Sorcery

A few years ago, I and C made a visit to a house of a very near relative. His wife saw us at the door and in her usual pompous style took us in. She announced that we were lucky to have them there in the house because they had to make a last minute change to their programme of journey to Puttaparathi (SaiBaba’s abode).She was in her own description a devotee of the Baba.And she attributes all her money, her collection of gold jewellery to the blessings and will of the man she calls God- “SaiBaba”. But she did not discuss or comment as to why the Baba’s prowess was ineffective when it came to her chronic diabetes and acute hypertension and that she has to constantly pour out as much money she throws after gold and diamonds after her medical bill too.

She informed us that they had to postpone their travel to Puttaparathi because SaiBaba tripped and fell in his bath and was advised rest by his doctors and also had cast on one of his limbs which fractured in the fall.

We were seated in their sprawling living room, when she summoned C into the pooja room. C winked at me to follow her as both of us were getting bored by the lady’s grandiloquent oration of her wealth and of her divine unionism with this sorcerer SaiBaba ,( oh apologise- incarnation of god).She wanted to show us a miracle that the Baba brought to her pooja room that morning. Sitting in Puttaparathi or rather laying in his bed with a fractured limb, he through remote conduct brought “vibhoothi” (sacred ash) into the pooja room in Chennai. She showed us a handful of ash lying at the foot of the huge portrait of the Baba , kept in the pooja room. We, out of ennui and forced politeness nodded to all that she wanted to convince us.

Soon, we left the house after some parting pleasantries to her and her husband. Outside the gate we could not hold back our gleeful laughter at what is called faith, which people like her are obstinate about and are intoxicated with. C in passing said that we ought to have asked the lady why SaiBaba could not fix his fracture with his divine powers while he could bring in the holy ash into the pooja room, and while he has many times over picked out Rolex watches, laddus and Siva lingams from the void.

And, back to the present-since the past few days there has been information in the news papers and TV channels that SaiBaba is critically ill and his vital parameters are not showing great response to medication. Yes what else can one expect while in the late twilight of life and when one is eight seven or so? And to the ardent fans, devotees of this “holy man”, SaiBaba, I do not hesitate to ask, why is the fact of nature and natural laws of mortality slowly tightening the noose around this man? Why is it so if he were God and an incarnate? Why could he not use his miracles and mystical powers to extricate from the laws of Nature? Remember, myth and legend has it that Sree Krishna was transported to heaven in flesh and blood after being stung by the arrow of the hunter. He did not die like ordinary men and leave his physical body. But, why, is SaiBaba bedridden and at the mercy of medicines and doctors to sustain his life a little longer. Could he not use his sorcery that he is famous (infamous) for and extricate himself from the agony of illness, old age and death that will soon happen to him ,like it will to all of us one day?

This post is to throw questions and not to encourage beliefs for the sake of faith, supernatural or superstitions. The label of “apostate” has more sheen than the pseudonym of “gullible”. Hiding behind attributed mirages, calling things inviolable and matters of faith is the easiest way to enact a “Houdini”, a great escape from reality and inconvenient questions, answers and facts. The proverbial tree of apples in the Garden of Eden was a cunning ploy to ensure “man” never questions and is tethered. The ploy seems to be working in various ways, the most effective being “fear”.

The incorrigible ones will argue that the Baba is God because he has established many avenues and foundations of charity and philanthropy. They may pin point the hi-tech and super speciality hospitals where the needy can harbour. The schools and universities in his name, so on and so forth!

But is the tag of mystic, performer of miracles and magic, divine incarnate and a life in the vulgarism of opulence, a necessity to convey the message of love, peace, and caring for the needy? Certainly not  and a humble soul like the late Mother Theresa is a perfect example.

April 2,2011

In the present times in this country when it is starved of “HEROES” and accomplishments that would bring pride, the decimation of the oppositions in the ICC World Cup was savoring and delightful. Individual accomplishments in their own spheres are not many that we can boast about, at least in the times from the not so distant past. The magnificence of a Sachin Tendulkar and the team India, the tenacity of Sania Newal, the never say die spirit of Leander Paes, the rise from nothingness of a P.T.Usha are but a few that comes to mind.The country has to eventually harbour on its individuals who excelled in the arena of sports, when all seem to be lost if not going down the abyss else where, be it politics, public or social life.

