Disturbing Whispers

Farewell sunrise                                     

Adieu sunset

Though you shaln't plead

Am no more drawn to your velvet

I care no more for

All your silver,

The gold's glitter,

Nor the beats of hearts' shiver

Hold your chords

Whisper not aloud

Decades and countless

Futile lullabies later, 

Lastly found dreams

Worth sleeping for

Photo credit: Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

Spine Massage

                                                                               

           A lot is often spoken about ideals that should exist within us and which should command our actions. Almost immediately when most confront the world and its myriad tests, these standards are effortlessly sidestepped in order to remain afloat among the several faceless suspended in the shallow stream of convenience and comfort. Philosophy has tumbled to a point where being unconcerned about events of seminal significance and being selfish are considered as sure ways to ensure personal peace. It is however my firm belief and experience that no matter how smart an approach to evade confrontation and challenges may be, one is eventually bound to run into what he fears and avoids. One can only temporarily delay conflict, if he does not face it and overcome it at the opportune moment. There should therefore be no hesitation in taking up challenges. 

  

         Now it is important to understand that these challenges need not present themselves only in such of ways so as to appear as absolutely relevant. They could equally exist within situations which even if unattended by us would not alter anything material about how we live. Intervening in the commission of a roadside misdemeanour and attempting to prevent the culmination thereof is an apt example because had I not intervened I could have walked ahead into the comfort of my winter quilt deceiving myself into believing that the victim is paying the price of his own 'presumed' misdeeds or that he is living his destiny. On the other hand, my intervention may merely appear as an invisible act, incompetent singularly to leave any ripple in the murky waters of dwindling humanity. But it would in all likelihood represent the conscience of the society of which I'm a member. My interference could be a lead for others in waiting to get involved and when they do, the required message would be sent across to those considering us incapable of resistive action.

          Man may be selfish but he is also capable of exemplary sacrifice. Man may be brutish but he is also gifted with ability of historic kindness. He may be self centred but he is equally capable of being defyingly selfless. Its time we got in touch with these redeeming components of our identity as men, components which have been long tricked into dormancy by an unacceptable contentment discovered in deliberate oblivion of the demise and decline of morality. We can begin by not taking our duties and jobs for granted and by being examples which inspire honesty and dedication among our successors, no matter how pathetic or monumental we may perceive our jobs to be. Let us not only raise our voice against oppression and injustice but also act against it, notwithstanding their irrelevance to our immediate surroundings. Let's be honest. An honest way of life is probably the hardest one in today's time but if it's lived with conviction and moral courage then one can live with dignity and without any regrets. Let us inspire others. 

          It has always been my biggest fear to be called imbecile or spineless. I have myself uttered these words for people who did not speak up, act or stand up when I thought they should have argued, fought or resisted in times of dire need. Therefore I make every attempt whenever possible to matter in situations where otherwise I would not have mattered. There's invariably stiff opposition every time against my endeavour, but I intercede nevertheless. I have been called 'show off', reminded of being unrequited and made fun of, especially by those who did not say a word out of fear of being wrong. I have even been bullied. But in such times these words which I'd read long back in a story, have kept me stubborn in my resistance  -  “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”

Rain & Reminiscence

      

                                                                                                        

                 This happened neither in the recent past nor so far back in time as to mess up my confidence to accurately narrate its unfolding. I was seated in the office car, speeding back home on the NH-5 connecting Cuttack - Bhubaneswar after a pretty elaborate second phase of training. Belligerent clouds had begun to gather from all corners and overwhelm the sky. Rain kissed breeze from distant fields had started to blow across the plains flanking the freeway. I rolled down the car window panes letting the refreshing zephyr enliven my spirit. I was in no mood to not relish the ambience. Cloud gates flung open and in a matter of moments, all one could see, hear and feel was the rain. It appeared as if the clouds above led a quest for invading the lands below. The whole visible terrain around me stood engulfed by incessant pouring. The parched earth stood happily vanquished at the hands of million soldiers unleashed by its heavenly adversary.

     On the wheels, Bijay strained himself to focus on the traffic ahead due to the dwindling vision. He rolled up the car window panes to bar the rain from making its way inside the car. It caused an instant quiet within. Bijay and me could almost hear each others' pounding hearts fused with the rhythm of relentless rain beating on the car's roof. Daunted by the watery - windy onslaught, I felt incapable of thinking, especially when monster - sized trucks overtook our car or vice versa, our borders mingling beyond distinction, making frightful consequences imminent. I fidgeted in my seat. 

              Through the thick pane, further thickened by ceaseless hammering of mad drops and wild wind, my eyes caught the hazy glimpse of a gang of college lads mounted on their motorbikes, riding in tandem with us. They were a group of eight. Some had cared to put on their helmets and the rest must have thought doing so to be a disgrace to their adolescence . They confronted the torrent with such disdain that for a moment I was embarrassed thinking about my own fear. I rolled down my side of the window pane slightly and caught their act clearly. The boys were purposefully enjoying what many were escaping. The sight took me few years back in time when it was not unfamiliar for me and my friends doing what they seemed to be relishing today. We too had let million raindrops spray on our faces, oblivious of the shock and awe of bystanders. I almost sensed the fragrance of the raindrops on my own face, felt the pinch of mad drops crashing on my temple, recalling the lasting tingle of the watery bombardment. Recalling how we used to halt at tattered cottage tea stalls by the highway and warm ourselves up with cups of piping hot beverage indulging in pointless blabber with strangers sharing our shelter. 

