Death--End or A New Beginning!

Life has another dimension and that is death. Death is the second phase, transfer of the soul to the unknown, to a life beyond. 

 

Where the soul is supreme, unplagued by physical shortcomings. Death is free from life's perplexities and there is no sense of false security which we embrace during life. 

 

When death knocks on our door, it frowns upon the vicious cycle of our life, where we spend an eternity clamouring for riches, recognition, accumulation and violating tons of tenets of humanity. 

 

Death allows us to recap our life in those moments preceding the end, which could last a moment, hours or even days. 

 

Death is the revelation many of us fear and dread. It is unforgiving, brutally honest and focused in its approach. 

 

It doesn't procrastinate or succumb to pressures or relent in it's goal. It comes with a purpose, achieves and leaves. 

 

Death is glory for the victim, but grief for the loved ones. 

 

Death is emancipation for the soul from a sickened body. 

 

The soul is now free as a bird, invisible to the human eye and spends eternity as a memory for others, and bliss for itself. 

 

Book Review - Sensual Attractions by A.J. Karan

Book Review - Sensual Attractions by A.J. Karan

Fearless Living !

We are slowly and steadily heading towards a period which will be dominated by evil forces. To achieve their sinister goals they will unleash fear in the minds of everyone with the sole purpose of ensuring that none will dare to challenge their motives. Living a life without fear could be something of the past.

Corruption in high places is the nemesis for all of us. Their overwhelming authority and access to muscle power can be unnerving for the peace loving and generally docile individual who rather bow in obeisance, than dare to challenge a group which operates in a clandestine manner.

Social media regularly displays videos of various crimes being committed in different parts of the country. Mind you, these videos are uploaded by citizens and exhibit violence against women, the elderly, police atrocities and other heart-wrenching incidents.

What is of upmost concern is the fearlessness exhibited by the perpetrators in broad daylight, without fear of reprisal from the not so long arm of the law.

Where do you think such criminals derive their courage from? No prizes for guessing, it's obvious for all to see. Political clout blesses them with nerves of steel and with influential persons watching their back, they feel a sense of invincibility.

Let's rewind to the pre-independence era and scrutinize the mindset of our freedom fighters. They possessed a single minded purpose and collectively fought selflessly and relentlessly to achieve a purpose for subsequent generations to live with freedom and dignity.

If at that moment, there was a fast forward mechanism for them to look into the future, it would have immensely grieved those valiant fighters of what future generations would do to their legacy. I consider it a mutilation of our heritage and culture. In harsher words, it is nothing but a gang rape of the legacy we inherited from our ancestors.

Another disheartening factor to be considered is that this mass mutilation and erosion of basic human values is the handiwork of a very minuscule percentage of people. It is their muscle power which invokes fear in the minds of the vast peace loving majority.

I declare this majority, myself included, to be a spineless, gutless species which needs to be plunged into a bottomless pit of doom, for allowing this hooliganism to pervade and corrupt society.

Are my words harsh? Well so be it, because if our ancestors had the same mindset of what we possess today, we would still be under British rule.

Wake up citizens of India and let's fight our second independence movement with the enemy living amongst us or else the fractured legacy we leave behind will spell doomsday for future generations.

I personally prefer fearless living and am willing to sacrifice my life to achieve this goal. How many of you are ready to do likewise? The time for procrastination is over, the time for discussions, debates and blogs is definitely over. In unsympathetic words, get off your lethargic behinds and move ahead.

Let’s emulate our forefathers who fought tooth and nail to allow us a life of dignity and freedom, we have no right to disrespect that legacy.

Traffic Woes in Chennai

The recent mowing down of three innocent young college girls by a water tank lorry in Chennai city has prompted me to write this article.

The statistics recently revealed an unbelievable disparity. Fifty lakh vehicles in Chennai and only 2700 odd policemen to control them. Now calculate the ratio of vehicles to policemen. Shocking isn’t it?

By what figment of imagination can controls be enforced in such a ratio? It saddens me to see the state of affairs on the roads. Blatant violations of traffic rules are a sickening sight for the law-abiding citizen. Helmets were made compulsory as per the High Court order a few months back, that too is not enforced and followed by two-wheeler riders.

The greatest violation in my personal opinion is jumping the red light. This is a serious matter and can lead to dire consequences, but no one cares and those observing the signals are harassed by continuous honking of horns.

