INSTANT ENGLISH THROUGH INSTAGRAM @learnenglis_h

 

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Have you read the ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie? If your answer is in the affirmative, I salute you.

 

But if you ask me the same question, I have to hang my head in shame.

 

Not that I haven’t tried.

 

Tried I did. Twice. But failed both the times.

 

When I was introduced to Salman Rushdie, being a novice as far as English was concerned, I could not grasp the meaning behind the expressions and the multiple allusions in his esoteric writing. Hence, after crawling over the initial pages laboriously, I had to give up.

 

It was not as if my vocabulary bank was too shallow. For, despite hailing from a ‘vernacular medium’ school, I had known quite a number of ‘bombastic’ words!

 

After completing my class X examination in a regional medium school, my father intended to send me to Shillong in Meghalaya for further studies. However, since the medium of instruction would be English over there, I had to take a year off my scholastic schedule and learn English so as to confront English medium students and teachers on an equal footing. Thereupon, I was sent to a boarding school at Nagercoil wherein a college professor taught us English, a Belgian priest taught French and Greek (just the basics of the latter), and, a local teacher, Hindi. Thus, my de facto initiation into English began only after I had crossed fifteen years of age.

 

All the teachers were exceptionally good, but I was on my back foot with regard to Hindi due to some inherent disaffection toward the language. The English professor ensured that we learnt more than 60 new words every day for six days a week. We were given texts to read and look up meanings of difficult words, write them down in a notebook and be prepared for a dictation test on the following morning. Thus by the time we completed the year-long course, we our vocabulary level had risen to great heights. On the other hand, despite daily speaking and writing practice, our spoken English skill did not improve much thanks to the interference of mother tongue.

 

That was way back in 1978-79.

 

But having faced ostracism and insult as a ‘vernacular’ medium student, I always knew the struggles of the students whom I have taught during the past 36 years. Most of the students whom I had schooled in Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh were first-generation learners, without the luxury of learning in their mother tongues. Even in Mumbai, the number of students hailing from regional medium schools is quite high. I am aware of the posers posed by this alien language to such students.

 

Coming to lockdown 2020,

 

I had guided a few students to take the IELTS exam in the latter half of 2019. Since then I had been contemplating doing something for the upgradation of the linguistic competencies of bona fide learners of English as a Second or Third language, and those preparing for IELTS, GRE and such other examinations. Toward this end, taking time by the forelock, I started an Instagram page named @learnenglis_h during the lockdown in April 2020. Initially, as I was still a greenhorn as far as Instagram was concerned, my daughters helped me in designing the page, daily updates and scheduling the post. I have long since shed my dependence on them.

 

Every post consists of a word, its meaning, pronunciation (if needed), sample sentence(s), synonyms and another form of the word such as noun, adjective or verb. Readers have the liberty to interact with me and clarify their doubts. The rising number of daily likers and new followers from across the globe is a testament to its enormous popularity. Instagrammers from around the world often comment on the posts and clarify their doubts either through personal message or on the ‘learnenglis_h’ page. There have been many instances where the comments were in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Indonesian and even Urdu, among others. I have to Google-translate them before responding to them!

 

In less than three months of its launch, the number of followers exceeded the monumental 10k mark, and now it is inching towards the 16k mark.  As on current date, it has reached nearly 20k accounts as per the statistics available with Instagram.

 

 

‘Panacea’ was the launching word chosen by me and ‘Centennial’ the 100th word. Interestingly, ‘Impish’ was the 52nd word. As of today (Nov 11, 2020), 138 posts have been published which include vocabulary, idioms, correct usage, quizzes and accurate pronunciation, inter alia. This was my way of serving the student community.

 

You too may check out my pages @learnenglis_h and @thedonquotes, the latter, a motivational page. Every post is also published in my Facebook page ‘Learn English’ and ‘The Don Quotes’.

 

And yes, if you ask me whether I will ever read ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie, my answer is a resounding ‘YES’. It is still among my must-read books. I hope the followers of learnenglis_h too will follow suit one day: the learnenglis_h page will certainly facilitate an easy understanding of the language and diction of Salman Rushdie.

