Unfair victim of life

I was reading about articles on Euthanasia featured in The Hindu. Obviously, for me, Aruna Shanbaug is the first name that comes to me whenever I think of this subject. We all have debated over this again and again and with time, we just forgot about the other side. Sohanlal, the ward boy who is responsible for her present vegetative state, is probably the least affected in this case. FYI, he was only booked under robbery and attempt to murder and not for 'unnatural sexual offence’. A life cut short to fulfill his revenge, causing irreparable loss for Aruna and to all those attached to her, he has only served 6-7 years in jail. How content are we as human beings who forgot to punish the man whose actions triggered this debate? This time we can't even blame the power addicted politicians or bureaucrats as Sohanlal is just an aam aadmi like you and me. Justice does not only prevail amongst the powerful but also amongst the ignorant. Now that Aruna has been granted passive euthanasia, the sinned must also be punished. The fact that she was denied to live a normal life, but instead is being punished for his sins, itself is too much to bear. I was told that she had to bear this brunt just because she happened to be a disciplinarian . When she accused the ward boy of having stolen meat that was ordered for the dogs, he thought of taking his revenge this way. Maybe that's why we all are so scared to come forward and fight for someone else's justice because we are worried of facing the consequences and even more frightened of the justice that will never be done.

Once when I had fractured my leg when I was hardly 5... My mother used to have sleepless nights thinking about a future where I would be limping and dependent. Such is the thought process of each of us. When a train is delayed, or stock of milk is over at the store, or couldn't get tickets to ARR concert, we crib and sulk so much. Well, at least, I do. But now, I have learnt to count my blessings. But I would probably never live a peaceful life when people like Sohanlal are walking around freely. Hope he is punished rightly and then maybe Aruna can die a peaceful death.

The cost for a vote or value of a vote?

During my school days I never would be interested in being informed about our political scenario only because I always found it boring. But post 10th grade I began to develop a certain amount of curiosity in Politics as I found it dramatic. And now it keeps me hooked onto it for hours together because it's costing me a vote! Being an Ex- NRI I have always found voting to be a very important part of every Indian citizen's life. My first day at College got me face to face with the SFI and KSU members. But I never knew who was better and what their ideology was. Eventually when the voting days came along I was able to witness a lot of campaigning that is done to get votes in their favour. The funny thing was that when the parties would enter in with their candidates to give a campaign speech, one would never get to hear what developments they were planning for...rather would hear a lot of bitching of the other party. It was always about 'they didn't do this' and 'they'll never do that' but never about 'We are planning for'. I found it really dumb on their part to never speak about their positives but rather waste time on showing how negative the other one is. To my dismay I also learnt that the same process happens even with the political parties at the Central and State.

Once there was a female candidate who came along with her supporters asking for a vote on the basis of being my neighbour. I had the entire mind to ask her what she is capable of but the way she folded her hands with begging eyes, gave me my answers. How many of these candidates are genuinely wanting to or are capable of doing something substantial for our nation? The question is huge and debatable. But the answer is in us. Every individual can make a difference if they want to. We can cancel our meetings and call up sick to the office for watching a world cup match. We can sympathize with the Japanese victims living without food and shelter ignoring the same condition that has been prevailing since years in India. We can only point fingers at our guardians of law but never be united as a nation to act upon it.

Sometimes the Govt. comes up with policies like increasing women participation, encouraging the youth to represent seats, so on and so forth. But what are we doing as mere voters? Just observing and pointing fingers. Recently on the issue of sailors being abducted by Somali pirates, there was a sudden action taken by Sushma Swaraj on contradiction to SM Krishna's insensitive comments. Really don't know if the effort was genuine, or to show the other party down. But after seeing Egypt's unity I have to say that we are extremely weak as a lay man.

Votes are being sold for cash and we are accepting corruption as a part of our life. Moreover, we are accepting parties who have leaders who are caught up in cases like rape, corruption and wotnot. The elections are due in a month...Please vote wisely and remember 'Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote'