The Fugitive

The search prolongs,
What was once a hunt,
Now a charade,
Has faltering hope.

The land in scoured;
The vast, antediluvian expanse
Rummaged for the wanted-
The flitting runaway. 

She is gone,
Sardonic and elusive,
Leaving a trail of cryptic
Clues; masked in mirthless laughter.

The shadow lingers, the echo.
Expectant curves, once taut,
Supple and ample;
Rest flaccid- lifeless. Dead.

Adroit and beguiling, even footsteps
Not daring to give her away, she glides coyly.
Serpent-like and taunting; leaving us
Lusting for her presence- Smile.

Tolerance Toward Intolerance

College. Tertiary level of education. Though it has a certain ring of intellectualism to it, college is pretty much the same as school in so many aspects. Same hour long classes, power hungry teachers with control issues who prey sadistically on the innocent and juvenile for vestigial pleasure, a sea of people who try just so hard to get on your nerves AND English classes.

As utterly annoying as I find this particular class, I cannot refute the fact that I do learn a thing or two by sitting through these irksome hours. Most of what I learn is non-textual, it usually has to do with the cohesion of one or two pieces of intriguing jigsaw puzzles that are people which allow such profound insights into how brilliantly narrow-minded we can be. At the end of some classes I cannot stop myself from marveling at the ignorance of people. 

So a typical English class, we're all just sitting there and mindlessly listening to someone delivering their public speech, nodding every now and then when she catches our eye. In due course of time, my turn soon arrived and I went up there, strangely unapprehensive of the dozens of questions my audience would bombard me with when I am done with my speech.

So I started off with my speech, the topic being 'Same-Sex Marriage' by giving a brief preamble of homosexuality, the reasons why such people should be allowed to marry, and concluded without any interruptions only to arrive at the part of time where I was targeted with vicious questions whose sole purpose is to garner a mark for the interrogator when I am not able to answer it satisfyingly. The questions that were asked were so wonderfully biased and prejudiced that they would have been seriously condemned had a homosexual person been there(if there already wasn't, I remain in the dark when it comes to matters of my class).

The questions that my professor asked me were not just shocking but also entirely asinine. "Won't legalizing homosexual marriages decrease the population, if not now then at least in the distant future because everyone would choose to marry someone of the same sex?" "Won't it increase the rate of STDs because it has been proved that these people are the cause of most of these diseases?" "Won't it compromise the sexual morality because these people have multiple partners?"  I was stunned to hear these questions from a well educated, fully functioning member of society who was there to impart knowledge to us fellow students, not because she is conservative(most of us are), but because she was harboring such inanely biased, thoroughly misinformed notions. You can't judge a person's morality by their sexual orientation(hell, who are we to even judge another person?), how can you just assume that gay people have multiple partners? And people can't become gay as if it were a part of evolution.

First, the questions that were asked as part of the public speech routine clearly accused homosexuality as being a choice. And let me clarify, this is not true. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation just like heterosexuality that most of the general population seems to be inclined toward. Simply, homosexuality is the sexual orientation characterized by the tendency of a person to form sexual, romantic and emotional relationships with people of the same sexual identity as themselves. It is NOT a choice and this can be vouched by the fact that homosexuality has been noted in other species of animals as well(which is one of many); clearly indicative of the fact that it is not a disease or a choice. Furthermore, one can not cause another straight person to BECOME homosexual. C'mon, people! Think a little. Homosexuality is not a communicable disease that one can 'catch' from another person by breathing the same air as someone or by platonic physical proximity.

People were offended by the arguments of my speech- which was much anticipated on my part. If marriage is about the union of two people who love each other, then why shouldn't two people of the same gender be allowed to declare their love? It is discriminatory to not allow gay people to marry simply because their internal biology is not the same as the general majority of the population. By saying that, you automatically reduced the sanctitude of marriage by implying that marriage also takes into account the genetic make up of a person.

I completely understand why people would think gay people are different, after all they are a minority and anything that does not fit into the same category as the majority is almost always seen as abnormal or different, but it is no reason for us to hate them, isolate them and subject them to verbal abuse and inhumane treatment. Still, it is completely unfair to deny a person of the same right you are entitled to. You can't say marriage should be between a man and a women only just because it has been happening between a man and a women so far. This line of reasoning can be further expanded and it is sort of like saying that things should remain the same just because they have been the same way for a while now. This prevents any shred of progress from ever being made in any aspect.


