The Terrified Terrorist

Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab- The name that terrorised the nation four years ago and continued to do so till he was hanged at the Pune Central Jail on 21^st November, 2012. Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab which literally means ‘The most handsome prince’ was nothing but a petty thief in the town of Faridkot, Pakistan before the members of the political wing of the ‘Army of the righteous’ (Lashkar-e-Taiba) persuaded him to join the terrorist organisation ‘to free the fellow Muslims from the atrocities they go through worldwide’. And thus the Ajmal Kasab was born who mercilessly killed hundreds of people on 26/11/2008 in Mumbai. The lone terrorist captured alive was hanged pretty unceremoniously on 21/11/2012 which left many aggrieved and agitated citizens disappointed. The judiciary system took four long years to pass the final judgement of executing Ajmal Kasab after he was captured alive from the streets of Mumbai with automatic weapons, explosives, GPS devices and mobile phone. The CCTV footage confirmed Ajmal Kasab firing at innocents mercilessly and still the law took its own course and spent four years in reviewing and rechecking all the evidence and taking statements from the witnesses and the terrorist himself.

India was furious with the delay in the execution of its biggest villain. Ajmal Kasab had earned the widespread hatred he was receiving. And personally I think he must have been getting a kick from all this. After all he was trained and preached to hate Indians, to dislike and distrust every Indian move, and to get the whole nation in hating him for his heinous activities must have been giving him a satisfaction which even killing all those innocent people might not have given him. Ajmal Kasab was a terrorist who had lost all human emotions, who had been brainwashed of achieving paradise by his terror acts. Ajmal Kasab was a living example of the by-products which radical terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba are capable of producing. Ajmal Kasab had no remorse or regret for his actions and the long wait of four years to meet his maker must have made him rethink entirely what he had been taught. The sluggish pace with which our judiciary system worked must have proved to be crueler for Ajmal Kasab than any other quick execution might have been. The four years in prison had developed hope in Ajmal Kasab. Hope is the biggest weapon one has, but in this case the hope which was developing in Kasab proved to be a weapon for the families of all the people who had lost their lives on 26/11/2008. A man without hope is like a body without its soul. You cannot kill a body which has no soul. If Ajmal Kasab had been executed just after his capture he would have been happy to die, because that is what he was sent to do- kill and die- and then achieve the paradise he was promised by all the “holy men” of Lashkar-e-Taiba.  Keeping him alive for four years in prison changed his mind-set, otherwise why would a terrorist sent on a suicide mission apply for a mercy plea! Executing a man who had been trained and brainwashed to die would have not brought the satisfaction to a bleeding country. Watching him plead for mercy before the Indian judges and President calmed me. This was the right end for a terrorist like Ajmal Kasab. The unceremonious hanging was also a perfect end. The nation should not celebrate this moment, but strengthen itself to counter any such attacks on its soil in the future. Celebrating someone’s end makes us no different than those radical groups which had trained Ajmal Kasab and brainwashed him into going on a killing spree. We are a peace loving nation and should always remain so. It’s better to change the world by love rather than changing it by wars.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” ~Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

The Central Board of Film Certification- A forum for illogical restrictions!

What’s the similarity between Indian politics and the Indian Censor Board? Both are a bunch of illogical buffoons doing a job which a person half their age should be doing. At least I get it when a politician keeps his/her own interests over the country’s, it will benefit them financially, but what is up with the stupid decisions taken by the Indian censor board. I fail to find any sort of reasoning or logic behind the decisions they take up.

Subtitle Bans: Most of the English television channels have the subtitles feature which is totally useless because most of the words that are used in the English movies or television series are not allowed to be shown in India. Yes, that is how stupid our censor board is. Words like ‘ass’, ‘boobs’, ‘fuck’ etc are considered obscene and hence all you see is ‘***’ when such words are used. If this was not all, words like ‘beef’, ‘pork’, ‘weed’ etc are banned too, because they hurt religious sentiments. Of course vote bank politics is widely used by politicians because religious sentiments are hurt only when you see foreigners using words like ‘beef’, irrespective of what context it is being used in. The funniest part is that they do not even consider that a word like SEX has more than one meaning. Even if the dialogue refers to it in terms of gender, it is mostly asterisked off. Each time the character says a line like, “We had sex”, the subtitles show, “We made love”. It’s as if the ‘dumb kids’ in India will not understand that.

Smoking Warnings: It is not allowed to show a burning cigarette on Indian television. Yes, you read it right. It is allowed in movie theatres but it should be accompanied by the message “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health” every time. So basically, even if a kid had not noticed the character smoking a cigarette or a cigar or a pipe, the message which is flashed every now and then makes sure that the attention of every viewer is shifted from the plot to the burning cigarette. How thoughtful indeed!

In today’s time, where psychologists in every advanced country have proved that the graphical content on cigarette boxes and warning messages attract more young people to smoke, Indian censor board introduces such archaic methods of educating people about its ill effects.

