Photos

Photos of my trip to DC for Vidi's graduation....

Goodbye 2005

The end of the year nears
Its time to take a break
Time to look back on twelve months past
And for the future, a resolution make

Momentous, this year has been
In more ways than can be seen
Choices, decisions and changes have marked
My year of three and nineteen

Many a new friend have i made
Many an old friendship renewed
Some relationships sundered in tears
But in time, on I moved

The year began on a sombre note
Varuna displayed his awesome power
The ocean rose, reared up its head
Wreaked havoc, made us shudder

Spring brought with it new life
Colouring up a world that was brown and white
The flowers bloomed, the mynahs sang
We all smiled; the world seemed right

Summer was spent in discovery
Research, music and family
Time with friends - some here, some back home
Its a time I would go back to happily

Fall, a time to work hard
Classes and profs driving us to learn
A new music group, also we began
All ensuring we stayed up, keeping the candles a'burn

Christmas, a season of love
Brought with it much merriment
Friends from near and afar together
Driving away all cause for lament

Its been a good year, this last one
I've grown, matured, learnt a lot
Now its time to say, goodbye 2005
And welcome the coming year, a brand new start

Oxymoronic

A day of great joy
and yet great sorrow
for those who are gone do not return
whence their fortunes lead them

Momentous occasions
rippling happiness
but underneath it all
shrouded in melancholia

Time moves but one way
what is done cannot be undone
try as we might
regret, we, however much

Circumstances...situations
hide cruelly behind corners
in confusing, labyrinthine walks
jumping out in triumphant irony at unaware us

Selfless, I try to be
and yet my heart aches
for that which is lost
cannot ever be regained

But there is hope
there always is
a new life, a new beginning
awaits us all

So let us tuck away the past
in a corner, wrapped in fragrant lavender
to look at and smile, once in a while
but never to dwell on

Bonds

Lost love
a flower withered
and yet it lives on

Memories
wisps of nostalgic cloud
floating, careworn in the air

Dreams
dry, wrinkled autumn leaves
flying into your face as you walk on

Sensations
invisible strings
trip you unawares

Purple, yellow, orange
colours of a time past
linger on in a black and white world

Wash over me, oh waves of time
in your dispassionate benevolence
blurring what has passed
and free my fettered soul

Winter rain

Cold winter rain
Falls gently on the place beneath
Sating the parched ground
Tanned blades of grass
Strain to catch a drop on their golden tongues
Trees awaken
Pulling their limp branches to themselves
Flowers smile
Blossoming in pristine glory
The very earth reaches out
Cupping itself
To get its share of nectar
And what do we do?
Take out our umbrellas and goloshes
Grumble about the dankness
And go on with life as usual

The death penalty

A few days ago a friend asked me whether I thought the death penalty was a necessary element in social justice systems. I guess the topic came up due to the sudden spate of death sentences in the US recently, including the 1000th execution since the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1977. Got me thinking, it did....I knew that I didnt really like the idea of death sentences. But I wasn't sure I had more than a sentimental basis for saying so. Most arguments people tend to give against having the death penalty never seemed perfectly valid to me - the most common amongst them of course being, "Society didn't give you life, so how can it take your life away from you, damn it!!" Many a vehement opposer have I come across! And of course equally passionate people propounding the opposite view as well. After all, they say, if you break a law of society, commit a crime of utter bestiality, don't you lose the right to live? Doesn't an act such as taking someone's life forfeit your own right to life? Seems pretty reasonable.....And then of course, as these people then go on to point out, would we really feel safe if such elements in our society were not exterminated? For the safety of our children, our families, our loved ones, isn't it just better to remove such elements from society altogether? For the benefit of a complete society, is it not better to eliminate certain extremely detrimental parts, than run the risk of such people creating mayhem? Sounds bloodthirsty, but seems kind of practical.....

