They deserve to be shot

If you ask me personally, people who hunt for pleasure should be shot just to give them a taste of how it feels to be at the receiving end of a bullet. Both Dick Cheney and his friend deserve this.

Getting up early

For the past two weeks waking up to the rays of sun had become like reaching the station as you see the last train ebbing away. It kind of makes me sad sometimes — to find gray and incandescent light caressing the walls of the facing building, and the long shadows that nonchalantly segue into the approaching darkness.

So today when I got to get up a bit early (late by the world’s standard, of course) and told my maid to open the balcony door of my room, the whole room lit up like a chimerical manifestation.

I’ve been working more; and I’ve been sleeping more. I don’t know if it is as a consequence, but my normal sleep duration used to be 4-5 hours at a stretch. In fact I think I used to sleep the least in my family. These days I sleep for 8-9 hours. My work is improving due to this because I work better at night. My reading and writing is worsening because I have no time left for them. Not only that, I end up spending a very “packaged” time with Vasudha and Alka. I hold Vasudha when Alka has to do something, and I sit with them while watching TV and exercising.

There are I think 6 books lying in the room, unread: 2 by Ruskin Bond, a book called Freakonomics, then there is one on my table that I’m currently reading one page a day, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, another one is Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie. There are 2 more I cannot recall right now. I remember once I finished Crime and Punishment in one night: now this feat seems like an inveterate impossibility. OK, I’m exaggerating. I can manage it if I really want it.

There were times when I would greet the dawn with an open book, having spent the entire night reading it. Oh yes, I’ve had my fair share of such dawns, even during my college exams. Instead of solving differential equations I would spend the night before the exam reading this book or that book. I’m a man of habits (ask Alka!). I do certain things only in certain ways. So if I read a book, it has to be a binge of non-stop reading for hours. I cannot read in fragments. Ever since we moved to this new apartment I’ve hardly read the newspaper because I’m used to reading it sitting in a certain manner, and in that manner I cannot sit here. Besides, I haven’t had much time too.

The glimpse of ample sunlight has enlivened my spirits to a great degree. I wish I can manage more days like this.

Another trademark stupidity

An American pharmaceutical company has acquired the trademark of a traditional medicine called “Jeevani”. The medicine was developed by the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) with the help of the native knowledge of the Kani tribes of Kerala. The technology was then transferred to Coimbatore-based Arya Vaidya Pharmacy so that it could be massed produced and marketed more professionally. A novel aspect of the deal was the profit sharing agreement: the tribals were to get a share of the royalty that could have then been used for their welfare.

Instead, as it often happens, an American company has maroad bhenji by obtaining the trademark. Now, only the officials know how an American company could come here and obtain the trademark of a traditional medicine that the tribals might have been using for centuries.

The only loss is the royalty I think, because the indigenous people cannot be stopped from using the medicine.

A brief background on the cartoon row

Here’s how everything happened in the Prophet’s cartoon controversy

Potty ponderings

I was looking at that corpulent man and wondering how he performs the daily morning ritual with such a massive butt. There is a reason I thought that way.

In this new apartment, the rims of the toilet seats have a very small circumference. This was something I noticed first most while preparing the apartment before shifting with all our things. You see, I have this habit of peeing and pooing at the same time. No, by calling it a ‘habit’ I mitigate the severity of the issue — sometimes it is beyond the frontiers of control and then from habit it metamorphoses into an apocalyptic urgency.

Back in Sarita Vihar we had broader toilet seats so that while remaining seated I could simply push my you-know-what down and do the needful without having to acrobatically twist and turn my pelvic area. Here in the new apartment there is no space to insert my you-know-what. The only thing I can do is pee in a hurry while standing and then turn around quickly and sit down before the call of thicker nature unleashes itself. But as you may all know, sometimes there is not just enough time. Both the needs become so overwhelmingly demanding that they have to be met with simultaneously. Although Alka often suggests that at least in one washroom we should get a bigger seat installed, but so far I’ve been managing, somehow. The method is too gross to share publicly.

So I wonder how that man manages. He definitely got the toilet seat changed to some extra-large size.

On terrorists and kidnappings

Just found this website on Daniel Pearl. He was beheaded by the terrorists in 2002 and the shocking video of the beheading was distributed over the Internet. You can read more about him at this link.

Yesterday on TV they were broadcasting the images of another kidnapped journalist, Jill Carroll.

One may argue that both were American journalists and America being in war with certain countries/tribes such things are normal. After all civilians die in war. They died in Afghanistan and they are dying in Iraq. For the Americans it is a distant war. Bombs are not falling upon their cities and their malls are not being ruined. Yes, there armed forces are fighting and dying, but still, there is a big difference between fighting with a bordering country and fighting with a country on a distant continent. Another may argue that a battle area is anyway an insane area and if journalists go there they know about the hazards involved. This all makes sense.

But beheading people and relaying their videos? Hanging the headless corpses on the roadside poles? Taking hostage school children and keeping them stripped, thirsty and hungry? Are they warriors or sick perverts? I’m an animal lover so I cannot even compare them to animals. Whoever defends them must be a lunatic.

I think there should be stricter laws to deal with such kidnappings. One option could be, killing the terrorist for whom the kidnapping has been done. Remember Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar? These were the Taliban terrorists who were released after an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked and taken to Kandhar. The same terrorists later on executed massive terrorist strikes. Similarly, the Indian government released 5 hardcore terrorist in exchange for Mufti Mohammed Saeed’s daughter’s safe release a few years ago. So kidnapping people to get their men released is their favourite modus operandi. Immediately dispatching the prisoner would defeat the whole purpose of kidnapping. There is already an international law that deems the kidnapped people dead. So if we can cope with our civilians dying such terrible deaths, how ruthless can it get if we just put a bullet into a terrorist’s head or give him or her a lethal injection?

