“I say, sleepy head wake up. It is past the Brahma Muhoortham when you should be doing your daily dozen and a half hour mind cleansing meditation.” said Mahabali, as a pointer to his annual parole from Hades when he makes a straight appearance in Kerala homes on Onam day. But for some reason which I have not tried to fathom so far, he always informs me of his travel schedule.
“M.Bali, did the BSNL cut your mobile connection because some fool in its office did not send the monthly bill to your Bank for Electronic clearance? They have done it several times to me and I have now opted for Prepaid levy. Make sure that those in The Airport of Hell clear you of A-H1N1, before you board the plane. As otherwise, you may be detained by our chaps, who may try to emulate the Newark Customs hounds who dared to detain the world emperor Shah Rukh Khan for two hours! It is worse than what the 3-foot giant Vamana did to you. By the way, Mahabali, our Mythical story writers in the compilation “Bhagavatham” seem to have bungled in listing Vishnu Avatara.
“Chronologically, Parasuraman threw his axe from the Arabian sea and being not a trained thrower, the axe fell not far from the coast and that area became the smallest state in what now we call India. So, by the time the sixth avatara Parasuraman wielded his axe, the Fifth avatara, namely Vamana, was, with his bundle of mischief, roaming the country looking for recruits for hell. I am wondering whether two avataras of Vishnau could be running riot at the same time! Quite a screwed up picture of our good old Vishnu. So, until Asianet comes up with a clarificatory serial, I shall nurse my doubts about you too. All these are based on the assumption that Mahabali was ruling over the strip of land created by Parasuraman, and not the entire sub-continent of India.”
“I had no truck with the rest of India. Nobody but Malayalees celebrate my annual visit. Only Kerala is called ‘God’S Own Country’ even now. Imagine what it must have been when I ruled! That’s why the crooks ordered poor Vamana to send me packing to Hades. The Talibans trace their origin to that conspiracy. I heard that food prices are chasing your Chandrayaan…”
“Chickungunya and Swine flu have settled down there because they seem to love the climate and the greenery. Let us have frugal non-splashy lunches.”
“Poor Achu must be feeling like me, for he is surrounded by minions of the Vamana mould. I will miss Murali, a top class actor whom I had patted when he won the National award… That’s life. Why don’t you sit back and leave law to lesser hands to monkey with?“
“Well spoken Mahabali. I have another 49 years to go before incineration.at 125. If the Bar Council with the blessings of the ever charitable government,gives me a TEN LAKH- rupee retirement purse under the Advocate’s Welfare Fund Act, I will quit tomorrow and spend the rest of my life listening to sweet bird calls. Come again, friend.”
H1N1 is the new democratic health label for the prince and pauper in mother India, which but for the label would have nothing of prominence during Manmohan’s second innings to write home about. The sane folk go about with a nose and mouth mask, which is supposed to be an impregnable wall to keep out the virus and the seedy ones use it as a mask against prying eyes, while the good ones welcome it as a godsend to keep down jaw motion.
thanks to tukatuka for the image
Lord Elmsworth of Blandings castle who loved his pig Empress more than any human being would have wrung the neck of anyone who spoke ill of his pigdom apart from suing Ghulam Nabi Azad for the calumny heaped on this natural street cleaner but for which our streets would be overflowing with our democrats’ dung. That is one of the many injustices meted out by the human tyrants to this unpaid civil servant who should be a model for Indian municipalities manned by crooks.
“A year ago, the chicken was the fall bird that allegedly caused chicken flu, and millions of them were culled. Bengal became chickens’ hell and as a result, fools easily weaned away from Red rule voted Mamata and her brood into Parliament. How unjust for the birds!” That was Taliban.
“Well Hello Tali, hundreds of broiler chicken farmers turned beggars and some survived on rotten eggs, much in demand by the lawyer community as missiles, during lawyer-Police wars. But your country’s economy can’t be dependent on more than a dozen such wars a year though the legal system can go to hell”, said Masud.