 

 

Practising Mindfulness - fruit of Lockdown 2020

 

 

Practising being Present IN THE PRESENT

If someone offers to teach meditation to an Indian, the latter would possibly scoff at him: yoga and meditation are a part and parcel of the life of every Indian. During my hostel days in Shillong, we used to have what was termed as a ‘Retreat’ which lasted for half a day once a month and seven days once a year. What all of us had to do was to literally retreat into the bygone days or, sometimes, delve into the distant past, even as far as our childhood days, and examine them with a magnifying glass, as it were, so that we could reverse our faults, heal the wounds and avoid repeating the pitfalls in future. Primarily, it was a spiritual journey into the past to restructure our future – a proactive step towards spiritual edification. Meditation and deep contemplation played a significant role in it.

So, during the lockdown, when I read about a Certificate course on ‘Maintaining a Mindful Life’, I did not expect much out of it, dismissing it as another form of meditation not alien to Indians. But the fact that it was offered by one of the top universities of the World, Monash University, Australia, got me thinking. Once I enrolled in it and started the course, I enjoyed it thoroughly. A veritable eye-opener, it was one of the most useful things that I have learned in recent times.

Learners are taught to practise ‘Mindfulness Meditation’ as a means of attaining psychological wellbeing. Since the psyche has a domineering influence on the soma or body, many psychosomatic illnesses, as well as our reactions to serious and debilitating illnesses can be controlled, regulated and tackled through Mindfulness Meditation.

Mindfulness Meditation (MM) is all about paying attention to and being aware of the present. The practitioners of MM develop a non-judgmental attitude towards their experiences and practise being present in the present. It is as if we come out of our selves and observe our very selves from a vantage point, without passing any type of judgement at all. We look at our ‘subjectness’ objectively, treating it as another object, distinct from the observer.

Mindfulness Meditation is aimed at attaining Mindfulness, and not vice versa. Since our attention is regulated during an MM, we arrive at some sort of ‘choiceless awareness’ of the present.  Hence the present becomes a real present to us, presented on a platter.

I was so overwhelmed by the course that I was itching to share its relevance and significance with whomever I knew. I felt that teachers need to not only practise mindfulness but train their students too in it; sick patients should indulge in MM in order to alleviate their agony; and everyone ought to have a go at it for their own psychological health and stress-free life.

The opportunity to spread the word presented itself in the persona of a friend who wanted to organize some webinars on an international level. I leaped at the offer, and my session was live cast through Zoom and Facebook, amidst rave comments. There were more than 600 registrations from round the world!

The resounding success propelled me to conduct another practical session for teachers and enlighten them so that they could cascade the learning to their students. The hour and a half session was telecast live on Zoom, Facebook and YouTube for the benefit of the teaching fraternity spread all over India and elsewhere.

One of the key concepts that fascinated audiences is the use of ‘punctuation’ and ‘full stop’ during the course of the day. A ‘punctuation’ refers to a short pause from whatever one is doing and engage in a brief Mindfulness Meditation lasting about one to five minutes, depending on the circumstance. The ‘full stop’ meditation is meant to be practised for a longer period a couple of times during the day.

As I have already had an initiation into Reiki and Pranic Healing, MM has given me an added advantage of reaching out to the suffering, with phenomenal results. I practise MM every day and this has made my life stress free. Every morning I feel that I am a new person brought forth into this world by the Almighty with a purpose in mind.

This lockdown has really turned out, among others, to be a boon to me at personal, spiritual and social levels.

New Year Resolutions (2019)

New Year Resolutions (2019)

This is the time of the year when everyone likes to make resolutions. But a meagre percentage of us keep them in mind throughout the year, forget about adhering to them.
'But', you cliche, 'aren't resolutions made to be broken?'
'Perhaps', I counter. 'But what about promises? Are they meant to be broken, too?'

Now, that's food for thought.

If you review your past, how many promises have you broken? Why don't you resolve this new year not to make impulsive promises that will trouble your conscience later on? Stop giving false assurances and hopes to people so that you break fewer hearts?

