Mondays and Fridays

Last winter while interning with a Supreme Court Lawyer, I used to regularly follow Court proceedings on a daily basis and I was amazed at the Special Leave Petition (SLP) days -Mondays and Fridays. I was amazed on two counts: firstly at the manner in which almost every matter would be given a minute or two before being thrown out; and secondly, and more importantly, the sheer number of cases the Court heard.

The Supreme Court of India hears close to 60,000 cases in a year, most of which have done rounds of numerous fora at lower levels and appealed right through to the apex court. In contrast, most other apex judicial bodies around the world hear only a small fraction of this number. Also, most of these cases that our Supreme Court hears are SLPs and there are very few constitutional matters with of 5, 7, 9, 11 judge benches.

There are two questions that arise in my mind in this regard. Firstly, what causes so many appeals to the Supreme Court in this country? And secondly, why have Monday and Friday hearings at all? Could judges not decide whether or not to entertain an SLP by simply looking at the papers, given that counsel are barely heard?

The answer to the first question, it seems to me, is rather obvious – litigants are simply dissatisfied by lower court judgments. I guess these could be the reasons:

1. Corruption amongst judges of lower courts;

2. Intellectual capacity of Judges of lower courts;

3. Judges may tend to decide a case in a manner that minimises the risk of it being overruled on appeal, at the expense of justice (so, for example, in a case with 9 contentions where 4 favour the plaintiff and 5 favour the defendant the judge might decide all 9 points in favour of the defendant, lest the judgment should run a greater risk of being overturned on appeal);

4. Judges on a division bench almost never differ.

As yet I cannot find much reason for the second question, but looking at the disparity in the number of lawyers present in court on SLP days and those on final hearing days, I would think SLP days exist to provide for lawyers that might otherwise be unemployed!

Weeping the Sedimented Dirt Off Her Face

Have you ever felt a sense of being abandoned by the only ONE you know you can rely on? I think, the very fact that you are reading this suggests that you are not in a position to comprehend what I am talking of. Not even the writer who speculates my sub-conscience as he writes this. It is something I have often felt -almost every day -but I am not in a position to be present to it. Most things to me are mere objects -of little importance. Like cars, which I do not bother about anymore than avoiding being hit or run over by them.

Yesterday, I was walking to a friend's on my way to work. I saw a bovine family walking, one following the other, in a row, off the road. "How well adapted to the urban discipline of walking off the streets", I thought. Just a little further down the way I saw another family walking in a similar fashion. The last member of this family was the tiniest on her feet. Trying to walk her fastest, but trailing by about ten meters. She was a little girl -must be barely two or three years old -weeping away the sedimented dirt on her face, down her baby cheeks.

It was as if she had been with me a long time back and over that time she had drifted away, not too far away, but continued to drift farther -slowly, but apart. I tried pushing the road behind me to the best of my ability; but she pushed better than I did.

Tears just poured out of her eyes that were stuck to her mother's back -her mother was trailing the rest of the family with another child -an infant -in her arms. I do not think the girl herself was aware that she was crying. Her eyes were just stuck on her mother. It seemed like she must have felt like a sole last survivor of a shipwreck with a buoy floating about just ten meters away, trying real hard to get to it, but the buoy keeps gradually drifting -slowly, but away -in the middle of an ocean. The mother did not once look back at her older offspring. She didn't once look at the infant in her arms either. She just walked with dry eyes -following the rest of the herd.

All I could feel was... nothing. I thought I would never get to her. Thought she was abandoning me. I just wanted to get to her. My cries sounded distant and I wanted to get to her. I tried pushing -but the road was too heavy to push any further -but I was trying. Suddenly, from behind me, two large hands grabbed me and lifted me into the air and left me next to her. She stopped. I was standing next to her. I could now hear my cries -they sounded loud~

So, I just lifted her off the road and took her to her mother. The mother stopped and so did the rest of the family. "Don't leave a child alone like that", I told them. Not a word was spoken beyond that. They just looked into my eyes. Each one's eyes were as dry and looked as perforated as the other's -they seemed hollow -maybe the last drop of tear had evaporated long time back. The girl continued to cry, just as profusely -her eyes were shut this time around.