“Did you hear Musharraf on CNN-IBN justify his Emergency that binned 60 judges for an aperitif before swallowing what passed for democracy in Pakistan?”
“I never miss the Karan show, especially after Jaya gave him a bash a couple of years ago… thanks avinashsonee
Karan had the last laugh on Pervez when the Supreme Court rubbished his Emergency, and he must now be blushing like a beetroot with H1N1.”
“Hey, what’s cooking?” David Miliband asked Michelle, when the bacony smell wafted in through the open window of the Oval Office as the two leaders were coalescing their brain cells on how to save the world from the economic hell dug by their predecessors.
“Must be our Captain Cook’s special for you David… When we visited No. 10, recently, your wife spoke about the good old days of British life when the husband worked himself to a froth to bring home the kingly breakfast of eggs and bacon. She even quoted from the marvelous books of P. G. Wodehouse who had the champion pig, ‘Empress’ of Blandings Castle as the heroine of a number of his immortal novels. I had casually mentioned it to our Bacon specialist.”
“But Michelle, tongues have started wagging that Barack’s immediate ‘change’ in his first 100-day reign is Swine–virus, that has traveled faster than light and flattened people even in Hong Kong, please ask your C. C. to take it off the stove, as we were planning to eat only a banana.”
“These animals are so queasy that they can without intending or knowing it, make mankind reel in terror imagining that animal virus, not atomic weapons will wipe out man from the world… Poor old Bush not only had to contend with the pestilence called Osama, after 9/11, but Anthrax and the mad cow virus. It is a wonder that he retained his sanity, fighting so many seen and unseen enemies, 8 long years.”
“Then came the bird flu all over the world… Millions of them were culled from the flock and killed. Chicken farms went into liquidation and many farm owners committed suicide. This proves the saying that one shouldn’t put all eggs in the same basket…”
“Now that Gordon has withdrawn the British forces from Iraq, Barack will stand out like a sore thumb, whereas he actually voiced the Americam thought that we had no business to be there and if elected he would bring home not only the bacon, but the armed forces in record time. When Hillary was getting ready to do a bit of public relationship towards that end, the stupid Taliban has gobbled Swat valley in Pakistan and, encouraged by the seeming vacuuity of the non-government in Pakistan, the bearded animals in human form, have started another animal scare at the borders of India, which fortunately haave people who can think before rushing to their nuclear arsenal. Most of India’s leaders do not eat beef or pork - the patented duller of brain. In governance and war, it is not brawn that counts anymore, but BRAIN in capitals… That’s why India survived the incursion of so many hordes of savages. The new prime minister will surely be a vegetarian there… All right, I shall feed our new water dog ‘BO’ the pork banquet that was meant for your sensitive stomach. We are turning vegetarian right away… That’s the first ‘CHANGE’ we are implementing, out of the many we promised.”
An orphaned and mentally challenged girl of 20, raped by a human animal, while losing her virginity entered the portals of maternity, with none to look after her and the forbidden fruit when it ripens to enter the world of misery, terrorism and politics, a condition that impelled the ‘The National Trust For Mentally Retarded’ to touch the Supreme humanistic nerve of the Supreme Court for retention of the foetus which, though forcibly planted, is God given as all life is, and as such protected by law.
Tanu Bedi, the Trust’s counsel, through emotional plea thawed the ice in the trinity’s judicial approach to the sanctity of human life, exhibited earlier in other cases where PILs for abolition of death sentence, the only remaining shame in Indian criminology, were dismissed, and made the Bench comprising, the C.J., Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B. S. Chauhan, saviors of the unborn child mothered by a mentally retarded girl and fathered in crime, by a fiend, the attributes not sullying the right of the foetus to complete the quarantine in the womb before sliding forth into this paradise on earth.
