Moral Values vs Law

What is the difference between a religious preacher and a Supreme Court judge? When faced with a case where wife wants to dump parents in law, both will probably say the same, 'not done'. So will I.

A religious leader will base her judgement, probably, on something like,

"A wife is expected to be with the family of the husband after the marriage".

Son's "pious obligation”  to live with his parents

Wife "Insisting her husband to live separately from his parents is a western thought alien to our culture and ethos".

In a nutshell, “It is not a common practice or desirable culture for a Hindu son in India to get separated from his parents on getting married at the instance of the wife, especially when the son is the only earning member in the family. A son, brought up and given education by his parents, has a moral and legal obligation to take care and maintain the parents, when they become old and when they have either no income or have a meagre income,”

Whereas, a Supreme Court judge will base her judgement on more rational, progressive and legal foundations, like.. well, this......

The Hindu Link

Gandhi was not racist, But he IS

The best thing about any value system is that it keeps evolving all the time; the worst is, its proponents try applying it retrospectively and to everything!
I once read on Quora that Mr Darcy perhaps was a slave trader (now, anyone who is familiar with Quora will understand it but suppose the mainstream start discussions based on this information!). Like all good answers on that platform, this answer was also well reasoned. May be correct. Perhaps Mr Darcy indeed was a slave trader. But how is this information useful today for us. Shall we stop reading Jane Austen or watching Pride & Prejudice on TV? May be a Facebook campaign!
I am told that Tom & Jerry were also racists. Now, what do we do about that?

Newspapers report a campaign in some parts of Africa against Gandhi. The campaigners (mostly academics) say that Gandhi was a racist  perhaps as late as his stay there in S Africa.  He must have said something or used certain terms that in today's world are considered offensive.

Small problem with this logic is, if we apply today's value system, almost everyone who lived prior to, say, 1950 is racist. Many are child molestors, slave traders, climate change deniers and more embarrassingly, generally everyone believed that goodness was essentially because they would be judged by the God for their deeds, whenever that judgement day arrived!

And that is what I find troublesome with modern value system; it does not allow evolution of a living person. Only a dead set of ideas can evolve.

Haare Ko Hari Naam

Youth gives us hope and effervescence; and often a false sense that all obstacles are surmountable. We generally grow out of this, but most of us do carry something from this phase, something very precious that we cant imagine losing, may be deep hidden in our hearts.

When very young, I was told that it's degeneration of cells that leads to old age and death; in old age the cells generated can't keep pace with decaying cells. What a wonderful, hope-giving knowledge! And how difficult it would be for ever improving science to slow down that process if not altogether reverse it! And then, it would be a mater of diet and lifestyle to keep one healthy and fit. Eternity! If not for me, definitely for my children and grand children.

What a great relief for someone like me who grew up with Larkin's brilliantly romantic, yet abysmally demotivating philosophy.

Aubade

Related Poem Content Details

BY PHILIP LARKIN

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.   

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.   

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.   

Till then I see what’s really always there:   

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,   

Making all thought impossible but how   

And where and when I shall myself die.   

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse   

—The good not done, the love not given, time   

Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because   

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;   

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,   

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,

That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being 

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,   

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,   

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,   

A small unfocused blur, a standing chill   

That slows each impulse down to indecision.   

Most things may never happen: this one will,   

And realisation of it rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without   

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave   

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.   

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,   

Have always known, know that we can’t escape,   

Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring   

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

And today ToI reports some new research saying that perhaps we have hit the ceiling on human longevity. That we are not likely to live beyond 115 under best of circumstances! That we all come with expiry date label!

What a shame! Does that mean we really have no choice but pouring ourselves into that  "vast moth eaten musical brocade"! My worst fears!

Is Bihari a noun or an adjective ?

My tender Bihari sentiments are often hurt these days because of spate of jibes on Bihar/ Biharis. Off late, I have often thought if we can use this wonderful sedition law to protect the scarce Bihari pride against such attacks.
Biharipana, in all honesty, is as ancient a concept as nationalism; state is as old a system as a modern nation; our boundaries are as natural as India's. Linguistically, granted, we are slightly less fortunate and the same phenomena of poverty and intolerance to criticism that unite India, unite us also. So, we Biharis also should have our rights under this law.
And now we have Markandey Katju also to suffer.
One good thing is that mercifully God has given us a sense of humour.

" बादल में आए जीवन-धन", सूर्यकांत त्रिपाठी निराला

पावस ऋतु है और प्रियतम घर आए हैं.  नायिका के लिए बाहर और अंदर प्रकृति की एक सी असंयम आतुरता,एक सी चंचल और अधीर व्याकुलता है.  जैसे एक विकल आत्मघाती और अनैसर्गिक बंधन जिससे मुक्त होने की सहज तत्परता हो.