                                                                                                                                         

I was cocooned in the air-conditioned comfort of the sprawling ball room of Trivandrum Club with a few friends and our families watching with varying emotions and moods the WC final last Saturday on the huge screen that was specially erected. It brought back memories of that June night in 1983, when a dozen of us got together at a friend's house here in Trivandrum to watch the David vs Goliath finals of the Prudential Cup. Those days only a few house holds had Television sets and in color. Since there were no separate Sports channels then, we had to agonisingly tune into the BBC for the match progression, while Doordarshan enamored itself with the Samachars and News in English. And robbing us off the sensations at Lords!

Tendulkar being scooped by the odd man with odd hair and odd action sent us into almost terminal shock. The gradual but tenacious recouping of the match from then on , the measured but composed frontal assault by the captain M.S.Dhoni and the eventual  dispatch of the cricket ball that saw India lift the World Cup was a befitting end if not shall I hope the beginning of a different India, a India that stutters for resurgence?

However standing along with the rest in that room that day and applauding amidst the vociferous yells of “Bharth Mahan” and “Vande Mataram” took away to some extent, the sheen of the win. It was after all a game, a game for civilised people! The hollers and cries of “Vande Mataram” reminded me of the war cries with the very same catchwords by the kar-sevaks atop the Babari Masjid and the sword wielding arsonists in Gujart.

 Verbal descriptions of cynic, faultfinder, sceptic and much more if any will not be hurting as the unwarranted and wild invocations that was made after the memorable win.

Driving back home through the revelry on the road I felt that at last we have something rightfully worthy to exult and  relish amidst the money laundering and sleaze that this country has come to be known for. And the din of that realization will take a while to settle down or be eclipsed. Until then, “Go India Go…..”!

Commonsense

I tried a few times to be inspired, ha, ha! To be motivated, for creativity and imagination to flow forth like the gushing rapids of the mighty rivers, consigning boulders fallen eons ago from exploding stars and  the land around, into awe. I tried, awaited with curiosity, but in vain! And kip engulfed me at all such instances, mastering my senses and physique pushing me gently into sanguine comfort and gay abandon. To wake up at dawn, an ordinary mortal more conscious of one’s limitation  Nature assigned. I tried for those moments of hallucination that great men of letters and art are alleged to have underwent, triggering their imagination and lay down in words, and visuals that we commoners devour, enjoy, cherish and fantasize.

Absinthe was consumed by Somerset Maugham. Did that help him in his literary exploits? Did the “Moon and six pence” evolve out of the hallucinations Absinthe might trigger? It is alleged that Lewis Carol had his moments of freakish fantasies. And “Alice in Wonderland” was the offshoot of such bouts. I could not find in my brief reading of his biography that he was assisted externally in his fantastic imaginative creations. Eric Clapton’s affairs with Vodka are too fearsome to look into. I wonder if the spirit stimulated him to be creative or if it was intimidating. Nearer home we have had the famous lyricists Vayalar Rama Varma and Kannadasan who it is said had to be enslaved by the spirit to produce creative diamonds, which they did while alive. The late John Abraham was one such who had to be influenced by external stimulants and the late poet Ayappan. Yes indeed the films and the poems that were created by them were too powerful for it to be the bizarre work of intoxicants.

And it happened the inspiration arrived and dawned as realization. Sitting back one night after a few glasses of whiskey, it was vivid, “and the moral of that is—Be what you would seem to be—or, if you’d like it put more simply—never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.” (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

PESTICIDES,FERTILIZERS,PLASTICS, ALCOHOL & airlines

World over governments and countries have understood the importance of sustainable development and the dangers of environmentally retrograde actions. And many countries have started to react positively to environmental depletion. But unfortunately that is not the case in India, be it the various governments that occupy positions both in the states and at the center.

If nuclear power plants  are killers that become infamous through the wide barrage of intense publicity it receives through various mediums, pesticides used in agriculture and farming are certainly silent and slow killers , but devoid of the sheen and the gruesome glamour atomic energy possess...

