Sunday, May 26, 2013

PURSUING PEANUTS!

The Delhi Police slogan says, “With you, for you, always!” I have always wondered what those words really mean, especially when I read in the media about where the focus of the force’s energy lies and what I witness on the Delhi roads.


Recent media reports suggest that the force has great interest in “spot-fixing” in the IPL. I guess the master brains in the force are working overtime to fix the culprits and they seem to have some success. But aren’t there more important issues that the force should pursue with similar alacrity and intent, if they are really “for us” “with us” “always”?


Spot fixing, I read, is not a crime according to the IPC. Hence, all the efforts to book the culprits as criminals, as the force is attempting to do will come a cropper. Proof: the Cronje Affair in 2000! Did the force succeed in prosecuting him and his accomplices!

 IPL we know is both circus and big-business, and a veneer of cricket. As circus we don’t need to give it much importance. It is meant to make us laugh, have a good time. We don’t’ mind the “tricks” the jokers use to make us laugh.


Indrajit Hazra of The Hindustan Times (I love the humour in his Red Herring column on Sundays) compared the IPL to WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment!). The spectators know the whole thing is pre-planned and the outcome is fixed. But do they care? They don’t, writes Hazra. “The thrill is in following the moves and the banter without knowing how the match has been fixed.” So why all the fuss about some blokes making some money! Doesn’t the force have something better to do?


Like any other big business, the players involved, that includes the top brass, will try every means within and outside the rules to “make a buck” more – such as using inside information.


So, Seesanth and co are peanuts! Why not go after bigger crooks? Here are some suggestions (all about issues that affect the lives of ordinary folks):

  • Corporate Tax Evasion: which deprives the government of resources to help ordinary people like us through its many programmes.

  • Medical Malpractice: through which pharma companies in collusion with health care corporations swindle money off ordinary people and injure their health and cause death.

  • Building Mafia and Politician Nexus: through which public land is looted (such as land on the banks of the Jamuna).

  • Sex and the City: such as rape and murder of women and children. (Preventing these would be such a credit to the force.)



I think pursuit of these bigger issues that affect our lives and showing some results will give us a more assuring sense that the force is really “With us, for us, always!


(Written with the best of intention, with malice/blame toward none.)


Monday, March 25, 2013

The Look!


As I listened to the reading of the Passion of Christ on this Palm Sunday the phrase that struck me is: “Jesus looked at Peter.” Their eyes met and Peter began to weep bitterly. 

Peter had a moment ago disowned Jesus three times despite his earlier protestations of loyalty which had also implied an "I'm better than them; I'm more loyal than them" self-concept.


I have been wondering what kind of look it was that had such an immediate impact on Peter, that brought about such remorse. I invite you, dear reader, to pause a while and ask yourself what kind of look that was. What kind of responses arise within you as you do that?  …..

For me, it would have been a look of much understanding, compassion and love: “I knew you would betray me because you are weak. But I know you love me and you are really sorry that you failed. I don’t hold anything against you. I love you the same”
 …..
 Looks! There are so many kinds of looks – looks that convey so many meanings and evoke so many emotions.

Again, I invite you, dear reader, to recall the kind of looks you have offered and what your eyes conveyed through those looks. Were they looks that you are proud of? Or looks that you are ashamed of or embarrassed about? What emotions do you think those looks evoked in those at whom they were directed?

And what about the looks others have directed toward you? What did they convey to you? And how were you affected by them? What kind of emotions they evoked in you? And how did you see yourself seen by the other through those looks? What happened when your eyes met those of the other?

Recalling the many looks we have offered and encountered and staying with the answers to these above questions that arise within us spontaneously can tell us a good deal about ourselves.

And we could turn these reflections into prayer as we take a few minutes to talk to Jesus about looks -- his, ours and those directed at us by others.

Those readers who are not disciples of Jesus can hold a conversation with the God they believe in. And those who do not believe in God can hold a conversation with their own deep self. Or, simply sit quietly for a while in the awareness of whatever this reflection on “Looks” has evoked in them.

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“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.” Rainer Maria-Rilke, in Turning Point.