OK, I know it cannot be done because that would mean we are just playing their games. After all they want us to turn into something grotesque, like them.

About feeding street children

Mridula writes about how she prefers feeding the street children than buying an expensive accessory for herself. Since I know her personally, I know her intention and therefore this post is not a comment on her post. I must re-iterate that instead of filling the already stuffed coffers of a big company it is always better to feed a hungry child, or a hungry animal. These are my personal thoughts on gestures like these.

I know logic shouldn’t be attached to everything — we do some things just because we feel good, they leave us touched, they turn our soul lambent and for a few fleeting moments the asperity of the world seems a bit assuaged. We feel like a Samaritan. Consciously or unconsciously we derive solace from the fact that, OK, we’re not the rag pickers, we are not the beggars. It’s awfully scary to think that just one alteration in our gene configuration and we could have exchanged places.

And this act of charity — the word sounds clichéd to me — makes sense: even if it doesn’t solve much purpose, it’s far better than doing nothing. I think the thought process that goes on — at some places, not all — is much more important than the act of giving. You cannot usher a revolution by merely feeding a few urchins, but the sensitization in you is nothing short of a revolution. After all, in our busy lives, who has the time to stop and look at the teeming beggars and homeless persons? They only make the city look dirty, don’t they? Even with such a busy life if you have the emotional serenity to stop by and feed a few beggars, even if those beggars take you for a fool, and if you are not doing it to feel Mother Teressaic, I think it does something to you. You feel you are not just a pest. You feel you are not merely driven by your lust for more and more and more. You feed your soul when you feed someone other than yourself and your loved ones, may it be animals; may it be humans.

But small differences do manifest in the surrounding world too. For instance Mridula says, just after she had bought stuff to the rag-picker children, a driver spat near her feet and then immediately apologized — he must have seen her feeding those kids. This is big deal coming from a class that is ever so ready to spit on your face. Even if the change was transient, it could have triggered a butterfly effect; who knows? So somewhere a difference was made. I’m not very enthusiastic about regularly feeding street children because it only makes them expect the same thing from others and given their mental make up very soon they can turn malevolent. I’d rather invest the same amount in the education of someone who wants to study but cannot afford. In fact this gives me an idea. The government, or some citizen initiatives, or some NGOs, should start a scheme where the parents are paid money to send their wards to school instead of making them beg or work in hazardous factories. I know many people can easily turn this into a money-earning business — for instance, paying a small fee to the teacher so that even without attending the school they can earn attendance and then send the kids for begging and working. But if there is a will, there is certainly a way, and the easiest task in the world is to be a naysayer.

Progressive China

A newspaper editor in China was brutally beaten to death for reporting on corruption.

As I had mentioned earlier I was reading The World Is Flat by Thomas L Friedman. Somewhere in the book the author has mentioned that India’s democracy sometimes acts as a stumbling block for India’s speedy progress. He then talks about China where the government doesn’t have to ask the people even to implement reforms. There, even some reforms are dreconian.

Even if progress is slow in India, I think we’re far better than China. Our democracy is vibrant, and no matter how murky our politics and bureaucracy gets, there is something unique here. At least we can express ourselves and our voices — whoever among us can vociferate — can be heard. Information is not blocked as it is in China.

The horror genre

Last Monday we saw The Ring and this Monday we saw The Dawn of the Dead. I guess they are showing horror movies every Monday on HBO.

The Ring was quite nice. Horror movies no longer scare me, but this movie had a character and at some places they have really tried to scare the audience. The video that they play in the movie seems like a true nightmare of non-linear visuals. Whoever sees the video dies within seven days. So there is this female protagonist who doesn’t just wait to die. She tries to unravel the mystery and go to the root of the curse. Her quest leads her to a cursed teenage girl who is out to kill anybody who does not share her story with someone else. The scary part was when the girl performs a The Demons act and comes out of the TV screen.

The Dawn of the Dead was a poor inspiration of The Night of the Living Dead — a classic in this genre. But it was a well-made movie, with a decent cast and a pace that breaks nowhere. All of a sudden one morning people turn into zombies, and as it happens in every zombie movie (yawn yawn yawn), whomever they bite turns into a zombie too. Except for the main cast of the movie and some other dispensable characters, very soon the entire civilization turns into swarms of zombies. The movie had a storyline, and unlike other lesser movies, it was not merely a litany of mindless blood and gore.

I like this genre as a fiction writing idea. I think it is very challenging to scare people by the written word. I have never read any of Stephen King’s novels so I don’t know whether they scare you or not, but as a teenager when I read The Hound of the Baskervilles I found some parts scary, especially when Doyle describes Sir Hugo standing over a hill during one dark night.

Follow up — Is this outrage valid?

Mridula on her blog has posted quite an insightful post on intolerance towards freedom of expression. Now, there is freedom of expression and there is “freedom of expression”. You must visit the link — through her blog — that showcases some of the paintings of M.F. Hussain our deities he has graced with.

I’ll be frank here; I’m not a religious person. For me religion doesn’t matter. For all that I care, the ummm… can be shown copulating with the ummm…, but why unnecessarily hurt people’s feelings? Hussein’s paintings are nothing but provocations considering how he has painted the Muslim women. Why can’t he paint a Purani Dilli Ki Nazma flying kite in her birthday suit? Do his creative juices only flow at the expense of other religions’ gods and goddesses?