If you promise yourself to achieve something, visualise it down to its miniature steps so that each tiny conquest will reassure you that you are on course to achieve something lofty.

As for myself, I'm going to make two resolutions: to cut down flab and cut out toxic people. Maggie complains that my paunch is growing bigger than my wisdom and that my midsection looks like a beer paunch. I remind her that I don't drink beer, and that she's the one behind my paunch. And before and after: her delicious food has made me crave for more each day, thereby causing a bulge; after, because she's after me to shrink it now. As for the wisdom part, the less said the better.

Coming to my second resolution, I have decided to revisit it. Now it will be, "I will start embracing toxic people" so that it can kill the toxicity in them. How does it sound? Isn't it better than cutting them loose?

These are my resolutions. What about yours?

Dominic A Mathias
Dec 31, 2018

Three-day national seminar on 'Act East Policy of NDA II and Primary Goals: Economic Development, Democracy and National Security' organised in Mumbai | merinews Mobile

Three-day national seminar on 'Act East Policy of NDA II and Primary Goals: Economic Development, Democracy and National Security' organised in Mumbai | merinews Mobile

Freedom of Expression and Censorship

Freedom of Expression And Censorship

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

These are the dramatic opening lines of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s immensely powerful treatise "The Social Contract."  Freedom is the most fundamental pillar of democracy: in its absence democracy turns into autocracy. The French Revolution of 1789 made Liberty, Equality and Fraternity the most sacrosanct values of humanity. Any ruler or government that ensnared man away to a life of bondage has always met with perdition eventually. Their lives and reigns have been written in blood in the annals of history for posterity to remember them with derision and disdain.

Closer to our own home and hearth, gone are the days when parents and teachers (were) ruled by the dictum: ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ Now every young parent gives so much freedom and leverage to the child that the kid feels heady at miniscule achievements, and parents look askance at teachers who display so much as an inkling of disapproval towards their ward. No sooner do the parents notice such disparagement towards their child than they unleash their belligerent instinct towards the ‘offending’ teacher. Such is the importance and weightage given today to freedom and choice in an individual’s life from childhood onwards.

On the other hand, there are the ultra-patriotic, ultra-moralistic and ultra-‘responsible’ citizenry who are out to impose their decrees on all and sundry, dictating what the latter should see, hear, read, taste or consume! It is the same ‘patriots’ who mouth lengthy platitudes on human rights and, if given a chance, individual liberty, to boot.

The framers of the Indian constitution envisaged and guaranteed seven Rights as the most fundamental of rights – though the number was reduced to six after the deletion of the Right to Property by the 44^th Constitutional Amendment. The Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression was placed at the top of their list. However, this Right has become now one of the most maligned ones.

The Censor Board has taken upon itself the right and freedom to mutilate and impound whatever matter it regards as objectionable, in utter disregard to the raison d'être that had prompted the artiste to append it along with, say, other scenes in a film. This imbecile mutilation does not just curtail but disrespects the artistic freedom enjoyed and given expression to by the artiste.

Recently, Anurag Kashyap’s Udta Punjab bore the brunt of the butcher’s knife and caused a furore all over the nation. News channels all over India in all languages were agog with high decibel debates. The producers were wary with the Censor Board, as, they maintained, the film had depicted the reality of drug menace in Punjab very vividly and realistically.

The film ‘Aligarh’ based on the last years of the life Prof Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras was slapped with an ‘A’ certificate due to allusions to homosexuality. In 2015, the word ‘lesbian’ was muted in Dum Lagake Haisha, which is a powerful feminist statement on marriage.

The last two movies were not apologias on homosexuality or lesbianism. Rather they depicted hardcore reality, which many would have balked at referencing even during table talk! Terry Tempest William says: “Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” The producers of the above films were doing just that!