Fear

I think I remember when I was as scared, scared as against afraid, as I am now. I think it was when I was five years old –or maybe ten.

I have been wanting to go running early in the mornings ever since I have been here in Delhi. So far it has been the cold that has prevented me from daring of venture out of my warm sleeping bag –but then, on those days my eyes would open at about five or six in the morning and shut within almost no time. Today, I have been up since 5 AM and my eyes haven’t really shut me back to sleep. I really want to go running today. The time right now is 6:25 AM and that’s how long it has taken me to even get to me computer and write this. And the fallen mercury is not the reason.

It is still pitch dark and one can hear the watchman blow his whistle and hitting his baton against the road and making sounds that go ‘tak… tak… tak-tak’. A truck roars past on a nearby highway every few minutes. It is still pitch dark.

As a child I was scared in the dark. I would have dreams of being eaten up by a giant yellow duckling with red wings –a magnified version of toy answering that description –eaten in one peck. While walking in then dark I would break into sweat (maybe literally) in fear of being shot with a double barreled rifle –like the bandits in Hindi movies use.

Last night we were talking of how unsafe Delhi is against Mumbai. One even spoke about how people in Kota –a small town would mercilessly get butchered for a few Rupees or next to valueless things. This, against the backdrop of about 31 kids’ skeletons having been found behind a house, which is a few blocks from where I put up here in Noida – a satellite town –a few kilometers from New Delhi. The kids (boys and girls) were butchered after being raped by two men.

And it isn’t only today that I feel so scared; I have been so since last night when I was driven to riding my motorcycle at an insane speed of not less than 80 km an hour while returning from a friend’s after dinner.

I have not been this scared in over a decade; not even when I traveled to the remotest of places in India –not even at night with no street lights. Today, I have been so scared, of something uncertain that I have spent close to two hours entertaining this fear. It is insane. I have even run the fear of having a schizophrenic streak. Writing this helps. I do not feel the fear anymore.

Looks like the Sun is set to rise in a few minutes now… I better go running.

Cheers!

The Textile Mills of Bombay

The textile mills of Bombay,

Got it its glory;

But Prosperity seems

To have forgotten their way.

The tall chimneys, still robust...

Seem like cigars, lying in dust.

All this however, has opened my eye:

Why should I court golry? -So fickle

-It seems to be, too stale a day.

Untitled

I was blind in my fit of rage,
I saw nothing beyond
The one in the mirror.
Since blind beyond, I was scared;
I swung my sword -its double edge.
My defense deluded, little did I realize;
I ripped apart the one I love.
The wound is deep, and it might heal;
But it will leave two scars, that will stay
-Just, on the other, one can see.

I lost strength -my strength to forgive;
More than the other, to forgive me.

Saffron Dawn; Weeping Sky

We all seek happiness, so much that beyond a point we seem to start enjoying grief. Till that point, we seem to be running away, until we realize that sadness is like a shadow… but then one can play around with it and make figures –maybe happy, maybe sorry.

---

The weather bureau had anticipated thunderstorms but it was a typical Indian autumn dawn. Everything, irrespective of its original colour, turned saffron. The colour filled every void –even air seemed to turn saffron. It was similar to how it was on his first big day when he wore his best trousers, a sparkling white shirt and his father’s best red silk tie.

He was in his early twenties then, and a lot had happened since. He now needed a walking stick, had his own ties –as many things had happened as the wrinkles on his skin. Then, he had fallen in love and now it had been a year since his love passed away. But he was particularly reminded of that first big day, by the end of which, he had asked a question; the answer to which, until now, he had not found.

That day he just did not want to take the tie off. He wore it throughout the day until something happened. The old beggar, whom he gave a quarter as alms every evening, looked very different –had his palm extended, but wasn’t asking for anything; seemed to look at something –with a sense of nothingness. He looked at the beggar trying to figure out what he couldn’t, until a fly sat on the beggar's eye –frozen open.

Shocked, he started walking briskly towards the train station –disappearing into the maze where millions of people were trying to make a way past each other to somewhere. A bus spat a cloud of black smoke on his face as it roared past him. In the midst of this, the dead beggar calmly sat with his palm extended – with a few quarters that he hadn’t asked for.

Our young man took his seat in the crowded second-class compartment of the train with his father’s tie still knotted to perfection. After a while, he took it off.

He slept early that evening, immediately after eating sweets with friends and family.

---

A lot had happened since then –as many things as the wrinkles on his skin.

Dark clouds had gathered by now and soon broke loose. He sat alone under the weeping sky, soaked in tears that nourish our world. He too wept, wept with a sense of fulfillment. He looked at the sky with his eyes shut and felt the raindrops on his open palms.

Yellow

Its raining and I am listenin to yellow by coldplay. Its been raining all day today. God’s bladder has been overflowing and the Sunday has not been sunny at all. As I aimlessly punch the alphabets on this black Logitech keyboard, it has started raining heavily again and with the wind a lil rainwater sprays on my shirtless body. As I look out of the my open window on my right, is a young palm tree, at the other end of the playground from my house, with its bright glistening green fledgling leaves swirling in joy under a white neon tube-light seems like the head of a young girl swaying, losing herself, at a rave - in slow motion. The reflection of the neon light in the water clogged playground has the form of an hour-glass. Aother coconut tree, a little farther and much higher, sways and the movement is similar… just that the older tree is a silhouette against the background of an orange sky.

The sky is orange because of a huge chemical plant many kilometers from where I live has many chimneys that spew flames. On some days, the sky glows like the indicator of a car. It brightens and fades alternately… that is when the flames are flickering. I remember losing sleep over this strangely glowing sky as a child. I could not go to bed unless I had my mother by my side to give me a reassurance. I do not know what the reassurance exactly was about, but yeah… that was the only thing that could have me sleep – reassured.

As I listen to ‘yellow’, probably the fifth or sixth time in succession, it asks me to look at the stars and how they shine for me… and everything I do. I try to, but there are none that I can see.

And there goes my cell phone and I have to convince the person that I wasn’t sleeping. So, I am going to chat with that person online when we’re there. And ‘yellow’ tells me.. "the cloud is shining for you-ooo"! Yes, the clouds shine another shade of yellow.

I’ll listen to yellow another time as I chat with the person who’s just arrived online…. Cheers!

Suspended in Oblivion

There has been more than a couple of reasons for one to panic, of late.

Let me start with the rains and floods that brought this fabled city (Mumbai) of grit and gumption to a stand-still. The "resilient" Mumbaikar was back in the papers.

The very next day, after it stopped raining, we had shiv sainiks holding the city for undisclosed/unknown ransom on July 8, to protest against the defacement of a statue of Meenatai Thackeray, the late wife of Bal Thackeray, the Shiv Sena chief. Several buses were burnt and stoned and shutters of shops that I had never seen shut, even at 3 AM, forced shut.

Then came in our way (literally here) seven bombs that ripped open as many first class compartments of as many trains. And then hoax bomb calls that put the railways into total disarray.

So, all that adds up to one whole terrorising week. I am not spilling any more ink over recounting events and facts and figures about loss of money, life and property -the whole world knows about it.

Rains 'n' Floods: Well, this time though I was slightly impressed with the BMC, they foresaw heavy rains for the then "next 48 hours" and sent mass SMSs on every phone warning them about it. One hopes that the High Court brings to task the authorities that caused the "Rs. 250 crore go down the drain" as it has promised.

