A time to pause

Another year is coming to an end. I'm not sure if its just my imagination or if it's truly so, but I feel that the years seem to be going by faster nowadays. Maybe it is our fast paced lives. Or maybe its because we begin to value life more and more as we grow. Or maybe its because the ratio of 1 divided by our age (current year compared to our whole life) is getting smaller every year.

Nevertheless, for me, the end of a year is a time to pause and reflect. It serves as a milestone where one can look back at the events of the past year with nostalgia, and look forward at the coming year with hope.

And once I'm done looking back and forth for the next 12 days, I'll go out and party :)

Wishing all of you out there a happy new 2008!

The ultimate price

Are you for or against the death penalty?

I am sure most of us have searched within ourselves for the answer to this question. And as is the case with any contentious issue, we find all sorts of arguments and counter-arguments in favor of or against this issue.

My personal belief is that even if the death penalty is appropriate for certain individuals and for certain crimes, no country in the world has a flawless judicial system. The Judiciary and the Police force are after all made up of human beings. And as well know, humans are not without flaws. We are biased, we are opinionated, we are greedy and we are corrupt. There is no way to guarantee that the person being executed is truly guilty.

Therefore, even if 99% of the convictions are justified, we need to abolish the death penalty for the 1% who are innocent souls that pay the ultimate price for someone else's crimes.

Compromises and Adjustments

I am not sure how many companies are aware of this, or if they can do anything to change this, but it is a fact that December is a very slow month at workplaces across countries that celebrate Christmas. Productivity is at an all-time low. People are either busy trying to get their shopping done, or trying to use up their vacation quotas, or simply in a holiday mood to seriously tackle the pending work items.

So here I was today, in a similar mood, surfing blogs. And I came across this one very interesting blog. This was a seasoned blogger who had been writing since 2004. Reading her blog made me feel like a back-seat passenger in her car, as she took her journey from the time she passed out of college through her first year and half of marriage.

For me, the journey took less than an hour. For her, it was a long 36 months. And it wasn't all a straight road either. And as I sat through each sharp turn, or change in elevation, or the places that went by, I realized something about life in general.

I realized that every so often, we have changes in our lives. Some of the changes are work-related, and some within our families. Some changes we bring upon ourselves, and some that life throws at us. And each time this happens, we adjust ourselves, much like a fielder who has to catch a ball, so we are prepared when it comes. Its all about compromises and adjustments, our life.

And then, a few minutes later, I was conversing with a blogger who did not believe in adjusting and compromising when it came to important events or decisions in our lives. Her arguments were logical and convincing. It was nice to see her zeal and enthusiasm on this subject. She was smart enough to realize how up-hill the task would be, and she was mentally prepared for it.

This raises the question .. is compromising a habit we develop as we grow older and (hopefully) wiser, after realizing the mysterious ways that life operates? Or is it that we get too tired and inert to fight our way out of compromising, and start accepting it as a part of the puzzle called life?

Addicted

"From your 21 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 224 items, starred 50 items, shared 0 items, and emailed 0 items."
- Google Reader Trends

This blogger habit is nothing short of an addiction. But I am loving it. You get to know a little bit about people from all over the map.

Every post is a window into another person's thoughts and views. And normally, these views are never expressed in day-to-day interactions. They remain submerged for various reasons. But blogging has this power to bring these views to the surface.

And as we read them, we sometimes connect to these views. And sometimes we open ourselves to a different point of view.

Another thing I have realized is that there is so much potential in people who blog out here. I am lucky enough to have read some amazing pieces of prose and poetry. And they are my inspiration to become better.

But as we know, nothing is forever. And maybe some day, this addiction will leave me. But for now, I am enjoying my high :)

(Mis)conceptions about India

Ask a typical westerner what they know about India and you will be told that India is a rural country consisting of villages, where animals roam the streets unattended, where women typically do not work outside their homes, where cows are sacred and worshipped, where people are vegetarians and eat a spicy dish called "curry", where poverty and disease is very common.

Now most of us Indians, resident and non-resident, would take offense to such misconceptions. It makes us angry. And that is because we believe that our country is one of the fastest growing countries of today. We believe that it is one of the world's largest democracies, and is best known for its 'unity in diversity'. We are proud to be Indians.

I wonder if any of us realize our own misconceptions. Look closer behind the veil of our conceptions.

Female foeticide is rampant. "Why pay 50,000 dowry when you can have an abortion for 500". As per official statistics, we now have 927 girls born for every 1000 boys. If you extrapolate that to the population growth in the last decade, that equates to millions of female foetus abortions. Corruption has become second-nature. We have thousands of dowry-related crimes occurring every year. And we have lost count of the number of innocent lives lost in communal riots.

There is no denying the goodness of India. But that goodness gets lost in these dark and ugly realities.

Part 2 - A short journey

.. a continuation from Testing the waters

And so they sailed, each on their own raft
travelling together, but destinations apart

Never a day went by when they didn't exchange a word
an email here, a message there, the distances blurred

Where would this journey take them, they knew not
Enjoying their today , oblivious to what tomorrow brought

But tomorrow did come, the way of life as we all know
bringing the unexpected and yet familiar blow

Brat saw his stop approaching, in the nearing horizon
parents back home had arranged for a special someone

Was it destiny, he searched for a reason
she smiled from a distance, changes are certain

Did she feel the same as he, he never did know
What her true feelings were, she never did show

And through the clouds of doubt, he saw the clear skies
With an open mind and clear heart, he stepped ashore to new ties

The agreement was mutual, and an engagement followed
His future mate by his side, he stepped forward on a new road

.. to be continued

On my way back home

Orange and Gray. These were the two colors that draped the sky last evening on my drive back home. Such a contrast.

The beauty of the natural sky at sunset, and against it, the ugly backdrop of man-made structures. Such a contrast.

All around me, people in cars talking to loved ones or listening to Christmas songs, and then up ahead, two cars smashed together, air-bags deployed, paramedics on the scene. Such a contrast.

And further along, a big hospital all decked up for the holidays with strings of lights on the trees, a big 'Seasons Greetings' sign on the roof, and inside the tiny windows, a game of life and death. Such a contrast.

As I kept driving, I could not but feel hope and despair at the mystery we call life. Such a contrast.

The modern dictators

We are living in the modern times. It's the world of hybrid cars and fuel from corn, bunker-busters and invisible drones, mobile blogs and ad-words, Mars expeditions and Pluto's planetary demotion. It is impossible to keep up with the latest technological advances we see around us.

But science is not the only field where innovation is taking a lead. I am referring to the current authoritarian regimes of our world. The old way of ruling populations with the twin-edged sword of suppression and censorship is history. The old order has been replaced by a new order of dictators. These so-called leaders have realized that the old weapons will no longer be effective in today's modern world where information is spread within the blink of an eye.

And so we see the invention of the modern weapons in their arsenal: popular votes to suppress opposition, controlling the pillars of democracy with hand-picked surrogates, and pushing referendums to remove all term-limit obstacles in their favor so they can rule forever. All of this under the guise of democratic reforms.

Some may argue that pure democracy is too strong a medicine for some volatile countries, that these countries need a watered-down democracy to weather the storm. We see support for these modern dictators from the leaders of the free world .. "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

I beg to disagree. I realize that world politics and foreign policy is not a simple matter of black and white. Countries cannot survive in today's world of depleting natural resources and complex economic realities using ideology alone. However, I strongly believe in the saying "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."