The Censor Board was established by the British in 1920 to regulate the public exhibition of films, especially to suppress content that was considered anti-colonial. With the implementation of the Cinematograph Act, 1952, the board was reconstituted, and the rules were revised again in 1983 to assume the current form. Such censorship of films was deemed necessary due to the potency of the audio-visual medium to capture the attention of the audience and mould their thought process. Much water has flown down the Ganga since 1920 and 1952, and the world has metamorphosed itself into a digitalized unfathomable black hole that is beyond the ken and comprehension of the interbellum generation. Yet the Censor Board is as self-righteous as ever, recommending curtailment of scenes. For example, take the film Miss Lovely. Despite being acclaimed all over the world in numerous film festivals, director Ashim Ahluwalia was asked by the Censor Board to make 157 cuts in the film!

It is not just technology and ease of film making that have altered (and have been altered in turn) during the hundred odd years since the establishment of the Censor Board: even the value systems have undergone a transformation that will shock the wits out of the older generation. The HUFs and arranged marriages that were so inviolable in a familial set up have been toppled and trampled upon by the millennial generation. Aged parents who had lived a life of freedom – in a state of nature, as Hobbes would describe – are caged up in Old Age Homes as good riddance.

Pampering and indulgence have become synonymous with freedom today. When a young parent chides their child, the other parent takes offense at the former, since they feel that if the freedom of the child is hampered with even in small measures, their free and natural growth will be hindered, engendering disappointment and stress, resulting in stunted growth as an individual. (In such a scenario, what values do you think are going to be imbibed by the child?)

It is against this backdrop that censorship has to be viewed if it is to be beheld and understood from a vantage position. No doubt the formators of the Censor Board had impeccable intentions – that the impressionable mind of the youth should not be adversely impacted by what is shown or seen on the screen, thanks to the realistic illusion presented therein.

On the other hand, for the millennials, content is what they hold. Their cellular phone with the latest configuration (and now 4G) is the whole world and beyond for them. Whatever that the older generation wanted to keep out of their sight is in the palm of their hands. If it was love or lust that the Censor Board wished to conceal, teenagers studying in schools are more conversant with it and, at times, have had more firsthand experience than an adult 50 years ago. If it was expletives and cusswords that are sought to be hidden from them, ask teachers about the words and pictures scribbled on blackboards and carved on desks and benches. They will also tell you the number of CDs (a decade ago) and now mobile phones confiscated by them almost on a daily basis with hardcore pornographic material. There are collegians who regularly indulge in such pervert pleasures through legal subscriptions! Not taking these into consideration blinkers one’s vision, like that of a horse.

What, then, does the Censor Board purport to suppress? What do all these moralistic and holier-than-thou diktats tantamount to? Suppression of the Creative Impulse. Massacre of Originality. Crushing of Artistic Sensibility. Nothing else.

The number of films that have faced the Censor Board’s axe due to sundry reasons, including vulgar language, explicit scenes, gender issues, the Kashmir conundrum, religion etc is mindboggling.

Besides the Censor Board, there are political parties, state governments and even some private organizations that have played a major role in banning the fruits of such creative endeavour, birthed after much toil and sacrifice.  

In 2011, Northern States banned ‘Aarakshan’ (Reservation) due to its outright portrayal of caste quotas in government jobs and education. Bandit Queen, a film based on the life of Phoolan Devi, was banned due to vulgarity, although the film is a realistic depiction of whatever happened in the life of Phoolan Devi (which, incidentally, no government could forestall). Nevertheless, picturization of the same was banned! Parzania, a film based on the Gujarat riots, won a national award for its cinematic excellence, but it was banned in Gujarat due to the perceived sensitivity of the issue.

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996) and Water (2005), Mira Nair’s Kama Sutra, A Tale of Love (1996) were all banned in India. However, did such a ban prevent Indians from having a dekko and relishing the films in question? Definitely no. Pirated copies and Torrents were available for free download and sharing, albeit illegally!

By censoring content, the Censor Board is doing a disservice to creativity and innovativeness. In fact, the Board is overstepping its brief. What is commonly known as the Censor Board is in reality Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). It is meant only to ‘certify’ films and not to maim them. Initially, their task had been to classify them into two categories: U and A. Later on, U/A [equivalent to Under Parental Guidance (PG)] and S (meant for Special class of persons/ for private viewing) were added.