Shiv Sena Vandalism: In the first place, the bust was built with tax-payers' money, when, the Shiv Sena, forget Meenatai herself, has done more destructive work than constructive. Of course, Meenatai did nothing. So, what if it was defaced? -It could be cleaned. "But then the Shiv Sena, we all know, is Shiv Sena and will continue with its histrionics."

And despite most people saying or implying that these histrionics are to be discounted, the amazing part was that we still chose not to leave our homes and have our shutters down!

7: I was at work when a friend called and asked me not to take the train back home. I had no clue of the blasts. The phone lines were jammed. We all left work at where it was and rushed home.

I reached home after spending about two hours in the taxi and learned that the number was 7. I shot off to the bombed spot closest to my home to help if any was needed. Many VIP cars and their security vans had lined one and half lanes of the two lane road. A contingent of khaki clad policemen were standing in a conglom on the footpath parallel to the train station. On the opposite side of the road were many-a-volunteer trying to help by running all over the place maybe trying to hitch a ride for people stranded, because of the trains not working. The already hassled and now irritated drivers would jump lanes and the entire place was still and noisy lake of cars - pedestrians running all over.

After about two hours of helping there, I ran to a hospital where a blood donation camp was put up. Here, after sometime, many people gathered to donate blood. Hundreds of them. And soon the camp turned into a picnic spot with donors cracking vulgar jokes and laughing loudly. Just a few ten meters from them were about fifty dead bodies from the bomb blasts. We were waiting in queue when a new patient was brought in. He was alive though only a quarter alive. He was wrapped in a plastic bag neck-down and head bandaged - no eyeballs in his sockets - squirming. The loud laughter and jokes barely stopped.

Next morning, we mumbaikars were back with the steel wheels rolling on iron tracks! The trains were as packed as ever and the stock market was on yet another day of bull-run. We all were back to work. Not that it was a bad thing. But it seemed like we're living like sheep -giving wool, not knowing to whom and then we run the risk of being butchered the very next moment! And if not, we continue giving the wool. And my phone lines are jammed when I need to get in touch with my loved ones the most.

And sheep I feel like -bullied by the shepherd's dog. For the whole of last week I was wanting to access a few blogs including my own. It was only today that I read in the newspapers that blogs were banned! There should be no criticism of the Government, you see...

What happened to our fundamental right to speech which includes, right to free press and right to information? No state emergency has been declared to suspend these rights!

Even the Supreme Court, the guardian of the constitution and the fundamental rights contained therein, does not deny any publication, in any form, the right to, bona fide, criticise even its judgments and orders -upholding individual liberty - who the hell is the Govt. to shut us up? Maybe one could have expected the NDA doing something like; but this was the UPA -Singh, not Advani.

Brainwashed is how I feel - suspended in oblivion - not having an exact idea but a slight, unclear and blurred picture in my head. But this obliviated picture is enough to make a few constructions. Where is Lashkar-e-Toiba? And if we are intelligent enough to know that they exist, how come we do not know where they are.. for so long? Is it a "truth" or a mere "artificial reality"? For that matter, Osama bin Laden is "real" for sure; but is he "true"? We seem to know the very entity that causes every corresponding act of terror. But, with all our satellites and stealth bombers and technological hocus-pocus, no one seems to know where that entity is.

The whole world hates Osama, Lashkar, etc., etc. But do we really know if they exist? Are they true? To me (on no basis of tangible evidence) it is an extremely convoluted scheme of the politicians.

How can one rely on what is told? On July 8, when shiv sainiks rioted.. I stepped out to be where the riots were being telecast from as "Live"... when I reached the spot... I found a few kids playing football on the empty piece of road!

A Lesser God - II

Finally day before yesterday I went and met those kids who are put up in Dongri remand home. I did not quite know what to expect. I took a few sweets for them; but had no clue about what their reaction would be like.