The foremost responsibility of any government in a democratic political system is the betterment of the populace. But in contrast we have in this country governments and political parties who are intent in destroying the life of its citizens and bequeath gloom for posterity. The greatest misfortune people of India would have is the very governments they elect through suffrage, acting against their interest by lobbying and ensuring free hand for fertlisers and pesticide conglomerates.

Vijay Mallya will find a place of prominence amongst the top five industrialist and billionaires of India. He is a member of the upper house of parliament .Indeed the majority of our parliamentarians are millionaires, felons, rapists, thugs, murderers and convicts. While Vijay Mallya adorns the elite billionaire club of industrialists in the parliament it is also a known and not much spoken matter that he is also the don of industries and commercial ventures that  defraud and rob people off their health, wealth , wellbeing and also make exorbitant margins as profit, thereby.

Vijay Mallaya is the largest manufacturer and seller of alcohol in the world. He is the largest manufacturer and distributor in India and to poor third world countries pesticides as dangerous as Endosulfan.He is also the largest manufacturer of plastics. In fact he is the largest manufacturer and distributor of unsustainable fertilizers and pesticides. And he has the clout to influence and channel government policies and decisions to suit his commercial illusions, and ventures.

The history and evolution of agriculture pesticides has an interesting aspect.

Toxic chemicals were invented and manufactured by both the Allied and Axis forces in the Second World War. They were used at will in ammunitions and shells on the general population and troops of the adversary. Subsequent to the end of the Second World War, the manufacturers of such toxic compounds saw they were to be rendered job less as the use of such poison ceased to exist. In a brainstorming meeting of the manufacturers an idea evolved to use the poisonous chemicals and its variants as agriculture herbicides and pesticides. The powerful group of such people joined forces and marketed the poison as panacea for crop rot. They literally bought various governments and entrenched themselves. And since then, every grain of soil, land and water world over is being slowly rendered infertile and toxic. (Compiled and translated from Mathurbhumi Weekly)

Agent Orange is the code name of one such herbicide and defoliant used by the USA as a part of its herbicidal defoliate progarmme in the Vietnam War. According to the Vietnamese authorities 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in the death or maiming of 4, 00, 000, and 5, 00,000 children born with birth defects. During a phase of ten year span of the Vietnam War the US military sprayed 8, 00, 00,000 liters of chemical herbicides in Vietnam, Cambodia and the former Laos. The intent was to defoliate the natural forest cover and rural dwellings and eliminating the food cover for the guerillas. This was also aimed at depriving the rural population of life in the country side and forces them to run for cover to the urban areas occupied by the US. Thereby depriving the Vietnamese guerrillas’ chance for base and support. The genesis of the Agent Orange had agricultural research. In the course of a research on the usefulness of a chemical compound in shortening the grain bearing span of Soya, scientist stumbled upon the fact that the chemical can defoliate crops. This was adopted by the US military to concoct a horrendous herbicide.

Imagine the revenue big chemical, fertilizer and pesticide companies will harvest and are continuing to harvest through dumping of toxic pesticides on the farming community and as deadly chemicals inside weaponry. Easier for them because human conflict is unremitting like human blunders and myopia.

                                                              Coffee Maker

And to compliment these endeavors of the business class, the poor mans’, labourers and tillers party the CPI ( Marxist) have made a fascinating inexplicable turn around and  have begun lobbying for genetically modified crops.

Scripted in the USA- " Thou shall be liable"

This is something that may come up in Wikileaks a few years from now.

Scene -1

The Ministry of public health and safety Government of Japan, Tokyo.

Bureaucrats and the cabinet minister are huddled around the conference table. Officials from the Ministry of energy are also standing around with devastated looks. The camera zooms into the middle aged man seated at the head of table. He is wearing a black suit with gold crested buttons. He is the only person at the crowded table who seems to be relaxed and gay.

The camera cuts and moves to focus the huge video screen at the far corner.

Scene -2 to interlay with scene 1

And it is the General Electric HQ in Connecticut USA

GE officials are cloistered in the brain storming room of the headquarters and are in video conference via satellite with the ministry officials in Tokyo. The GE officials are all grim faced.