This judgment should be a precursor to the abolition of death sentence in India, just as a slap in the face of the rest of the world where a daily dossier of hundreds of people killed in terrorism, aggression and war, piles up to fill libraries of annihilation. I salute the life-saving Bench and the Petitioner TRUST and TANU but wish to enter a caveat: all rape victims SHOULD BE MEDICALLY PREVENTED FROM CONCEIVING IF THE CRIME IS REPORTED BEFORE CONCEPTION IS POSSIBLE.
Amen.
Link to further news stories here.
I rang up learned friend Balan in Kochi for information on the retirement purse to lawyers there under that state’s Lawyers Welfare Fund administered by the Kerala Bar council.
“You fellows throw rotten eggs and stones at the drop of a button on your black coat, but do nothing about securing something for the evening of your life. ONE LAKH, after 50 or 60 years of mouthing ‘My Lord’ a million times, is your PURSE for the rest of your life! I pity you. I almost pitched my tent in Madras, but my second choice came good,“ Balan said.
“Your old age has not affected your flatulence. I wanted to know how much ransom the Kerala government paid you to get rid of you.”
“Oh that! We pitched for 5 lakh and for two years the file was shuttle cocked between the Bar Council and the Law Ministry and finally a compromise 3 was settled. A bunch of grey haired veterans took the Three Lakh alms and have entered the haven of Vaanaprastha. I retired and put the money in the names of my three children, so that by the time they want to call it a day and retire, the money would have grown ten times, if Pranab Mukherjee’s successors don’t monkey with the economy.“
“That is mighty decent of the Kerala government which is one up on the others in gerontology. Though our chief and Achu are of the same age, Achu believes on fast tracking, for he has enemies in the Cabinet planning for ever his ouster. Stalin perhaps requires somebody to only remind him that the one lakh chick-feed for the retiree old lawyer raised to 5 lakh would be an insurance against any other party sitting in the new Omandur Palace. One good thing towards achievement of the bounty is that the law minister Durai Murugan is a lawyer. Incidentally, Durai was, before the political bug bit him, in G. Ramaswamy’s office where among two dozen juniors, I was number one. If I tell him, I think he will act pronto to make me earn a hand to mouth income in the evening of my life without having to bend before insolent might. Since I have never asked anyone for anything, I leave it to the Bar Council to pester Durai, into, at least, emulating the Kerala grace.”
“Good, I hope he acts, for he can’t be a minister for life. If he comes back into the Bar, he may, after a frustrating re-apprenticeship, want to retire, when the bounty will come in handy unless, there are ‘Commissions of Inquiry‘ where ex-ministers can lord it over for 17 or more years as Liberhan did, and rake in more money as he did as lawyer and judge… When are you planning to quit?”
“The day Durai, my friend, tells me ‘Here is your BIG 5!‘ although I can chug on for another 24 years physically and mentally sound, and retire on my Centenary birthday. You will be my special guest and I will introduce you to Durai, if both of you are alive and kicking.”
Democracy exacts its Shylockian pound of flesh from the fools who vote the benefactor in, so that it can splurge for the ‘aam admi’, the bare accoutrements of decent living. the ‘Slum dog’ depiction notwithstanding…
With a colour TV in the one-room tenement, a corner of which holds a LPG cooker given gratis by the ruler, and each member of the family having a mobile phone to connect with the high and mighty, though for a living the citizen begs at the right spots. The Beggars’ Association perhaps a registered one under the Societies Registraction Act, appears to have resolved recently, according to a newspaper report, that no registered beggar shall accept alms below One Rupee.
It is not clear whether Nasik has demolished its machines that make coins lesser than Ten rupees. Some say that Ten Rupee coin is in circulation.Soon the B.A.(beggars’ association) may make a pitch for 20- Rupees as the floor-alms-unit, non-payment of which, especially at strategic points like the Traffic intersections where the Red light detains the motorist long enough for the trained girl child with a two-year old child rapped round its arms to touch your tender heart and loose purse, entails a spot fine of a Hundred rupees or a day in a Police Station. With about 500 vehicles added to the mobility of the city every day, our alms army can plan their future. They may be the precursors of the gang whose wealth from charity would boost the Engineering college capitation-figures to levels unimagined by Edmond Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. But then their conquest of Everest no longer looks so heroic as hundreds including women have sat on top and eaten their favourite chocolates.