In my considered view, the Censor Board needs to be censured,  and it should censor itself from extending beyond its legitimate mandate and stick to its bounden task of certification.

However, since ‘rights’ does not mean libertinism, the Censor Board may serve as a watchdog with a view to ensuring that unpalatable matter is not bandied about. In case the Board feels that some content is offensive or may create unpleasantness or divisiveness among viewers, certain suggestions or recommendations may be given in confidence to the producers who ought to have the liberty to consider and accept or override the recommendations. The producers too should also maintain secrecy of the suggestions and refrain from maligning the authorities.

However, it is high time to have a re-look into the scope and responsibilities of the Censor Board and set appropriate parameters so that it remains relevant to the millennial society. If the members of the Board are unwilling to grow up and learn, creative artistes should come together as one body and fight against such authoritarianism. If a government manipulates the censorship Act to suppress dissension, it ought to be dealt with a heavy hand. We cannot just resign ourselves to the situation and hope that things will improve on their own.

On the other hand, producers and artists ought to moderate themselves, instead of leaving themselves to be moderated by the Censor Board, for self-moderation is the best form of censorship.

Capital Punishment – Does the End Justify the Means?

        There are days in the annals of a nation when the whole nation is jubilant, as, for instance, when its sovereignty is wrested back from the clutches of an alien power. There are also  days when large populations across countries have gloated over someone’s death,  as in the cases of Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and, more recently, the Libyan rebel, Muammar Gaddafi. Twenty-first November 2012 was such a day when it seemed India celebrated its second Diwali of the year: there were bursting of crackers, sharing of sweets, thumping of chests and a sense of elation and relief in many an Indian’s heart. It was a day when India woke up, not with a newspaper but a TV remote in its hands. The occasion:  A terse message in everyone’s SMS inboxes:  ‘Ajmal Kasab was hanged to death in Pune at 7.30 am.’ 

        The tone of the Press Conference by the Home Minister Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde to confirm the execution was one of personal triumph. Shri RR Patil, Home Minister of Maharashtra during his sombre press announcement referred to it as a “fitting tribute” to the 166  who lost their lives on 26/11.  In the harangue that followed, there was talk, inter alia, of ‘justice’ being done and ‘the right message’ being sent!

       This brings us to the oft-debated question of Capital Punishment, which is defined as the lawful infliction of death as a punishment. What did Ajmal Kasab’s death actually achieve? Rather, what does capital punishment seek to establish or achieve? Retribution? Deterrence? The rule of law? There are umpteen extremely effective mechanisms for it. Justice? Tit for Tat? Quid Pro quo? Does capital punishment redound to moral edification? Or betterment of humanity? Isn’t there a better method of punishing the guilty, however heinous their crime, than taking away their lives?

Justice?  Deterrence?

        All of us pray for a just society, a society where justice is given utmost priority. However, when it comes to ourselves, it pinches us and we have a lop-sided view of justice. In a  just society everyone  has an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By deliberately denying life and opportunity to others, it is argued, the perpetrators forfeit their own claim to life. Hence, they should be restrained forever so as not to give them a chance for further endangerment. It is often claim that capital punishment acts as deterrence. But, has death penalty ever stopped a crime? Several studies conducted on the deterrence factor have proved that fear of capital punishment hasn’t decreased crime rate. On the contrary, in some cases it has witnessed escalation after the introduction of capital punishment! For capital punishment to be a true deterrent, everybody must realise that we will certainly be put to death if we commit certain crimes and that there will be no reprieve. 

       But what about the difference in the degree of criminality, the gravity of the crime? One may have killed another in a heat of passion, while another may have committed a premeditated murder. Almost like the ‘motiveless malignity’ of Shakespeare’s Iago. Should their penalty be equivalent? Isn’t Capital punishment too an instance of pre-meditated, socially approved murder?

