Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
13.10.2008 - Just another date in the annals of history?
The Delhi blasts happened hours ago, and once again humanity has taken a backseat in the entire quagmire of terror, politics and ideologies. As innocent people pay the price for the acts of a particular set of people with a particular mind-set, the politicians seem to have no qualms about fanning the flames of hatred merely to bolster their vote bank. At the end of the day, what are you achieving if you’re in power or not when the country is reeling under a series of blasts and terror attacks?
It’s amazing that the Center is spending its time debating over whether or not a stringent anti-terror law is required. In the wake of the Gujarat blasts, the Gujarat government had been pushing for a state anti-terrorism law in order to combat the problem. Even the National security advisor had advised the Centre to allow the law but the Centre of course thought otherwise. According to them the proposed law was too similar to the POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) which was previously in force in the country. Since there were gross human rights violations on the pretext of that Act until it was eventually repealed, the Centre thinks it prudent for the law not to be allowed. This reasoning is fundamentally flawed because it smack of the Executive’s lack of confidence in the enforcement of a legislation which ultimately is the responsibility of the executive itself. If judges are wary of the enforcement of legislation, it is still excusable. But the executive itself throwing its arms up in helplessness at its own corruption is the end of an efficient government. If that is their attitude, how do they expect the country to have any confidence in them?
But also apparent is the politics that the UPA is trying to play. Opposing the anti-terrorism law would earn them brownie points with huge pockets of Islamic voters in the country. Also, the Gujarat government is headed by the opposition and hence it is almost a given that the government would oppose anything productive that is sought to be done by them. Of course the BJP too is not losing the opportunity to make the UPA look bad saying that all the blasts are because of their lack of efficiency.
I think its high time we set aside our differences at least in order to avert such catastrophes. At the end of the day, human life is lost and that cant be another cause for our leaders to play the blame game. If stringent laws have to be passed to combat the situation, so be it. Ensuring that such laws are not misused is the prerogative of the government and the possibility of such misuse cannot be an excuse for meekly letting terrorists get away. I hope this day does not merely pass us by as another day in the annals of history.
It’s amazing that the Center is spending its time debating over whether or not a stringent anti-terror law is required. In the wake of the Gujarat blasts, the Gujarat government had been pushing for a state anti-terrorism law in order to combat the problem. Even the National security advisor had advised the Centre to allow the law but the Centre of course thought otherwise. According to them the proposed law was too similar to the POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) which was previously in force in the country. Since there were gross human rights violations on the pretext of that Act until it was eventually repealed, the Centre thinks it prudent for the law not to be allowed. This reasoning is fundamentally flawed because it smack of the Executive’s lack of confidence in the enforcement of a legislation which ultimately is the responsibility of the executive itself. If judges are wary of the enforcement of legislation, it is still excusable. But the executive itself throwing its arms up in helplessness at its own corruption is the end of an efficient government. If that is their attitude, how do they expect the country to have any confidence in them?
But also apparent is the politics that the UPA is trying to play. Opposing the anti-terrorism law would earn them brownie points with huge pockets of Islamic voters in the country. Also, the Gujarat government is headed by the opposition and hence it is almost a given that the government would oppose anything productive that is sought to be done by them. Of course the BJP too is not losing the opportunity to make the UPA look bad saying that all the blasts are because of their lack of efficiency.
I think its high time we set aside our differences at least in order to avert such catastrophes. At the end of the day, human life is lost and that cant be another cause for our leaders to play the blame game. If stringent laws have to be passed to combat the situation, so be it. Ensuring that such laws are not misused is the prerogative of the government and the possibility of such misuse cannot be an excuse for meekly letting terrorists get away. I hope this day does not merely pass us by as another day in the annals of history.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Random insights
It’s the season of rains and turncoats. As lightening strikes and illuminates the deceit and its minions and sardonic laughter thunders around us, we worry about the world. But those flashes also reveal the deceit in the dark night. But the days progress and the rains do too. Slowly I stop cringing at the lightening and begin to see that its merely a sign of the times. There is no malice and no ill-will. All there is, is a primal instinct to support oneself stripped of all altruism. One must look for greener pastures, and that’s what they are all doing. In purely innocent selfishness. How can there be turncoats when there is no loyalty anymore? How can there be seasons when the rains have turned perennial?