Cut to the cabinet minister in Tokyo

Minister displays an exasperated look

“Gentlemen, to you guys in the USA, we have explained the terrible problem of radiation we have on hand here in Japan. All your lousy reactors have gone broke and are sending out toxic fumes. If this goes like this we will not have any edible blue finned tuna to consign you and no more sushis. No great sharks to slice the fins for soup, and no mink whales to hunt for hamburgers. We are already running out of birds that nest here in Japan and so no more 'bird- nest -soup' for us."..

Cut- to the GE HQ on the video screen

GE chairman beseeching and pleading - “Sir you must understand the stringent quality we maintain in all reactors manufactured here. Though we have dual standards that are adopted one for the reactors to be used here in USA and the other for export to the third world. Shhhh now Sir this is off the record please. But believe me the ones we sent you are better than and not as bad as the ones we are holding for shipments to India”.

Cut- to the Cabinet minister- “Ok CEO now this is getting a bit too far. Let me ask in simple English you guys stole from the English.When can we expect the accident liability compensation from you?”

-Cut to the GE CEO

 Sir, I implore you, please you must accept a reduced level of compensation. You see like the General Motors we are just about limping back from economic crisis. And a hefty compensation claim will put us out. You see my friend Anderson at the Union Carbide paid only $ 400 million to the blokes who got gassed by his company in Bhopal India. And that as well after twenty odd years!

Cut- Camera zooms into the cabinet minister in Tokyo-

“Look, you stupid, your good old George Bush had ensured that the liability in case of accidents on the reactors you send to India will only be pea nut skins. And that foolish Indian Sardar has signed the dotted line. Why do you fret then? You can add some of the liability you will not pay to India into our account. In any case we have an agreement that the USA will clean up the mess should it ever happen. You know that”.

Cut- camera zooms in to the video screen- 

The CEO displays a face of relief. And says grace to George W Bush.       

Musings

Ten meter high wave, traveling as fast as a jet plane. Each carrying tones of water. Ploughing under all and anything in its path; more than 1300 feared dead and tens of thousands unaccounted- missing! Literal decimation of a city. Ships, tugs and yachts berthed in the port twisted and thrown around like nine pins. The power of nature- its fury unleashed in proportions that is nightmarishly frightening for real and leaves one behind in awe. The collateral damage – unceasingly burning oil refineries, multitude of fires, four missing trains, and a catastrophic shutdown of a nuclear power plant! That was the Tsunami, the outcome of a massive seismological shake up down below in the tectonic plates and measuring 8.9 on the Richter. The most massive since the recording of seismic events began in the very early 1900’s.Those were the events that were unleashed in the past week in the Japanese costal town. Imagine a few such earth quakes can unleash with inconceivable abundance, forces that can literally wipe out the “Lord of all that he surveys- Man”.

A few years ago a similar cataclysm saw hundreds of thousand being swept down under by gushing sea water in the Tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean states.

Time and again, what more does Nature have to exhibit in blunt  terms and tell us, “Man you are an insignificant bit of star dust and do not matter in my scheme of things. You are not the cog in the wheel that triggers the sun to rise and set, the moon to rise and dazzle in splendour, the oceans to churn, the fishes to festally swim in aura of colors that spellbind. The mighty whales to go distance, the birds, the butterflies, the chameleons, the bees, the crickets, the gregarious little ants and the beasts of the jungle to enhance the grandeur of this world! The seasons to change , the rains to cool, the trees to bloom and fruit, the skies to stay blue, the tempests to beat, the stars to glow and wink! For your decimation can be in a whiff which you may not even notice! Therefore why this audacity, this lordliness, this avarice, this pride, this impulsiveness and false hood? Think,think you are only an aid of the things that are better and necessary for this World to turn around. And a dispensable bit of aid”.

The Tsunami was another instance of Nature imploring man to be just and kind with all that she has  and she owns..Because, for she is not powerless or dead. She can change the world and change it for ever and for good.

 Watching clear midnight skies

suddenly intense storms come alive
showing her rage
as each lightning bolt strikes
Mother Nature no longer sits
idly by

A plink and a plank is heard outside
once she tears up
and starts to cry

Windows rattle
foundations shake
as the roar of her thunder
is heard miles away

Mercy her violence does not show
causing many to scatter
while others are shattered

This mother 
has single handedly 
earned her respect
proving once and for all
a match for no man

---Sherry Lynn

"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.