Extenuating circumstances

       There are cases where persons who commit such crimes have often been subjected to violence, emotional trauma, neglect, lack of love and a host of destructive social conditions. These extenuating circumstances have damaged their humanity so much that they cannot be held completely culpable. Most terrorists are brainwashed into becoming ‘human bombs’. These ‘human bombs’ feel that they are performing a good deed by indulging in the terroristic deed. In such cases, it is their trainers and instigators who are more culpable than these gullible puppets. Thus indiscriminate inflicting of death punishment becomes a miscarriage of justice. Remember, two wrongs don’t make a right. 

Anti-Human Rights

        The very acceptance of capital punishment as a viable instrument for punishing the guilty is a moral disgrace to the society.  It is also against the principle of Human Rights. The UN General Assembly adopted the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on 15 December 1989, which says that the abolition of death penalty “contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and progressive development of human rights.”*   The Statutes for the International Criminal Tribunal and International Criminal Court established by the Security Council do not provide for capital punishment, even though they were set up to try individuals for crimes against humanity and genocide. According to Amnesty International, more than two-thirds of the countries in the world (140) have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.**   Even a country like Rwanda that has witnessed the ultimate crime of genocide recently decided to forego the death penalty. What about the more spiritualistic India?

‘Rarest of rare cases’

        In India capital punishment is given only to the ‘rarest of rare cases’, but what constitutes the ‘rarest of rare cases’? Definition of ‘rarest of rare cases’ is left to the judges; so it becomes a judge-centric discretion!  When the state has no power to create life, how can it be vested with the power to destroy life? If the principle of ‘life for life’ is followed, capital punishment becomes a sort of compulsory euthanasia so that the individual isn’t exposed to more murderous opportunities. Can such euthanasia be justified, even as a means of deterrence or retribution?

Not punishment but elimination

       There was a time when capital punishment was the norm, and exceptions were made, depending upon mitigating circumstances. But now in some countries like India capital punishment is not the norm but it is given only in exceptional cases. This might seem to be an improvement over the earlier stance, but the irony is that while in the former case, the awarding authority would consider mitigating circumstances and override the penalty, now that does not happen because, here, the crime is given more weightage than the criminal. Hence, there is little chance of revoking the death penalty. Moreover, a court can determine the gravity of the crime,  but awarding  capital punishment to the criminal, does not tantamount to ‘punishment’, inasmuch as in capital punishment, the individual is not punished but eliminated! Keeping the person alive will be punishment while killing him will be elimination!

Alternatives to capital punishment

        What, then, is the alternative to  capital punishment? One viable alternative is life sentence, that is, incarceration until death  without any opportunity for parole. For, such a sentence removes the convict from the community against which he/she had committed the crime. The advocates of exemplary chastisement will be glad to know that life without parole is crueller than death, for it is a living death, though gradually. The BBC reported  in 2007 that hundreds of prisoners, unable to bear their vegetative existence, petitioned the Italian government to convert their life sentences to execution.*** 

        Moreover, life imprisonment proffers the convict an opportunity for remorse. There is a famous case of Karla Faye Tucker who had been convicted of brutally killing two people with a pickaxe during a 1983 robbery. Despite evidence that Karla Faye Tucker had been high on drugs at the time of the crime and that she had been addicted to drugs since she was eight years old, the jury put her on death row. During her 14-year wait for execution, she underwent conversion and a change of heart in gaol, so much so that leaders from across the world, including Pope John Paul II, made personal appeals for the commutation of her death sentence to life in prison.++ Death penalty removes from the individual any chance of such remorse, conversion and rehabilitation. 

        Abrogation of death penalty has other good effects as well. I may sound naïve if I say that it gives employment to prison guards. More seriously, it creates a culture in which human life is so highly valued that not even the state is permitted to kill people. Today, newspapers are rife with cases of juvenile delinquency. If capital punishment becomes the norm, soon we will have many young boys and girls who are executed without giving them an opportunity to reform themselves. 

Discipline from Bottoms up

        The fact that our prisons are full and congested is a testimony to our failure in our endeavour to create an upright society devoid of poverty, moral decay and social disharmony.  The Law Commission, in its 36th report (1967) stated that India could not risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment because of the low level of morality and education and vastness of area and population, and the need for maintaining law and order in the country.+++  Hence we need to pull up our socks and get down to work to eradicate these ills, which form the foundation and dubious pillars of a crime-ridden society. 

