Death Penalty : Too Little Too Late

So they are being hanged. The judiciary of India gave a "fast track" decision that took 9 months to decide punishment for people who had confessed their crime within days of being caught. People are happy. Serves them right. Justice has been served. Has it?

No it has not. When you are hanged , and your neck can't take the pressure and your spine breaks , it takes seconds before you die. She suffered for forty five minutes. And for fourteen days after that. There was news that she will live and then the next day they said she might die. One day the doctors were hopeful, the next day they had to fly her to Singapore because matters were getting out of hand for even the best medical institution in her country. Her intestines came out in the torture she was put through. That's not rape. That's the kind of heinous horrendous hell no one wishes upon their worst enemy.  Hanging someone is no punishment for this crime.

The 'juvenile' was sane enough to rape a girl and torture her with an iron rod, but he was a kid when it came to justice. What kind of law can't see which situation can be considered worthy of a law's application and which can't be? The upholders of law in the country behave just like the statue you see in court. They can blindly follow rules at best. Nothing more than that.

When the girl's father got to know of the 'juvenile's' punishment, he said, ' its probably why people pray that they don't have a daughter. Atleast they will never have to go through what I am going through.' How heartbroken does a man have to be to say this. We can't even imagine what the family is going through. The death penalty will bring them no solace. They are condemned to hell for life.

This is not justice . This is a joke. Its a mockery of women and the institution called India. Now there will be court appeals and then NGO's will come for their share of the limelight and then who knows, the President might suddenly grow a heart and give an approval to the mercy plea. I beg to whoever has the power to influence this decision, do not worsen the family's pain. Snapping the rapists' necks is already the bare minimum you can do for Nirbhaya. Don't spit on her grave. There should be no mercy.

I have been a confident girl all my life. I went out alone, wherever I went. Never needed a chaperon. But this incident shook me. I haven't been able to be that confident after that. I pray that my sisters and all my friends whom I love to death are the lucky few who will always be safe. And I will always do that now. Everyday.

Because in India, you need God on your side to be safe. Atleast for now. Let's hope this changes soon.

A very happy Krishna-Janmashtami to us all !!

Its the birthday of the most loved god to have adorned our planet, the naughty and mischievous  Lord Krishna ! Until a few minutes ago, celebrations were in full swing in our hostel . There was music blasting away . Although it bummed me to be sitting here typing away and not being in the thick of it downstairs, I couldn't help but use this time to say this....

Students came out in droves today, ready to let others stand on their shoulders, unified under the single aim of reaching the 'handi' that symbolizes the favourite snack of the beloved Krishna. This entire ritual is  a recreation of how His buddies helped Him steal the jar of  butter when Yashoda wasn't around.
There was water , mud and colour everywhere, there were people everywhere-standing on top of each other, falling, cheering. No one cared about the soiled clothes, the scratches from falling again and again, broken spectacles were cast aside, bruises dusted , friends patted on the back for trying again after falling flat into the ground.
They kept falling and kept coming back. And the cheer kept getting louder each time. It was a strange sense of unity, even those dousing water buckets on the 'gwalas' trying to get at the  'dahi-handi' did not seem like the other side, they cheered the loudest when the 'handi' was finally reached and broken.

Its strange how my mind felt peaceful watching them like this, when people around you are happy it rubs off on you.  This was one moment where there was no animosity towards the one trying to make you fall, they were a part of your celebration when you finally succeeded. Maybe such rituals exist to remind us that no matter what the situation is , if we approach it together we can extract the best out of it and be happy in the process. I have always been a sucker for unity and watching people being merry together is the most beautiful sight in the world. I wish Syria and The United States could have a 'dahi-handi' festival !!

Cheers !

AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED : A REVIEW

Anyone who has read the first two literary masterpieces by Khaled Hosseini  can  identify with this book right from the first word . Al- though it has no connection (except Afghanistan) to the other two books , the characters, their losses, their love and their situations will give you a slight sense of Déjà vu.  
This book has outgrown the war that destroyed Afghanistan. Now the characters are not victims of the war literally, but they have been affected in some way or the other by the aftermath. And the characters , though Afghanis , are globally spread.
But unlike the other two, it lacks that soulful connection to the un- fortunate country, and borders on being a medium of encasing the author’s knowledge about whatever has happened there.
The narrative begins beautifully – the relationship of a little boy with his baby sister, the unconditional love he feels for her, and the brutality of fate that tears them apart. But that’s that. After that, it’s just a gallimaufry of storylines.
Too many plots and too many characters kill the show. And the worst part is that when you finally begin to feel connected with the character , after reading 80-odd pages about who they are and how the war affected them , they are done and won’t return as an important part of the central storyline.
Each buildup is heart-touching in itself.  But their relevance to the main characters and their story is lost. Makes the reader wonder what the point was in knowing that character so deeply.
Although its still light years ahead of its contemporary fiction novels in terms of the attention to detail, and emotional content, its still very poor competition to its predeces- sors and in all fairness, stands no- where in comparison to A Thou- sand Splendid Suns.  
This book would have been a treat had Abdullah and Pari been the only focus of the book. But as the spotlight shifted from them, the mountains were lost and all that remained were the barren bland plains with nothing much to keep a reader hooked.
In a nutshell, a good but disap- pointing read.

A Beauty Salon left me wondering about Life

Yesterday i was sitting in the waiting room of a plush beauty salon in Ahmedabad, getting utterly frustrated at the human suffering of 'having to wait' for every service imaginable. When i was done moping , i started looking around for the sole purpose of having something to do. My eyes fell upon a little boy who was sitting in a swiveling chair  , getting a hair cut. But his expression was akin to that which someone has before receiving capital punishment. He was close to tears , flinching each time the scissors or the hairdresser's hands touched his neck. His face looked so miserable that i felt an instant rush of adoration for him, and i gave him a smile assuming my friendly expression would calm him a little.
Result, you ask? He freaked out and started looking in the other direction. Maybe if he had not been so scared , he would have pointed to me and asked "Ghar me baap bhai nahi hai kya!!Ghoorti kaiko hai!!" Anyway, I felt mortified and stopped staring, but i still kept glancing at him maintaining a bravado, holding back tears, flinching, nodding, flinching...

And then suddenly, his face broke into the most beautiful smile. He beamed and waved to someone behind me, and started chatting animatedly with the hairdresser, the actions his hands were making lead me to assume he was saying " give me a Mohawk, dude!"

I was baffled, I turned around to see who had suddenly turned his day upside down (or downside-up, if you can get the wordplay). And I saw a lady in a saree, adjusting her grocery bag on her shoulder, smiling at the boy. One look at her features and i was in no doubt whatsoever, mommy had arrived.

Why do the people we love are the only ones who make this world worth living, worth getting up in the morning everyday, inspiring us to do something with our lives  . They are the core of our universe, the reason our faces break out into sunny smiles on a frequent basis.

Such a smile would never be brought to your face by a paycheck, however fat that may be, unless you think of some dear one's wish that you may now  fulfill using that amount.
Makes us wonder, what should be the priority in life? I am living away from my family for 3 years now, trying to make it as an adult in the world, trying to become someone they can be proud of. I am old enough to be able to control my emotions in public, and yet it is I, who most regularly breaks into tears and says " ghar jana hai".

Crying about your blood-sucking boss, or about  the market scenario that is ever so gloomy, or the fact that sometimes you can't figure out what is going on with your career plans, whenever you feel life is getting out of control and you had rather it wasn't your life; close your eyes and think about the faces that pop up. In the web of your life adorning some wall of God's office, you will find a lot of interconnected threads, their lives are your life and they are a reason you should still thank God everyday. Those who still have at least one person they can't live without, can't stop smiling thinking about; they are the Chosen Lucky Few.

Prioritize everyday. Everything else goes wrong because God knows he has put a good maintenance team in place to sort the wreck that is you. But about maintaining your relationships, He says "Do it yourself, Sucker. There is no spoon-feeding here !"