A Tamil Nadan beggar on his palm-up peregrinations covering the entire South, found the people of Kozhikode, the touch artist’s paradise and though it rains about 7 months a year, made the footpaths of the city his Beggardom which fetched him a savings of 17 Lakh rupees in 13 years of his one-man enterprise. When last the reports came, he is still a money maker and may be one of those in the Ten-Lakh Rupee queue for a College seat of his choice for his offspring! The Constitutional promise of equality of opportunity is seen in action when the common man can rule the roost, the ends justifying the means, though good old Gandhi would vote for the “means” for securing ends that are honest.
This means-ends philosophy that got under the skin of our Manmohan when he sat across the table with Gilani in Egypt is causing all that ruckus in Parliament, televised to our doom. The old man, innocent of any hatred towards all that occupy this beautiful earth, perhaps extended his love to the Balochi baloney and his drafters, not being very circumspect typed the word Balo in profound love for the world. which is India’s way of life and that became grist to the lung powered gentry to base a walkout upon. If the TN M.L.A. deserves a pay hike of five thousand, should parliamentarians be made to beg for more. as O. Twist did? GIVE benefits unasked and you will get a model bunch of lawmakers…
“What’s in a name? A TN baby with a Tamil name, gets a gold ring,” says Dy. C. M. Ayyadurai a.k.a. Stalin, named after the family hero Josef Stalin of Russia. The long usage and the absence of protest from J. Stalin’s family in Russia, overrode copyright considerations, especially since there must have been thousands of Stalins before and after his passing. It is only after his peace time exit that a fan club sprouted to project him as the saviour of the proletariat.
“My parents adjourned my naming ceremony several times hoping that I would turn out to be a fair skinned girl to be named after the world beauty Aishwarya. They used to call me ‘Ponnu’ and finally they knew that the eclipse was total and my skin retained its original tint inherited from our ancestors who walked from Africa across, what is now called Arabian Sea, which was part of the undivided India-Africa landscape, later sundered by a Tsunami a million times stronger than the one that hit India about 10 years ago. Then the true Tamilian parents proud of the gift of a girl unasked, named me ‘Karuppayee’ (tamil for black).”
“Quite a mouthful, Karuppu. My maternal grandmother, from Kerala used to tell me stories about her women relatives, one of whom was so fair that when she blushed, the blood that rushed to her face would remain undrained for several minutes giving her face the colour of blood. She was named ‘Chora’, which in Malayalam, is blood…” I said.
“You are so dark, in spite of a Chora ancestress. You should have been named Karuppan!“
“If a thinker like Stalin had been there, perhaps yes. But the name I bear or my label, was flashed to my mother in her dream when, after a good cry on being told by her doctor that the third child she was expecting to release to the world, too would be a girl, a saint who got a transfer to Nairobi, on health grounds, for he loved the salubrious climate of Nairobi, appeared in my mother’s dream and comforted her, saying that her third child would be a boy and that he should be named Sadanand, for that was the saint’s name. He identified himself as the first disciple of Shankaracharya of Kaladi who conferred the title of Padmapaada on him. A joyous Janaki Amma, at dawn following the dream, enriched the world with this great man who is now talking to you Karupayee. Under the Stalin edict, my name should have been ‘Sadanandam’ (tamil for, well, Sadanand) to qualify for the gold ring.”
“I suppose Ayyadurai would set an example for several million Tamilians, by having their names Tamilised through Gazette publication, which can net a few Crore rupees as publication fee. ”
“The next CM should be far sighted and explore avenues of revenue to the state coffers. This would be one such. Karuppayee, what’s your daughter’s name?”