        We need to  instil stricter discipline in children at schools and on the streets, and young offenders and older ones progressively.  This way, we can try to bring up a generation of disciplined people who may not need the threat of execution to deter them from committing the most grievous crimes.  It is incumbent upon us to provide citizens with equal opportunities to achieve a good life in a loving culture. This will be the most potent antidote to those who  clamour for capital punishment.

        The  Father of our Nation, Mahatma Gandhi,  had hit the nail on the head when he said: An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind. Period. Who would aspire to live in a world populated by the blind, where the blind lead the blind to perdition? In view of the above, however lofty be the end or objective of capital punishment, it will never justify the means. 

---------------------------

*       http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr-death.htm

**     http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/abolitionist-and-retentionist-countries

***  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6707865.stm

+ +   The jury rejected amnesty to Faye Tucker and she was executed by lethal injection on February 3,  1998. She received the lethal injection with composure and equipoise. She was the first woman executed in the State of Texas in 135 years.

+++ As quoted by Justice Hosbet Suresh in his book “All Human Rights are Fundamental Rights” Second Edition (Universal Law Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 2010) p. 84

‘Mannat’ or Votive Offering

‘Mannat’

‘Mannat’  is a type of votive offering.  Outside Mount Mary’s Church at Bandra, and many other religious places where miracles are said to occur, there are a number of vendors selling figurines of sundry designs and sizes – of  body parts, children, houses, cars, and even currency notes. These are offered either in anticipation of the fulfillment of a wish or after achieving a particular wish.

Going a step further, there are people who promise to proffer something or to do something for God in exchange for granting a wish. For instance, people promise to break a hundred coconuts for Lord Ganesha, if  he/she passes an exam or obtains a contract. Having obtained the favour the individual will go to any extent to fulfill his part of the contract lest retribution follow his ingratitude. The magnitude of the promised offering varies in proportion to the severity or urgency of the need or problem.

Last month, before the conclusion of a ‘Satsang’ an announcement was made by one of the speakers, urging the participants to abstain from consuming non-vegetarian food for at least three days prior to the next meeting to be held on 8^th July 2012. Similar thoughts had been expressed umpteen times during the whole morning, in different ways and manners by different people to the effect that people should give up something prized by them for God so that God might look kindly upon them. That God would be touched by their sacrifice and penance and would certainly grant their wish.

At another prayer meeting, the preacher, adducing references from Holy Scriptures, pounded upon the listeners to offer their supplications ‘with weeping and wailing’. For their tears would  draw out God’s sympathy and He would wipe out their every tear. Within minutes every eye in that spacious hall became cloudy as on a monsoon evening and the lachrymal glands turned into gargoyles spewing their saline  produce profusely. The frenzied populace were literally sniveling and begging for God to open His sympathetic ears and listen to their entreaties.

The whole thing was nothing but melodramatic. The Omniscient and Omnipotent was reduced to a sadist awaiting sobsters so that He could, with a sleight of His hands, wipe out all their tears along with their agonies and pains.

Alas! Does the Almighty lack anything so much so that He needs to wait for devotees to submit some votive offering before doing their bidding? Does it make sense to penalize one’s taste buds so that the Omnipresent can be outreached? Perhaps the preacher above would have made better sense if he had exhorted the people to refrain from speaking untruth or gossip or getting angry or doing anything that would cause harm to others. This would have required more effort than mere abstinence from indulging in gastronomic pleasures.

Some sermonizers are so insistent upon such petty acts that they make you feel guilty, first of all, if you do not make a commitment to chastise yourself, and, secondly, if and when you are tempted to break such an oath made under obvious duress or reneged on some sort of mannat.

May all those who are hoodwinked by such smooth tongued sophists be aware of their guile and not fall prey to their eccentric and fallacious logic. For, the Almighty lacks nothing that necessitates supplementary  inputs from us mortals, nor is He a sadist drawing pleasure from broken hearts or a judge awaiting with a crosier to mete out judgment.

Dominic A Mathias