In reality there are no laws adhered to, and it is survival of the fittest and craftiest on the roads of Chennai.

It is no surprise then that daily people are losing their lives, some for no fault of theirs. Lackadaisical attitude is still prevalent amongst the authorities as we don’t see any progressive measures being introduced, and absolutely no counselling or cautionary notices given, especially to youngsters who ride bikes like the road belongs to them, and weave through traffic without concern for their life or of others. Riding and driving on the wrong side of the road too is a menace and regularly done by two and three wheelers. I could name numerous such violations committed daily by road users.

Another serious issue is availability of road usage for vehicles. Almost 50% percent of the road is occupied by street hawkers, illegal and haphazard parking and if road works are in progress, then dumping of materials on the road. All this not only slows down traffic but causes impatience amongst drivers leading to road rage and accidents.

The fact that chills my bones is that we have laws for everything, but no one to enforce and this makes it easier for the violators to get away scot-free. There is a ‘don’t care’ attitude prevailing amongst drivers without fear of repercussions. I am fearful that no solution seems to be in sight nor are the authorities making any sincere efforts to control the situation. At this rate we may have such dismal scenario, where travelling on the road will not only be a nightmare but a death trap too. We are slowly and steadily heading towards pandemonium.

It is apparent that the police force is desperately short-handed and over- whelmed too with the number of vehicles on the road. They need to strengthen the force to enforce laws. Easier said than done, budgetary constraints will be quoted and moves to reinforce will be scuttled.

This is when a ‘Citizen Force’ should be created which is purely voluntary. They will be there to make up the manpower shortfall existing in the present set-up.

Leading public sector companies should be roped in to bear the cost of identifying and training citizens, who after successful completion of a short training program are empowered to penalize errant drivers and enforce laws strictly. Disrespecting the ‘Citizen Force’ too should constitute as a punishable offence.

A massive marketing campaign to be launched in which road users are severely warned to follow traffic laws or face serious consequences. At this point I would invite leading cine stars to make appeals via print and digital media to advise and caution people to follow traffic laws.

A strict criteria should be followed in recruiting the ‘Citizen Force’ and only people who commit to spending a specific number of hours per week should be allowed to join.

It is my belief that a large number of citizens will volunteer to lend a helping hand to address this situation. After all we all love our Chennai.

Driving should not only be a pleasure but safe too and Chennai can achieve that goal, albeit with a little help from the concerned authorities and the general public.

Are we still Human?

I was watching the news channel during the recent Cauvery water agitation, and there was wide coverage of the after-effects of the Supreme Court ruling.

Burning trucks, buses, vandalism and physical abuse of individuals was being beamed and it was a sorry state of affairs. Life had come to a standstill and the general public was subject to a sense of fear and uncertainty in Bengaluru city. Violence was spilling over to other parts too. Even Chennai city witnessed vandalism inflicted on businesses being run by Kannadigas and as per reports the same was being repeated in Bengaluru too against Tamil business establishments.

What struck me was the statement by the news anchor of the conflict between the Kannadigas and the Tamilians, she was repeatedly emphasizing on these two communities.
It was at this moment the story of the group of pigeons came to my mind, which I had recently read on Facebook.

Apparently a group of pigeons had to keep shifting their residence from a church to a mosque and a temple, as each time some renovation work was being undertaken prior to a festival and this caused them disturbance. Finally they housed themselves on the top of a monument and as they were perched proudly above, one of the baby pigeons noticed a communal riot going on below. Out of curiosity and concern, the baby enquired from the mother about the disturbance. The mother shook her head sadly and replied.

'They are human beings, but change their identity when it suits them, people who pray in the church are known as Christians, the people who pray in the mosques are known as Muslims and the temple worshippers are Hindus'.

'But why don't they just call themselves human beings? Because when we were in each of those places it didn't change who we were, we remained pigeons, so should it be in their case too.'
'Very true my child, the difference is that we have experienced God and live in an elevated place peacefully. They are yet to feel the presence of God and therefore indulge in meaningless violence'.

I have absolutely no idea as to the origin of this story, but it has a powerful message. Where has our humanity disappeared? At the drop of a hat we divide ourselves into caste and regions, forgetting the human values we possess or tend to ignore, allowing our selfishness and parochial mindset to take over our actions. We allow individuals with vested interests to dictate terms and disrupt our life.

Do we need pigeons to tell us what we have actually become?