           Remembering those times filled me with a strange sense of vulnerability. Born out of the realization that such times have long passed me by. That now it could be only a figment of my memory, nothing more. That now I could only stretch my hand and cause nothing but ripples in the mirage that lures me, bereft of any capacity to actually hold what it shows. I get carried away by my weakness for escapades provoked to embark thereupon by those to whom the moments now belong. One out of the group caught me staring and returned a warm smile. I beamed back. They sped away leaving me split between alternate dimensions in that very moment. Partly in my present where I sat captive to mundane obligations and imposed concerns and partly with them, who though rode at a distance of couple of yards were actually eons away in time.

        I have since reminisced the experience for months. Everytime I do, I am brimmed with an urgent urge to act. I calm my raging spirit, negotiating through an adult mind, telling myself that no matter what I may do, I'd not sense the unadulterated delight that I once knew, without concern or worry. May be I am fringing on pessimism. A dose of life may cure me.

Shades of Love

Love is not only

When we hold on

It lives too, when

In time we let go

Love isn't only 

When we show,

It's alive too when

Furtive tears flow

Love isn't only when 

Together we could be 

It's love too, when 

In redeeming them, we split

Love isn't only when it's said to be,
It's there in the unsaid quiet 
Of hopeful eyes and the still of lips 
Born of ages of waiting mute

Love is in giving up

When right it is so to do

It's in failing with pride

When a chance is all you got

It's in burning to save

In suffocating to revive

To deliver the 'one' from pain

Gifting your soul as token

No lover ever measured love

Nor weighed it in earthly scale

To each his heart sang that note

That's how he knew that in love he fell

Does Crime Heed Age ?

      The perceived inadequacy in the sentencing of the delinquent juvenile in the Nirbhaya case has provoked debates on the strength of juvenile laws of our country. There is pervasive unrest and non reconciliation with the fact that the most brutal perpetrator of the abhorrent offence was sentenced for a period of only three years. First things first. The ire of laymen in the present scenario need not be misdirected towards the Juvenile Justice Board presided over by the Principal Judicial Magistrate, which handed down the sentence to the guilty. This is for the obvious reason that the Board had no room to interpret the sentencing afforded by the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act (JJ Act) in any more suitable manner than it has now. In fact the Board has handed down the maximum sentence that the law could afford under the circumstances.  

          I read a reported tweet of Ms. Kiran Bedi stating "Courts need not be mechanical robots. We make laws and then interpret them not to be enslaved but do justice to victims too". While the rhetoric of the statement is by and large not incorrect, it is delusional of one to expect that Courts will enhance the sentencing of any convict beyond what the law enables it to award. This is because the law of our land mandates that penal (criminal) laws are to be interpreted exactly as they are codified since they determine someone's liberty or the taking away of it. The Courts cannot invent or manoeuvre sentencing for a proven criminal to suit popular expectations. It is however another thing that the law itself may be inadequate to dole out an appropriate response of the State against a shocking crime as the one in the present case. In the Nirbhaya case, the juvenile was charged by the investigators, to have been the most barbaric in the gang while committing the heinous crime. It is yet to be ascertained from the Board’s order as to what extent his barbarism has been established as charged. Be that as it may, once the accused has been found guilty, what has added insult to injury is the fact that he was only a few months younger than being eighteen years old, for which the law enabled him to be treated as a juvenile. The circumstances of the 'Nirbhaya' case force one to wonder whether the JJ Act must come to the rescue of such a person who is capable of partaking in a brutal gang rape exhibiting actions of the most diabolic, inhuman and ghastly order. 

             This is where I have a suggestion to make. The Parliament need not completely turn the JJ Act on its head. What it can do is, keeping in mind situations where the accused displays sufficient maturity of action at par with adults, make room in the law for Courts to treat the actions of a juvenile as ones deserving consideration like those of adults. It is well known how the Hon'ble Supreme Court has passed a series of rulings to determine the broad and near exhaustive principles for considering as to whether a death sentence is to be awarded in any particular case. The Legislature of our country must take a leaf from that book and introduce appropriate provision in the JJ Act which would make it possible for Courts to delineate between cases where a juvenile's actions smack of an immature display of choices whilst committing ordinary offences and cases where except for the mere fact that the accused is days away from exceeding his juvenility, there is nothing ordinary about his alleged actions. In other words the law must enable adjudicators to deal differently with juveniles accused of ordinary offences and those accused of heinous crimes. Once such a provision is in place the Courts will have the handle to deal with cases like that of the juvenile in the Nirbhaya case, in an appropriate manner. The Legislature could either enable the Courts to treat the case of the latter category as per the stringency of IPC or the particular provision could also prescribe higher punishment in the JJ Act itself. 

But the discussion would be incomplete without restating of the observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter as to whether the in case of heinous crimes like murder and rape etc., the juveniles should be tried under normal laws. The Court observed inter alia that :

“If what has come out from the reports of the Crime Records Bureau is true, then the number of crimes committed by juveniles comes to about 2% of the country’s crime rate "

“In recent years, there has been a spurt in criminal activities by adults, but not so by juveniles....In the absence of any proper data, it would not be wise on our part to deviate from the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, which represent the collective wisdom of Parliament”

While admitting that there could be exceptions where a child in the age group of sixteen to eighteen may have developed criminal propensities, which would make it virtually impossible for him/her to be reintegrated into mainstream society, the Court said,

“but such examples are not of such proportions as to warrant any change in thinking, since it is probably better to try and re-integrate children with criminal propensities into mainstream society, rather than to allow them to develop into hardened criminals, which does not augur well for the future.”

        In all fairness I must admit that while the observations of the Hon'ble Apex Court are true to the vision and the object of the JJ Act when read with the statistics quoted by it, it would be fitting to the need of our times that the Legislature took care of the expectations of the victim and his / her family from our judicial process while considering the adequacy of the JJ Act.