Except, I don't think so. It would be practical to eliminate a small section of society that was detrimental to the whole, yes - but only if fundamentally there was no other way out. And this, I think, is the crux of my argument against the death penalty - it assumes that there are certain human beings in society who are beyond recovery, who are beyond all morality - and so it would be better if these people were dead rather than alive. And I dont think so. In fact, I totally disagree - I dont think any human being, whatever conditions he might have grown up in, however heinous his crimes, is beyond redemption - and repentance. In fact it seems to me to be highly insulting to the human spirit to deem it incapable of rising out of even utter depths that it might have sunk to. Time and again we've seen individuals who, through sheer force of will, and caring rehabilitation, have broken free, purged themselves of their sins, and turned to lives of morality and righteousness. So fundamentally assuming there are certain people beyond recovery is being quite unjust to them! This really is the only objection i see to having the death penalty as part of our judicial system - it's not about one's right to life, as many argue - after all, being a part of society, one could say, one has to follow its rules, and if one doesn't - especially if one takes other lives - society probably is justified in punishing you as it will. And it's not clear that "an eye for an eye" policy is one that cannot be used - there is no fundamental reason why one shouldn't have a judicial system based on such a policy. In fact, we have had societies in the past based on such systems that have functioned quite well for ages. So its really not about your right to life - but about your innate capability to rise above your sins and be able to contribute positively to society. Society may be justified, in certain cases, in taking your right to life away - but it can never prove that you are incapable of ever contributing positively to your community - and that is the inherent flaw in the death penalty.

Having said that, of course, the immediate question that arises is - how then does one deal with these people? If they ARE indeed capable of intrinsic change, how does one bring about that change? What do we do with people who show no remorse, who believe firmly that what they did was right, and couldn't care two hoots about society? Good question - and I'm not sure I have the answer. I can say a few things, however - one, the current system of justice is never going to be able to do that. Two, this is linked strongly to the structure and basis of society as a whole - and a change in thinking is required if we want such a system to work. What we have currently is a society that is almost completely reactive - people do things, and then society reacts to that, often violently, with a vengeance. What we really need is a proactive society, where the emphasis is on building values, and not on dealing with cases where values are not upheld. The focus needs to be on building a humanitarian society, with a moral base - not economic or political, as it is today. And coupled with that, we need a judicial system that is less retributive, and more restorative. Breaking social laws must of course have some consequences - but the purpose of imposing those consequences must not be to punish the offender for what he did, but to effect a change of heart and attitude. Curtailment of freedom, I think is necessary (so as to ensure that at least during the process of transformation, the person does not harm society further, and to keep him in an atmosphere conducive to moral change) - and so we must have some form of prisons - but the purpose of curtailing the freedom, again, is to ensure that those years spent away from the rest of society are used not to break his spirit, but to rebuild it. A judicial system built on this basis is the only one I can see as being truly moral and beneficial to society.

Ultimately we are all human, and are all subject to the erosive effects of time - who can say how the sands of time will mould our beings, our beliefs, our attitudes.....Let us not be presumptuous enough to believe that we can predict how people will turn out - let's just do our bit, to the degree we can, to ensure they turn out right!

Time

Is it only four more days to go?
Seems like an eternity
Is it time that tricks me?
Or is it my own frailty.....

Standing in motion

I went for a walk up to the Stanford Dish today with some friends in the late evening. The image of this tree, standing there in satisfied solitude struck me not lightly. I wonder, what it would be like to be a tree, to be born and grow standing in one place. To watch the world go by rather than try and move with it. To see the times change rather than change with them. To feel the breeze blowing against you, rather than move with it and not sense its motion at all. To grow in utter silence, with an infinite patience. To be able to just stand and look at the world around you, and grow wise from it. To be able to stand, naked and exposed to nature, to the sun and the rain, the heat and the cold - and to revel in their ethereal touch. Too fast, do we move nowadays, hurrying through our lives with a haste that is surpassed in degree only by its very purposelessness. Speed is what we crave for - direction is not something we care to think about. We prefer a vector incompleteness, prefer being stuck in our single-dimensionality. Not for us, a life of contemplation, of oneness with the world around, of harmony.

What would it feel like, I wonder, to be standing in motion.

"What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare"

- Henry Davies, Leisure

My rose

"But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince

Winter morning

Wisps of wintry cloud
in the morning light
with a hint of a breeze
wafting through

Fall

Crinkly autumn leaves
Yellow with age
Glisten radiantly
Under a mellow October sun

Entish wisdom

"Hill...Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped....."

- Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Light

"A glimmering ray of light, that comes we not know whence, and goes we not know whither....."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter

Finally...

It has been long in coming, I am aware
So with much aplomb, do I now declare
I've created a space of my own, a 'ome
To express, muse, write prose and po'em
So stay tuned, to discover more
Thoughts, ideas and random lore