Also, it becomes awfully lopsided to deny the right to marry just because its love between two men or two women. It is not false. It is not a lie. You can't say people are incapable of loving someone of the same gender as themselves. No matter what form love takes it is still the same, homosexual love is no more different from the love that exists between a heterosexual couple.

Another argument against same-sex marriage is that they should not be allowed to marry because they are incapable of having and raising children their own. If this really is the reason why same-sex marriage is not allowed, then what of the thousands of people who get married everyday despite the fact that they are infertile or impotent, AND people who voluntarily decide that they don't want children? These people are incapable of having their own children as well, in line of the same argument they should not be allowed to marry either. After all, they can't have children too. This argument also proves to be flimsy as it identifies marriages solely as an institution for child rearing purposes. Marriage is not just about procreation, it is a sacred covenant that declares love and celebrates union.

Research as proved that same sex couples are just as efficient as a heterosexual couple when it comes to child rearing. There is no consistent difference between between homosexual and heterosexual parents in terms of emotional health or parenting skills and attitude, and children of same sex couples are no more likely to be confused about their own sexual identity as children of heterosexual couples. So you can't just say this is why they shouldn't be allowed to marry, who are WE to deny someone else' fair right?

Finally, this argument can be given an award for its triteness- religion. According to most, the Book of Genesis says that same sex marriage is a sin(at least this is what one of my friends from class told me after my speech) and I am sure this is the case in almost every other religion, be it Hinduism, Islam or Buddhism. WHY are we letting an antediluvian book dictate our evey belief, attitude, decision and ultimately our way of life? So we are going to abuse and discriminate against another person just because we believe in some external supernatural force that governs all our lives(I mean, how paranoid is it to believe that your life, right from its start to its end, is determined by some unknown force)? We are going to deny a fellow human being of the same happiness that we are entitled to just because we claim some book someone wrote says that its wrong or sinful? For all we know, the Bible, the Kuran, the gazillion Hindu texts and every other sacred text could have been written by paranoid, yet awfully whimsical homeless people when they was not in a drug induced stupor! If religion demands social equality, unity and compassion; then doesn't what we are doing defeat the entire purpose of religion itself?

Shifting back, marriage in itself is NOT a religious affair. It is a purely objective covenant that has merely been co-opted by religion as simply a means to declare love. If marriage really were a religious institution then atheists and agnostics shouldn't be allowed to marry either, don't you think?

So at the end of it all, it really isn't about being incapable of having children or being bad parents- it is our close-minded, intolerable attitudes toward anything that is remotely different from ourselves that occludes us from seeing homosexuality as a natural phenomenon. It is time we grew oblivious to all out innate and societal biases and accept people for who they are. It is time for us to GROW UP and stop being such obstinate, egocentric beings. It is time we shed our tolerance toward intolerance. It is time for us to change and accept change.

Such A Conundrum

The Big Bang theory(no, not the sitcom about 4 brilliant scientists who eat take out all the time), is a theory stating that the universe was created by a big explosion, thus giving rise to all things known and unknown. The understanding of the universe has puzzled us since the beginning of time and will most probably continue to do so for a LONG time.

Okay, so what existed before the universe was created? Where was the universe birthed? How long did it take? Why did it happen? What caused it to happen? These are but a paltry number of questions that have been raised.

So what had caused the Big Bang or the nebulous explosion? Surely, there must have been something that caused it, right? How can an explosion of that magnitude happen without a causal agent?
Perhaps it was a hypothetical causeless cause? Something that had caused the explosion to happen despite the fact that THIS primary cause wasn't caused by anything else. It just 'happened'. On its own. Without a cause. I'm just wondering.

In contrast, when you think about it every cause is also a consequence. Each cause, in a way, functions as a consequence, or rather becomes one, for the factor that brought about its occurrence in the first place. This contributes to the continuance of an incessant cycle though its origin cannot be traced and prospected. Yet, this contradicts the explosions happening on its own, after all, it is part of a perpetual cycle. I'm just saying, think about it. Okay, let us set this aside and give ourselves good time to mull over this later, possibly.

So more significantly, what existed before the universe was created? There is likely to be a precursor. Something?  Or nothing?