“Thenmozhi.”
Sanjay Pinto, NDTV’s Chennai regional boss, called me first thing after sunrise on June 23, and said ”Happy 76th Birthday!”.
“Thanks, but I would have been happier if you had let me sleep an hour more on this great day because, Veerasami’s power supply failed at least 20 times and kept us all awake in AC-less, fan-less glory. Mother used to tell me that her SON emerged at about 5.30 when the sun rose in Nairobi on June 23,1933… She had gone to bed after a two-hour cry session because the medics there had dismissively said that the third child she was carrying would also be a girl. ”
“Third time lucky eh?”
“Don’t know about luck, but the Obama slogan of CHANGE was copyrighted about 30 years earlier by my parents. I brought son-shine in their life. They had further luck when brother Chandrakant joined the family in 1936.”
“I see; where is he now?”
“He did a crash course in advance booking of palaces in heaven for all of us and launched his space craft from Dallas in Texas, in 1983, when he drove his car into a road lamp post.”
“Sorry to have made you travel back in time to re-discover the tragedy…”
“Not your fault that I think of him all the time. He was a dashing, tall, handsome, fearless fellow whom I admired. In character, looks, we were opposite poles. After his passing, mother became a mere living shell. She endured a decade of his absence until she was relieved of her pain by the balm of death. We shouldn’t be talking of death on a birthday, but the entry and exit make the interregnum, a story. You TV guys are after stories, mostly of cheap politicians or the celluloid gentry. There are a million stories of the common man which can be tapped by uncommon guys like you. Have I told you about my sixtieth birthday?
“Well, here goes. I never celebrate this accident, but my lawyer friend G. Subramanian, brother of former Attorney General Of India G. Ramaswamy, in whose office I underwent the fire test of nobility of the profession, threw a party at Hotel Savera to celebrate my great escape from Government Pleadership, then the highest legal office in the High Court, the A. G. being only a constitutional office of an advisory nature and for special appearances. Through the machinations of a gang of nincompoops, whose arrogance was matched only their incompetence, a sack order was contrived even though the Law Minister refused to endorse it. GS was cut up by this treachery, and returned all the briefs in which he was specially engaged by statutory bodies. So in a way, I retired from government lawyering at 60 and flowered into a beautiful human being attracting friends like you, Sanjay.
The day I left my cubby hole of the office, except strong silent men in the office staff, everybody had tears in their eyes. especially a newly recruited girl, Pauline who must have shed a litre. G.R and G.S are gone with the wind, but on my birthdays, which I do not celebrate, I take a walk down the memory lane and think of all the beautiful things that have enriched my life. Thanks Sanjay for calling. I am sure Pauline will call.”
And she did, from the legislature office where she is now an officer…
“I say, this guy Stalin, looks aesthetically good. After MGR and Jaya, there hasn’t been a good Chief mug holding the reins of the TN chariot. Youth is a super condiment of good looks. Only, his name would have sat well on the red brigade of Kerala and W. Bengal. Hope, he can find a sugary Tamil name by the time he sits on the throne as CM.“
“Ramu, what’s in a name? Stalin by any other name would be the next CM, for the family is now like the Banyan tree of the Theosophical Society, in Adayar. Brother is in the Central cabinet; sister is M.P; cousin Dayanidhi ‘who walked out once like the prodigal son, returned for the fatted calf‘, is in the Central cabinet.”
“That’s one up on the Gandhis, none of whom is a minister…”
“Rahul could have easily pocketed the PM-ship, but the strain of self abnegation seems to run in the Italian blood, that made Sonia almost a Saint 5 years ago, when she scoffed at the throne and kicked Manmohan upstairs, and this time for a repeat.”
