is seldom found

Considered petty, possibly,to the one that is faked.
And feel bruised, like the mongrel with its tail tuck 'tween.

"Look , fool you are"!

But life must move on….!

To be denied over again.

What fool you are, to be trodden over and again!