The presence of nothing or absence of anything does seem like a logical hypothesis. After all, there has to be a whole lot of nothing for something to surface, right? This whole lot of nothing could have facilitated or rather, allowed the formation of the universe.  But then again, when you think about it, something is a part of everything and everything is similarly part of something. Likewise, anything can also be an integral component of everything and something. So where is everything? Is the nothing WE know part of something we don't know?

Yeesh. Such a conundrum. I shouldn't have pursued this avenue of the topic.

To summarize and conclude, even though there is nothing much to arrive at really, I think it is pretty clear from this otiose write-up that this topic is exceedingly perplexing and raises as many questions as it may (erroneously) answer, as it evidently requires more research coupled with a better understanding of all things cosmic that stretch beyond our pedestrian ken(or possibly just mine).

Nothing

An intriguing void of nothingness
Warped inside a chasm of ignorance,
Is all that remains to survive.
Begins and ends, everything.
It is the beginning of nothing,
Coronating the end of something;
Marking this affair, the chasm
widens- as if on cue
the void expands
Taking in everything of the nothing
-annihilating all.

                 -x-

Unaware. Oblivious,
They walk about; shuffling and
Scurrying in a quest for that
Which is unsung.

                  -x-

Cumbersome and unsettling,
It riddles its ominous glaze-
Ravenous demeanor- ambushing to engulf.
But, in the midst of the chasm
All that is, is the remnants of nothing
Almost as if nothing had happened.

Anecdote #1

                                  
Blood. Casting a carmine glow. Spread over the tar road. All that was visible from the distance was the glistening fluid which formed a carpet. It shimmered in the midday sunlight as if it were an iridescent diamond under the moonlight sky. But, with the lapse of every second, the pool of red got blanketed under debris and dust due to the mild, yet noticeably hot afternoon breeze.

Once you break your gaze from the rug of blood and  muck, you'd soon see two whimpering men next to a tattered Yamaha bike on the road. The younger one was sitting up, crying in what seemed to be excruciating pain and shock, helpless and afraid. The other man lay there on the road in an awkward supine position, with his appendages flailed about in different directions.

Upon closer examination, it is clear that this man is as damaged as a hand-me-down rag doll. Scratches and gashes line every inch of visible skin, each profusely spilling blood at a rather vigorous pace. The atmosphere is imbued with the acrid and dispelling smell of blood, the salineness of sweat and grim. As you trace the length of the injured  man's body, you'd soon stop and gape in horror at his left leg. His pants shredded, a chunk of flesh and sinew meet the eye. About three inches of yellowish bone protrude from the lump of muscle and flesh, defying its natural position inside the knee socket. The man seemed to be aware of just the pain and not the gory snag as he was too weak to even prop his head up to take a look at the rest of his body.  

As if this scene wasn't hopeless enough, the place of this accident added to the desperate feel of the situation.  Either sides of the road had nothing more than open fields with patches of wild, brown grass and weeds. It was resemblant of a parched moor that was too ominous to sustain any form of life. The road was empty except for ourselves and logic dictated that it would remain so for a good while until some vehicle passes by. Another 5 kilometers down the road would take you to the suburbs of Tambaram.

Having gathered enough, my mother got out of the car telling me to stay inside- which she had parked along the periphery of the narrow lane- with horrified haste and approached the abject victims. The view from inside the car was enough to surmise the essentials of the situation- two wounded men in the middle of nowhere who had succumbed to an accident we hadn't witnessed and no cell phone to call for help. As if on cue, two bikes appeared on the road and halted to a stop in front of the car, about 5 yards away from the scene just as my mother propped up the wounded man's head and told him that everything was going to be alright.

Help was soon summoned using one of the biker's mobile phone, information was gathered from the less wounded man who was able to string no more than three or four words together due to pain and his shock induced stutter. In the next ten minutes, a dozen people had gathered to offer help; all purposefully shouting at each other to call for help- a few more vehicles started snowballing in, most of which bore curious passengers who did nothing more than gasp and gape for a couple of minutes before driving away.

However, relief soon settled as the wailing siren of an ambulance greeted the ears of the many who had gathered. The meagre mob soon dissipated with the exception of my mother who was busy tiring to scrub off the blood from not just her hands but also her clothes only to give up and walk toward me, get the engine started and drive off home.