“Poor old man deserves it because he gave his heart and soul to the job and suffered a ten-hour surgery to repair his heart… The Congress landslide didn’t project a better man. I was hoping that if Manmohan wanted to cry off, the best bet would be Chidambaram the perfect deshi who could out-argue world leaders, and more easily the noise machines in parliament.“
“Young handsome Shashi Tharoor who missed the UN Secretary Generalship by a Ban Ki Moon whisker, making his debut in Indian parliament, and the other young sons of former cabinet ministers who left the world in a hurry, make the parliamentary broth look tasty.“
“As long as they are not testy, it will be just another 5-year grind but less loathsome than the last, where poor Somnath as Speaker, hop-stepped and jumped enough for 15 years, in 5 years, ruining his vocal chords, and arteries. No speaker has suffered so much in free India as Somu did because he was a true judge, not a lion in sheep’s clothing, the moment he sat on the speaker’s throne, Karat & Co saw RED and chucked him from the party.“
“Well, Meira may not face such a hostile bunch of lawmakers… The gallant crew is mostly young and it is hoped, less vituperative. With the opposition committing hara kiri every day, the 15th L.S. would be a dream, for the oldies and a holiday for the novices. Even the long pregnant Women’s Reservation Bill may become Law through normal delivery after years of attempted abortions.“
“The law ministry should wake up from its Rip Van Winkle sleep and enact a Central Law that should terrorise even the most rowdy elements in educational institutions into turning good Samaritans and saving the students from the trauma of ragging… Expulsion from the institution and a mandatory minimum of 7 years in prison should be the just reward to the ragger… How about it Moily? It is your chance to be remembered by the entire non-rowdy population of India if freshers can join educational institutions without fearing that they are entering the domain of beasts. Pending Moily’s law in view of the new educational year inveigling tens of thousands of students to colleges, an Ordinance is in order… Chief Minister Stalin should take the lead in implementing the State Law on the subject that is gathering dust…
A two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, according to these news reports, acquitted an appellant convicted by the sessions court and sentenced to 10 years for the rape of a woman, which sentence on appeal to the High court was reduced to 4 years. When he went out of the jail whistling panegyrics to ‘My Lords’ and the common Gods of all, including the God of the woman he had defiled, the wheel of justice would have come full circle. Emboldened by his freedom from law’s reaches, he would have added a rider to his thanks – sotto voce:
“Tomorrow to fresh fields of totally non-virtuous women whose complaints will not be even registered by the police as F.I.R.”
What a pretty pickle!
The newspaper report has perhaps unwittingly glossed over the facts of that particular case which probably led the Supreme court to view the evidence of the victim as a concoction by a supreme Police Chief. If the defence army can suborn witnesses, so too can the prosecution in this war of wit, where everybody wants to win. But the report did not stop with that noble
ideal that all is fair in love and war. It goes on to flay the woman’s carcass and expose her as a woman of “easy virtue” who cannot complain of rape.
Her legal armour against attack by men in heat, according to the report, is non-existent because she is of “easy virtue”. What that beautifully cruel word means is anyone’s guess, even if the prosecutrix is a cheap slut whose right not to be raped is primordial. Section 375 I.P.C has not used this escape hatch as a man’s saviour from a conviction. Otherwise, all that is needed as a sure duck back defence to a charge of rape, is that the woman is a public vehicle or as the report said” woman of easy virtue”. Her character is on trial, not the violation of her body by an animal in human form. Even then, evidence of character is permissible under Section 140 of the Evidence Act, but not as a green-card for commission of this most inhuman rapacious crime on a woman. Otherwise friend Macaulay would have added a second Exception, legalizing the rape of “women of easy virtue”, after defining what that phrase means.
In the background of an escalation in the most brutal of bodily crimes especially in New Delhi which has won the title as the rape capital of the country, newspapers would do well not to report such judgments that send wrong messages to the rapists on the prowl, who only have to tell the court, if the crime goes beyond the Police Station, that the alleged victim is one of ‘easy virtue’ raping whom is not a crime.
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