My email to Justice Verma

From: Chiranjib Mazumdar
Date: Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 12:40 PM
Subject: Reference to public notice - suggestions on amendments to criminal laws relating to safety and security of women
To: justice.verma@nic.in


Dear sir

This is with reference to the public notice given by you on Indian newspapers "inviting suggestions on amendments to criminal laws relating to safety and security of women".

Please note that I am a simple citizen of this nation and am shocked beyond words seeing the brutal nature of the crime and the horrific after-effects. No wonder it has generated the attention, it has.

Please find below my suggestions -
1. Rape cases need to be solved decisively within a month. If needed fast track courts should be established with eminent judges and jury as panel members. Women representation is a must in the panel.
2. Simple imprisonment and fine for the culprits who are proven guilty, is not enough, simply because in India, there is a social stigma attached to a person who undergoes such trauma. Punishment should be exemplary so that it serves as a deterrent and makes prospective criminals think a thousand times before committing such crimes.
3. While I think death sentence should be the minimum punishment awarded, chemical castration may be a more apt form of punishment that would remind the criminal of the guilt for the rest of his life.
4. There should be adequate provisions to ensure that any changes in existing law are not misused and innocents do not get trapped.

5. In case of the victim's death, death penalty should be made mandatory for the culprits.

6. If juveniles are involved in the crime, they should still be treated as adults.

7. The victim's family should be provided with all support and protection as needed, to prevent them from being harassed and blackmailed.

As I mentioned earlier, I am a member of the civil society and bear no connections whatsoever to the Lawyers' association, so my suggestions may be perceived as crude, but I hope I do echo the voices of millions of Indian citizens who are equally shocked as I am, with the recent incident.

It is high time that a strong stand is taken to prevent such incidents, because, for all you know, this has brought down the reputation of India in front of the whole world. I see tourism industry clearly getting affected with the negative publicity this incident has generated.

I sincerely hope that among the millions of emails you might receive, this email does get 2 seconds of attention.


--
Best regards,
Chiranjib Mazumdar

Rants - useless? :-)

In case if you are wondering why I do not post much these days. Well, the reason is - most of the thoughts are too personal and fit for my diary...

Sometimes, it is good to stay in a dormant state. When I started blogging, there was a time, when I would write upto 4 posts in a single day!!! Can you imagine? ;-) And nowadays, I pick up the pen (read cursor), may be once in a few months.

Thoughts fail me... nothing really to write about.

For the reader, if you think there should be something for me to write on, do let me know!

Lol..

Has it ever happened to you, when it seems as if life came to a standstill.

Imagine yourself as standing neck deep in a pond filled with cold water... surrounded by mountains all around. Not a soul around. Fall has long gone.. The trees are barren.. The sun prepares to set behind the mountain range close-by. The sky displays an amazing aura befit only for a painter's imagination. There is beauty all around... a fiery beauty... a beauty that does entice you, but does not necessarily make you happy.

In spite, you are standing neck deep in the pond.... and then you close your eyes...

Nothing to worry about.... its so peaceful out here.... so so peaceful....

It almost reminds me of my favorite tune from Enigma - Mea Culpa -
"Take a deep breath, close your eyes..."

Miles to go...

Been away from the blogosphere for some time now and I decided to give it a shot today.


The reason was a dream I had in the afternoon today. I saw that I had walked to the cremation grounds and intended to speak to the officials for my own cremation. There was no one with me. It was just that I was to die in a few minutes and I was negotiating with the officials so that they can arrange volunteers to carry out the ritual. There were a heap of bodies lying nearby with family members of the deceased wailing relentlessly. At a distance, few people were singing hymns in praise of the all powerful.

A pungent smell was emanating out of the nearby electric burners where two dead bodies had been cast into. Was the smell of burnt flesh and skin in the red hot burners.

In any case, I was waiting for my time and suddenly I experienced death approach me and I was terrified. Felt a strange kind of suffocation and that is when I woke up.

I believe it was a one-off dream and probably a left over of a recent cremation I attended. I do not intend to read much into it.

I still have "miles to go before I sleep..."

Lull before the storm

I do not need to generally write in third person, coz. views expressed in this blog are public and I do appreciate and respect that. I have my own diary, which is a blog too, to which only one person has access and that is ME! lol! :D

So, matters too private, are left for that blog.

Now, you may have opened this post after reading the title "Lull before the storm". Well, why did I choose such a title? :-)
To be frank, the weather outside is bright and sunny here at King of Prussia, my current place of stay. So, it is more of an internal feeling, an intuition if I may say so.

You know, when I was a kid, I used to react to situations instantaneously, sometimes without thinking. And often I paid a heavy price for it. As I grew older, with time, I realized that one should never do or say things in haste, without thinking thoroughly each pro and con. In the process, decisions may get delayed, but chances are more that I would not make a wrong decision. When I look at myself today, I do try to maintain that.

So, whenever there is a situation that tends to provoke me, I try to stay calm, keep a cool head on my shoulder and then decide. Silence does help too, as I am able to do much soul searching and introspection.
In today's age of social networking, people tend to stay busy, looking at home pages, friend's status messages, 'liking' stuff, commenting etc. But in the process, we probably tend to think less. We do not invest the much needed time. Its as if OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) only and not OLAP (Online Analytical Processing). My friends from the Data Warehousing background would know well the difference between the two. LOL :D

Sometimes I feel, life was simpler during the pre-social networking era. Relationships tended to be less complex. People had lesser chance to peep at each others' personal lives, so everyone tended to be content.
Times have changed.

A study recently published said that people who spend maximum time on social networking sites tend to get more frustrated over time. You can read through the article with the hyperlink I provided.

