In Memory of the 'Law Pod'

( A late December Post)

There it lay in its watery grave…lifeless, it was breathing its last… the smell of death hung high… my law pod was drowning in a pool of coffee and water on my study…my friend and constant company through thick and thin lay there screaming for me to save it.. but alas!! It was too late… it had been drowning slow for a week, while I lay in bed fighting a common cold.

With tears in my eyes I slowly picked up the lifeless pod… the ember glow of its dials no longer burnt bright… there was still life.. but time was running out…. With my dying friend in my hand I ran …. destination any spot in the house which had some warm life saving sun light, my law pods excelsior of life….

An hour later nothing had much had changed, life was slowly being drained out of that wee pod…. Something drastic had to be done… the house nurse was summoned ( my mums' a doctor so there is no shortage of nurses in the house)… and was categorically asked to dry the cold and freezing pod… lill did I know that it was the last time my law pod would breathe….

The nurse ( Bhimkala) did return 10 minutes later…. a disfigured law pod in her hands.. I screamed.. pulled out my lonnnng hair.. what had she done? Whatever happened to this once smart pod? MICROWAVE.. yes that’s what happened to my law pod… the house nurse shoved it in the microwave for 30 seconds with the hope of drying it…. My wee pod was first drowned and then burnt.. a sad and painful death indeed….

Now as i look back... all the hours spent with the law pod bring back memories both good and bad... it shall be dearly missed

My Moment High in the Sky…

The blue skies, the nippy zephyr and the warm mountain sunshine…just Glen, her and me…lost in the abyss they call my world… surrounded by mountains…snow peaked and enchanting… I sat there slowly sipping on my milky coffee, smoking a cig and soaking in the moments that were passing me by.. they were my last… the last of the many we had shared and the last of the ones that awaited us… time could have stood still but it didn’t…instead it flowed as steadily as the mountain stream hidden amongst those towering peaks…

Everything was just perfect… the pizzas roasted over the freshly chopped fire wood… the coffee spiked with goats’ milk…those eyes… and the music that played over and over again in my head… I was finally living those dreams I had spent planning in my head for months at end while I lay alone in that hole…. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.. not in the sky nor in my head.. clarity for once was my forte…clarity of thought, mind and soul… and as I sat under the shade of that towering deodar tree.. my soul was reborn ….

Saddam - An Execution or a Well Planned Murder- You Decide
30th December 2006

Woke up this morning and I was sure nothing was going to be the same again, at approximately half eight Indian standard time Saddam Hussian was finally executed. Days of speculation came to end in one sleepy moment. A travesty of sorts, a violation of rights we all fight and sometimes even try and stand for. Images of a morose yet somberly peaceful Saddam standing with the hangmen waiting for his end to engulf him. The image is going to haunt me forever, a ruler an alleged tyrant was finally consumed by the American hypothesis of unriddled guilt and underlying fear towards the middle east and the Muslims.

One is consumed by many a questions in regards to the outcome and the desire behind this satanic action. Is this a victory in the fight towards terror as alleged by Bush? Or is it the realization of a new democracy in Iraq, my answers to the above posed questions is for obvios reasons in the negative.

Saddam's execution is not going to stop the flow of terror in the world community if at all it will only result in the increase of the back lash by the Muslims towards the Americans and their allies. To add to this is the insensitive timing of the execution, which was carried out on the holy day of the Muslim calendar, now just imagine Bush being executed ( if at all,) on Christmas, how would then that be accepted by the Americans and the West.

The West often complains of terrorism and jehad, but aren’t these insensitive and completely unjustified actions a reason for the birth of these so called terrorists? There is only a limit till where a person can be stretched and his patience tried, how long will the West especially the Americans walk over the sentiments and the lives of the millions of Muslims who are being tortured and killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The unfolding of these events only takes my mind back to the dark days preceding the holocaust, where Adolf Hitler had convinced the Germans that the Jews were a blotch on the world society and a threat, which eventually led to the cold blooded extermination of millions of Jews. Keeping this in mind it can easily be concluded that the Americans are doing just the same in today’s world against the Muslims, by convincing the dumb uneducated Americans that the Muslims are a threat to world peace and detrimental to their own existence. Isn’t then genocide being committed by Bush and the Americans towards the hapless Muslim community?

Coming back to Saddam, one has to realize that he was captured after being drugged by the use of chemical gases (which has been denied by the Americans) and later portrayed to the world with injuries to the forehead and condition that was worse than one could have perceived. The following 3 years were nothing short of the violations of Saddam’s rights, with tabloids in the UK running pictures of this once great leader doing his laundry or walking around in his prison cell in underwear. Even the trial as per the international legal standards which have developed since the Nuremburg trials was a farce and a blotch on the international criminal justice system. Saddam was not only denied his basic inherent legal rights, but it was made sure that most of the lawyers defending him were killed during his trial. This throws up yet another important question, why then was not Saddam tried by an International Court outside of Iraq, why was then the trail allowed to be conducted by a biased Iraqi court, which had only one plan laid out for this erstwhile leader…Death!!! Execution and Humiliation!!!