अपने कक्ष के निर्जन अप्नत्व मे निर्वसन कोमल-तन तरुणी प्रियतम का स्वागत करती है, कटाक्ष से, मौन उलाहने से, अर्थपूर्ण चितवन से और प्रकँपित तन से. ईच्छापूर्ण मन और आग्रहपूर्ण देह प्रियतम को सर्वस्व अर्पण करने को तत्पर है जैसे यही एकमात्र लक्ष्य है इस क्षण का. जैसे बादल अपना सर्वस्व उंड़ेल कर या नदी समुद्र को अपना सब सौंप कर मुक्त हो जाना ही धर्म जानती हो वैसे ही स्वत्व का यह संपूर्ण समर्पण ही इस क्षण मे संबंध का धर्म है.


 बादल में आए जीवन-धन
अपल-नयन सुवास-यौवन नव
देख रही तरुणी कोमल-तन

मरुत-पुलक भर अंग प्रकँपित
बार-बार देखती चपल-चित
स्पर्श-चकित कर्षित हो हर्षित
लक्ष्य पार करती चल-चितवन

 नव-अपांग-शर-हत व्याकुल-उर
आतुर वारिद वारि-धार स्फुर
उगा रहा उर में प्रेमांकुर
मधुर-मधुर कर-कर प्रशमित मन

बरस गयी जल-धार विश्व-सृज
शैवलनी पा गयी उदधि निज
मुक्त हुए आ स्नेह के क्षितिज
रूप-स्पर्श-रस-गंध-शब्द धन



" बादल में आए जीवन-धन",  सूर्यकांत त्रिपाठी निराला
गीतिका, राजकमल प्रकाशन

       

At The Sign of The Sugared Plum

Just finished this extraordinary book. This habit of reading with my twelve year old daughter has its risks (The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants was a waste of time) but most certainly has its rewarding moments too. This book was one of the more pleasant experiences. Mary Hooper explores the Great Plague of London through the eyes of a young village girl, Hannah. It actually reminded me of the old saying that history is all lies except names and literature is all truth barring names.  But this story is more than a historical fiction, this is a story of  adolescent empathy and courage. This is a story of a heart full of love and life. Of a soul that knows the value of being alive and can risk much to protect another living soul and by the same logic pay reverence to a life extinguished.

"Whatever does not break me, makes me stronger" (Nietzsche)

Living in the shadows of the fast moving death, apprehending that your turn is just round the corner and desperate to avoid the unavoidable is a make or break experience. And if it does not break, it most certainly imparts a strength of character only such grave calamities are capable of bestowing.
Its an experience you would like your twelve year old daughter to have. All twelve year olds to have. 

Anne Frank's Diary

Just finished Anne Frank's 'Diary of a Young Girl'. A really special experience for me as this was the first serious book I read together with my daughter. 

This celebrated book is by a young girl Anne Frank who was a Jew. Her family shifted to Holland from Germany, hoping that Holland would remain a safe place for them. Germany captured Holland and finally she (then 13) went into hiding with her family. They were captured and deported to a concentration camp. That was unfortunate because hers was the last group to be sent from Holland. She died of typhoid only a month before her camp was liberated. She was 15 then.

She kept a diary that was presented to her on her 13th birthday, till her last day in hiding. That diary was her only true friend during those awful months. And she confided everything in that. What makes the reading so agonizingly intolerable is that Anne is hopelessly honest in her writing. The diary somehow survived and so did his father who got it published. 

Its not so much about holocaust and Germany. Its about a very young, sensitive and intelligent girl who was going through what is generally the most intricate phase in a girl's life. A phase when freedom, in its broadest sense, is demanded by, and granted to, young souls. When aspirations and dreams combine to create a world of its own. When friendships and relationships are not sought but bequeathed. And here we have Anne, in hiding, under constant agony and fear.  Nightmares and dreadful solitude! In a world, swinging violently between fear and despair at one time and hope at the other! 

Her world is not natural and her life crawls on so piteously. This life is so unreal as if she is living in my imagination only!

Its this aspect of the book that puts such human tragedies in perspective. A whole generation of Anne missing her childhood, her youth.  Six million killed and another couple of millions subverted. 

My daughter all the time was expressing her disbelief for what was happening to Anne ("only two years, my senior", she says, " how could that happen?").  As for myself, sitting and reading the 'Diary' with my own little Anne,  I could hardly believe my luck.