Anyway, it seems that solitude would be ideal for now...

Sorry, I thought I could explain my title more in this post, but figured, it would best be left for my private blog.

Until next time...

Lets not expect :-)

Hmm... in a mood to write something down. Not sure what... lol

Well, the thing is, I wish to stop expecting. But "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

So, I am trying to write myself a dummy's guide on how to stop expecting.

First and foremost, let us do away with the idea of give and take. Life is not a trade, is it? Most of the times, the issues arise because, we are trained to expect favors in return for favors. When that does not happen, all hell breaks loose.

Second, let us have this notion that the grass is not greener on the other side. Come on! Look closely. Each one of us have problems - one way or the other. Even the ones who think they do not have problems are in the illusion that everything is good. Its a fact - NO ONE IS HAPPY. So, let us try and appreciate the qualities others have instead of giggling over shortcomings. Let us be empathetic towards each other. Here let me point out I am not talking about sympathy, I am talking about empathy. There is a marked difference between the two.

Sympathy is what we feel when we see a homeless begging for food on the street. We look and move on, forget the feeling after a moment.

Empathy is what we feel when we imagine how it would have felt had we been in that person's shoes... begging in the scorching heat, hunger burning inside, perspiration taking a huge toll, countless glances towards us which show more of hatred towards a germ of society, rather than love. Yes, if you have ever felt that, that is called empathy.

Anyway, the third point would probably be in being complacent with what we have. Yes, in developing countries like India, the difference between "haves" and "have nots" drive people crazy. They compete against each other fiercely trying to be the first to hit the jackpot. However, one fine day, we realize that while we were busy merely running after an illusion, we forgot to live life. We forgot to have fun. We forgot to appreciate what we had. Our hair turned grey and we lost precious moments of our life.

So, it is probably important to be complacent at times, being happy with what we have, rather than brood over what we do not have.

In short, let us not expect. Let us plant a seed each day, rather than dream of reaping dividends.

At peace with myself

Hmm... a gradual home coming to the stability of my thoughts, feelings... a feeling of settling down... going back to my roots, going back to where I belong... the feeling of being grounded... accepting adversities to be a part and parcel of life... Its like that illusion of an obstacle I saw in a movie many years back... You see an obstacle, get terrified, limited by it... But someone tells you - go ahead, there is nothing there.. its only an illusion... The protagonist walks ahead, circumspect at first... But then he just transcends through it unaffected...

Obstacles in real life are just like that. They are obstacles as long as we make them as such. The moment we take them head-on, they let us pass through unaffected.

So, was there an obstacle that I faced? Probably not... probably yes.

My sense of justice and being fair to everyone does get the better of me at times, does leave me drained and strained. But that's how I am. Take it or leave it.

At the end of the day, the only feeling that I sincerely hate is the feeling of guilt - the feeling of doing wrong to someone. I would rather take the blow, than give it... :-)

I am finally at peace with myself...

Trying out mobile blogging

Hey, just got this blogger app that lets you blog from your phone, thus increasing your ability to make the most of your laziness... Lol. So far so good. Life is changing thick and fast for me and probably for the better. I have been feeling pretty strong off late and developed a habit of keeping myself busy with a variety of myriad interests, trying to develop self reliance more than anything else. So far so good... But gotta admit that blogging from phone is cumbersome... But it works lol.. Until next time... :)

My experiments with past life regression - 02/12/2012

Past life regression has been my area of research for a long long time and I am someone who frankly believes that our actions in this life are hugely influenced by what we did (or were) in our past lives. I am open to criticism, but, well that's what my belief is. Few years back I procured media files of renowned past life hypnotherapist Dick Sutphen and began my work on knowing myself better - why I do what I do... I believed some of the behavioral answers could be hidden in how we spent our life in the past. I had been trying self hypnosis for a long long time, but although I had minuscule visions of places, events... they never really took concrete shape, until today when I was hell bent on doing it and it seems to me, I was successful.

I am recording all of these in detail in my blog, not for people to read (although I'll appreciate you reading and commenting on it), but rather for my own records which I could refer to in future.

As the self hypnotherapy session began, it was a very very slow process. Slowly my body went completely numb and I was unable to even move a single finger unless instructed by Mr Sutphen. Gradually I entered into an altered state of consciousness where I could hear each clock tick in my room, but I did not have the capability to even scratch my back.

Here is the vision I had.

I found myself to be a girl of 15 years around the year 1927. The place appeared to be somewhere in Bengal, India. As far my dress was concerned, it was a simple saree worn in traditional bengali way as in earlier days. I was bare-footed. The location appeared to be a vast field, lots of greenery and trees.

When I scanned my life for important events, I found it difficult to find any, probably as I had been a simple bengali house wife in those days. The only vision I had was that of my husband standing alongside me in front of a mirror and I was beautifully dressed up in a saree and ornaments. He appeared to be a zamindar or someone from the royal family.

Upon further scanning my life, I found myself to be a widow, seemed a lonely elderly woman with white saree. It seemed that her last stage of life was spent in spiritual thoughts. She did not appear frail, rather a bit on the plump side.

Well, that's all I saw.

I would leave it to you to believe this or not to believe this.

As far as I am concerned, I have never ever dreamt of anything similar or even close, so this was a new experience for me. I shall continue researching on this subject as there are many questions which need answers. I am not sure if this particular life was the immediate past life before my present life or I had an intermediate life in between.

Also, I need to validate whether this vision repeats itself or if I am able to get more details out of it.

In closing this article, let me tell you, I am a man of flesh and blood in this life and neither I behave like a woman, nor I am a gay. So, please do not make fun of me only coz I saw myself as a woman in an earlier life.

Criticism, comments, questions, suggestions... all welcome.