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Curtains
A pale yellow seeps through
The drawn curtain,
Falls on the black brown bed
That becomes a couch by day
Where I sit and listen to the silence
Lonely as a pearl
Hiding behind the broken remnants of its oyster.
Music plays in the background
As I delay the moment further
When I shall have to succumb
To the inevitable,
And draw the curtains.
The drawn curtain,
Falls on the black brown bed
That becomes a couch by day
Where I sit and listen to the silence
Lonely as a pearl
Hiding behind the broken remnants of its oyster.
Music plays in the background
As I delay the moment further
When I shall have to succumb
To the inevitable,
And draw the curtains.
And I Miss You Too...
The time for tears has gone by,
The good times have gone too.
A half-alive make-believe life is what this is-
The façade of joy, the pretence of moving on.
The lonely feeling returns to bite
Like frost in the winter
And our lost laughter echoes in the frigid silence.
I still smile and say to you,
I’m getting by, that I’m good.
And you have to shatter it all
Into a million shards of glass
With a little sniff
As I hear my grief in your shaking voice.
Oh the cruelty of time and distance
Can take the childhood out of us.
The good times have gone too.
A half-alive make-believe life is what this is-
The façade of joy, the pretence of moving on.
The lonely feeling returns to bite
Like frost in the winter
And our lost laughter echoes in the frigid silence.
I still smile and say to you,
I’m getting by, that I’m good.
And you have to shatter it all
Into a million shards of glass
With a little sniff
As I hear my grief in your shaking voice.
Oh the cruelty of time and distance
Can take the childhood out of us.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The Last Laugh
The Last laugh
I broke out that day
From my own prison
And my own life.
I had to go have a great time
And drown my sorrows.
I down the drinks,
One by one, I drink ‘em down:
The walls around me seem to disintegrate
And I have to give vent to so many things:
I’m cool, I’m smart, I look great, I’m a good guy,
I deserve a better life-
And I laugh at it all, at myself,
At the drink glinting in my hand
Like the devil’s own eye.
It was to be my last laugh.
And then I lost it totally.
The walls were simply not visible
I was so free, I was an animal…
Then blackness.
Today, I awaken to a bleaker blackness.
The walls I’d painstakingly built around myself are gone
And I’m small and defenseless as a mouse.
My ruined life is shattered
One final time.
Its the last beating it can take.
As I become aware of the stinging truth
I thump my fists on the wall
Shout myself hoarse.
In that one sane moment of clarity I feel grief, anger, pain all at once.
Oh how ironical that the world finally believes I’m insane.
Its sunk in finally
And I’m walking out
On them and on myself,
On the five wasted years,
On the place that turned me into this.
No I’ve been turned out like a dog.
Where will I go now?
The iron gates that I jumped free of many a time
Are finally being opened with the civility that a man deserves.
But in their eyes, I’m not a man anymore.
I broke out that day
From my own prison
And my own life.
I had to go have a great time
And drown my sorrows.
I down the drinks,
One by one, I drink ‘em down:
The walls around me seem to disintegrate
And I have to give vent to so many things:
I’m cool, I’m smart, I look great, I’m a good guy,
I deserve a better life-
And I laugh at it all, at myself,
At the drink glinting in my hand
Like the devil’s own eye.
It was to be my last laugh.
And then I lost it totally.
The walls were simply not visible
I was so free, I was an animal…
Then blackness.
Today, I awaken to a bleaker blackness.
The walls I’d painstakingly built around myself are gone
And I’m small and defenseless as a mouse.
My ruined life is shattered
One final time.
Its the last beating it can take.
As I become aware of the stinging truth
I thump my fists on the wall
Shout myself hoarse.
In that one sane moment of clarity I feel grief, anger, pain all at once.
Oh how ironical that the world finally believes I’m insane.
Its sunk in finally
And I’m walking out
On them and on myself,
On the five wasted years,
On the place that turned me into this.
No I’ve been turned out like a dog.
Where will I go now?
The iron gates that I jumped free of many a time
Are finally being opened with the civility that a man deserves.
But in their eyes, I’m not a man anymore.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Dance of dust
(Its been a really long time since i published anything out here. There were a million different factors contributing to this. How does it matter? Its just brilliantly refreshing to be back.)
I’m flailing from within
And conventional jargon fails me.
Thoughts strewn within
Seem to rise up and dance
When I catch a glimpse.
Like dust in the sunlight.
That proud mane hangs down your neck
As you stride past with not a care in the world.
Exacting your own sweet justice,
Living your own sweet life.
Unconcerned that it looks like a ruin
From the other side of the world.
Ah with that glance I see you,
Your pain and your pride.
Living high on that tower must hurt.
But you lord over it.
Magnificently.
Yawning down at the world
And all the dust you’ve stirred.
I’m flailing from within
And conventional jargon fails me.
Thoughts strewn within
Seem to rise up and dance
When I catch a glimpse.
Like dust in the sunlight.
That proud mane hangs down your neck
As you stride past with not a care in the world.
Exacting your own sweet justice,
Living your own sweet life.
Unconcerned that it looks like a ruin
From the other side of the world.
Ah with that glance I see you,
Your pain and your pride.
Living high on that tower must hurt.
But you lord over it.
Magnificently.
Yawning down at the world
And all the dust you’ve stirred.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
The Pact
On his deathly pale face
Etched in red gashes
Are the sins of a million years.
His pallor lights the moonless sky
And spirits awaken with his cry.
He shut his eyes to avoid
Their translucent light
And kneels in fright
Of them his masters.
His thoughts fly back
Of a sudden flutter
To the day when he drank the blood
And swore to be their secret keeper.
Flashes of the fateful day
Hit his consciencelessness.
As yellow light faded into black
And a paler yellow struck,
Three humans dressed in red robes
Transgressed to the realm of evil.
He was but a tool to them.
An eager boy seeking immortality
And transmortal access to bygone souls
All a wonderous adventure then.
They signed their unholy pact all of them.
Ajaat (undead), Kaal (death) and Narak (hell)
Three pronged nether world, they wanted to control.
They bled him out to the last drop which dripped into
The great connecting ocean of the dark.
His sallow skin, stretched onto the hollow bones
And his pupils sunk within to shut the light.
They merely laughed as he drank their blood
Felt it choke and burn him
And killed something within.
For the final exit, he had to swear
Allegience to them three
And lost his soul to them.
A million years pass.
The sins have changed the land
Where rishis (saints) once walked.
The pure nature rituals are now
Torture games of awakening dead
And lurking soulless men
Sucking at happiness and ingesting peace.
A million pieces it has become now.
Magic is gone and cynicism grows.
Waiting for the latency to fill
And this our land, the last one, to merge
Into the dark three neither worlds.
Today he has been summoned
To complete the act.
That he’s promised minion years back
In a blood pact.
The three spirits smile at him
And tell him to bleed again
The darkest blood there is
And submerge the good earth
In its ephemeral surge.
They promise him possession
Of souls at will.
The memories pain him-
He knows pain now.
Every black moment of hell, death and undeath
Implodes in him
As another piece of earth breaks off from the divine order.
A million years of pain.
And now he can bleed it all and fuse into the darkness
Immune to the pain.
But he cant do it one time more
This time he knows the nature of sins
As their secret keeper, has lost his own soul to it.
But he trembles
At their sight.
He will be punished for this one moment
Of hesitation.
The weakened gods will never help, he knows.
Ajaat digs his claws into his chest
As Kaal holds him back.
Narak pulls out the intestines.
The pain sears within.
The furnce suddenly cools
And a cool wind blows.
The spirts take refuge
As a bright yellow light pierces
The canopy.
He has tarried a moment too long.
The moment of the pact has passed.
Spell broken, the blood ocean dries.
And darkness is overcome.
Spirits vanquished.
He sits lonely and awaits his fate.
The Gods only smile
And applaud his moment’s courage.
The tortured rishis rise again
-Fire, water, air, and earth –
Nature asks not for atonement.
Epics speak his name, say his suffering,
Praise his faltering moment
That broke the pact.
Etched in red gashes
Are the sins of a million years.
His pallor lights the moonless sky
And spirits awaken with his cry.
He shut his eyes to avoid
Their translucent light
And kneels in fright
Of them his masters.
His thoughts fly back
Of a sudden flutter
To the day when he drank the blood
And swore to be their secret keeper.
Flashes of the fateful day
Hit his consciencelessness.
As yellow light faded into black
And a paler yellow struck,
Three humans dressed in red robes
Transgressed to the realm of evil.
He was but a tool to them.
An eager boy seeking immortality
And transmortal access to bygone souls
All a wonderous adventure then.
They signed their unholy pact all of them.
Ajaat (undead), Kaal (death) and Narak (hell)
Three pronged nether world, they wanted to control.
They bled him out to the last drop which dripped into
The great connecting ocean of the dark.
His sallow skin, stretched onto the hollow bones
And his pupils sunk within to shut the light.
They merely laughed as he drank their blood
Felt it choke and burn him
And killed something within.
For the final exit, he had to swear
Allegience to them three
And lost his soul to them.
A million years pass.
The sins have changed the land
Where rishis (saints) once walked.
The pure nature rituals are now
Torture games of awakening dead
And lurking soulless men
Sucking at happiness and ingesting peace.
A million pieces it has become now.
Magic is gone and cynicism grows.
Waiting for the latency to fill
And this our land, the last one, to merge
Into the dark three neither worlds.
Today he has been summoned
To complete the act.
That he’s promised minion years back
In a blood pact.
The three spirits smile at him
And tell him to bleed again
The darkest blood there is
And submerge the good earth
In its ephemeral surge.
They promise him possession
Of souls at will.
The memories pain him-
He knows pain now.
Every black moment of hell, death and undeath
Implodes in him
As another piece of earth breaks off from the divine order.
A million years of pain.
And now he can bleed it all and fuse into the darkness
Immune to the pain.
But he cant do it one time more
This time he knows the nature of sins
As their secret keeper, has lost his own soul to it.
But he trembles
At their sight.
He will be punished for this one moment
Of hesitation.
The weakened gods will never help, he knows.
Ajaat digs his claws into his chest
As Kaal holds him back.
Narak pulls out the intestines.
The pain sears within.
The furnce suddenly cools
And a cool wind blows.
The spirts take refuge
As a bright yellow light pierces
The canopy.
He has tarried a moment too long.
The moment of the pact has passed.
Spell broken, the blood ocean dries.
And darkness is overcome.
Spirits vanquished.
He sits lonely and awaits his fate.
The Gods only smile
And applaud his moment’s courage.
The tortured rishis rise again
-Fire, water, air, and earth –
Nature asks not for atonement.
Epics speak his name, say his suffering,
Praise his faltering moment
That broke the pact.
Prison Break - Not a 'by the book' review - just some thoughts
Prison Break. What makes it such a dandy to watch and such an addiction? Well two hot heros for a start. Pretty girl to boot. Good boys forced to turn bad in the bad bad world. Is that what intersets us? Nope. I think it all boils down to, cliche'd as it may sound, charactar. The father is anti-establishment and anti-President who as as it happens is the 'bad guy (gal) in power'. The elder son gets se-up for a murder he did'nt commit. His brother, the one with brains, gets convicted just to break out with his brother. You get me? Sacrifice for brother, with a few stunt arguments thrown in. Add a little prison inmate politics and racial slurs and you have yourself a pt-boiler. When they do break out, there's action that keeps you riveted. then sacrifices aplenty that bring tears to any hard dude's eyes. The brothers and their girls - they sacrifice everything they have for the love of each other. The President, the guys above her and the dirt within the Fibbies make for a lovely political saga in themselves.
At the end of two seasons, we all love it and cant wait for more.
At the end of two seasons, we all love it and cant wait for more.
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