"Hey, it's the same guy", said Amar when he saw me. The three boys were dressed in the remand home uniform –sky-blue shirts and navy-blue shorts. Amar, who is twelve years old, Salim and Suraj, both of whom are eleven years old, were smiling. When I got up and went to them, Suraj could not hold back his tears and when I wiped one, he hugged me!

The boys are doing well and are currently under observation and the authorities are still trying to trace their parents.

It took me ten days to get permission to see them. Ten days in a remand home before even someone, who was responsible for them being there, comes to visit you. You do not quite know what is in store for you next. And you're only eleven or twelve. A bit like flowers plucked and stuffed in a gunny-bag. Wouldn't be surprised if they are smeared when seen next.

When I was eleven, I had a bicycle. A black Avon BMX. And I went outstation during my vacations.

I am not trying to garner sympathy for the kids here; maybe, we owe them more.

Like my uncle says: Mera Bharat Mahan Nahi Hain; Lekin Yeh Dosh Mera Hain (My India isn't great; but it is my fault).

A Lesser God

Yesterday, while waiting for the Churchgate fast local to arrive at Dadar station, I noticed a man pouring white-ink (generally used for correcting/covering written mistakes) into handkerchiefs of about four boys no older than 10 years of age, in exchange of money.

This correction fluid contains Toluene, which contains benzodiazepines and other substances that are listed as psychotropic substances in the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act, 1985.

The peddler and the boys hopped in the handicapped compartment. Once in the train I called the police from my cellular phone and told the man who answered about the incident and asked him if anything could be done at the next station, which was yet about four minutes away. He said he’d see if anything could be done. I knew what that meant: nothing.

It was really young kids there, kids who are supposed to receive free and compulsory education from the Government from the age of six through fourteen years. And they were picking rags and buying psychotropic substances. So, many people saw what was happening and conveniently chose to look away as if it was none of their concern. So, I got off my first class compartment and caught hold of the peddler by his collar and three kids (one managed to run away) and called the police, which took its sweet time to arrive (well, at least they did). Meanwhile a crowd had gathered around us and it became easier to hold on to them.

Well, the peddler was arrested, and the kids were sent for a medical check-up.


Right to Education is a fundamental right every individual from six through fourteen years of age have. And this right is not what one would generally associate with –it cannot be renounced; it is an obligation. Actually, let me just quote Article 21A of the Constitution of India.

“The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the state may by law determine”

So, if we look at it logically, the education that the Nation thus guarantees (forget the implementation), is until a child attains the age of fourteen (which is also the age beyond which a person can be legally employed), must enable the child with skills and ability to sustain himself and his family with a respectable standard of living. If we look at the education provided to children between six and fourteen, we realize, is nothing except building a foundation for higher studies, which is not guaranteed!

If you’re Indian, you definitely know that children are produced so that they can help feed the family, two extra palms to earn by putting them forward, before air-conditioned car windows and crowded trains. Why is it that their producers would send them to schools?

This, unfortunately, is not the end of the irony. Add to all of the above, reservations and quotas to “Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC)”.

Who exactly comes under the umbrella of “backward classes”? The lower castes of an era immemorial. So, a rich student who falls, by virtue of birth, in one the above-mentioned categories, belongs to a backward class, whereas a Brahmin living in a shanty in Dharavi, without two square meals to eat is not!

The two hypotheses of enabling children of a lesser God to lead a respectable life by providing free and compulsory education on one hand and providing for quotas on a basis illogical on the other, seem to be outrageously at disparity, to say the least.


Well, the peddler was arrested, and the kids were sent for a medical check-up. Will they be sent to school? Even if they are, will it help? There are tens of thousands such children in Mumbai itself.

Actually, there is every probability that these kids are sent to an inhumanly overcrowded remand home where they might just be subjected to further abuse. Or maybe a social service organization might take up their welfare.

I shall pray. However, we can do more.