Violence and Adult Content: The Board has very clearly categorised the certificates which is issued to films: U standing for Universal is for unrestricted public exhibition. UA standing for Parental Guidance is for unrestricted public exhibition but under parental guidance for children under the age of 12. A standing for Adults-Only is restricted for the age group of 18 and above. S standing for Restricted is restricted for a certain specialised audience, such as doctors. And still many films are asked to edit or cut scenes which are violent or have high sexual content. If you are so adamant about what should be shown to the audience, why are such categorisations included in the machinery? What I think is, when a film is being played in a theatre, it should be clearly mentioned if it contains heavy violence or sexual content, and then the decision to watch the film or not rests with the viewer. The rights of the board should not extend beyond the certification of the film. Needless to mention, playing an A rated film on the television is like ruining the movie experience for the viewer. All obscene, violent, drug abuse or horror scenes should be cut and removed, even if it is being played late at night.

What option is the viewer left with, than downloading films from torrent sites over the internet, when such restrictions are imposed on the media? Jaago graahak jaago.

Change

The most common complain I receive is the fact that I have ‘CHANGED’. What is change? How have I changed? I am yet to receive a satisfying answer to these questions. Change is when a person stops being how he had been a short time back in history. But is that not what evolution is all about? That is how you and I came into existence. Change is as important to the universe as gravity, friction or energy. Nothing can exist or continue to exist without change. If I would not have changed, I would still be drinking milk from a bottle and wetting my bed at nights. Change feels good to people around us as long as they are being benefited from the change. The change done for our own well-being often disrupts our relations with others. Relativity, as always, plays the most vital role here.

The definition of friendship would be quite incomplete if an asterisk mark is not given by its side. Friendship: The state of being a friend*

(*provided the person does not change over time. Change: The alteration in the characteristic which risks in affecting the benefits the friend-in-question is receiving.)

Change is what keeps our life moving in the forward direction. The opposite of change is ‘remain’. It makes our life remain where it is. We lose all meaning and purpose.

Of course I have changed over time, everyone has. I am not stubborn enough to let the occurrences in my life leave me unchanged. I adapt, evolve and develop. The things you liked in me were a result of constant change; so keeping all hypocrisy apart, you should still like me for who I am becoming rather than complaining.

“Nothing endures but change.” ~ Diogenes Laërtius

Baarish, boondein

बारिश की वह बूँदें भी क्या खुशनसीब होगी ,
तेरी ज़ुल्फों मे उलझ कर जो आज खोयी होगी ,
बालों को ना झटकाना अब ,
मोतियों की कीमत भी इनसे कम होगी ..

तेरे चेहरे पर भी बूँदें बरसी होगी ,
बलखा कर गालों से उतरी होगी ,
जलता हूँ यह सोच कर मैं ,
तेरे होठों को चूम कर कितना इतरी होगी ..

वह बूँदें जो तेरे हाथ पर गिरी होगी ,
अपनेपन के एहसास मे कितना झूमी होगी ,
नाच नाच कर पहुची तेरी उँगलियों तक जब ,
साथ छूटने के गम मे कितना रोयी होगी ..

कुछ बूँदें तेरे काँधे पर भी गिरी होगी ,
कमर की ओर बढ़ते हुए तुझे गुद्गुदायी होगी ,
क्या याद मेरी आयी तुझे तब ?
रोम -रोम उस बूँद ने जब मचलायी होगी ..

~Saurav Goyal

Relativity

The great minds have laid down many theories and laws that govern the human nature, the metaphysics, and the everyday life. But, the real question needed to be asked is, is every human being affected by a certain outcome of an event in the same manner? It all comes down to relativity. Every action will have an equal and opposite reaction depending on what we relate it to. Every emotion we feel is felt because of the relation with the person, thing or thought we are discussing. Relativity is the one sole reason for every characteristic in every single person.

Happiness is felt only when we can relate it to some past experience of sorrow, or with a futuristic fear of sadness. Without the opposite feeling, happiness doesn’t hold any meaning individually. We feel happy when we plan to meet a friend after a long time because at that very moment, we feel the sadness of not having met him/her in the last few days or months. We feel happy when we spend time with a close friend because of the fear of parting and the loneliness that will follow. Strength, superiority, absolute power- all these are felt only when we can relate ourselves to someone weak, inferior or powerless. We feel strong after defeating someone in a fight, but that feeling of strength also generates an emotion equal and opposite- the feeling of weakness, if we were to counter someone with superior strength compared to us.

People relate the happenings in their lives with different situations. We feel contentment and gaiety after a hard day’s work, but sometimes, even if we toil all day long, a smile does not appear on our faces. The latter often happens when we relate our hard labour not with what we earned or achieved, but with the time and effort it took for us to achieve it. Heartbreak might lead a person to become a hopeless drunkard, a social outcast- it may also lead a person to become a Casanova, a ladies’ man. It all comes down to what that person relates his loss to.

“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.” ~Albert Einstein