The Brave Pedestrian

A tiny “ruling clique” of Supreme Court judges, led by the Chief Justice of India, currently decides which judge is to be elevated to High Courts and Supreme Court, or made Chief Justice of High Courts or Supreme Court. In making these appointments, this clique is guided by career aspirations of, and friendships with, individual judges rather than what is good for the judiciary as a whole. As a result, Chief Justices of high courts are quite often appointed for a couple of mo nths, before being elevated further. This ruling clique is called the “collegium”. There is no mention of the collegium in the Constitution of India. The collegium system, which has been in use since 1993, relies on two of its own judgments, and one opinion, collectively known as the Three Judges Cases. The court evolved the principle of judicial independence to mean that no other branch of the state -- including the legislature and the executive -- would have any say in the appointment of judges. In July...

The hypocrisy & secretiveness in judges' appointments and internal functioning of courts is widely known. It is frequently acknowledged even by judiciary's insiders. Why are We The People keeping quiet about this? Do we really believe that a non-transparent and non-democratic judiciary will give justice to us? It is time we stopped acting like SUBJECTS of the Imperial crown, and started acting like CITIZENS of free India. Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

CORRUPTION OF FACE-VALUE: Anybody who has been to court knows that a "bada vakil" can do what a "chhota vakil" cannot i.e. favourably influence judges and cow down opposing lawyers of lesser stature. As humans, we are awestruck and bedazzled by those with who are more wealthy. Judges, being human, put senior counsels on a pedestal, and treat relatively junior lawyers like dirt. So, if you can only afford to engage an ordinary lawyer, while the other side has engaged Jethmalani, Singhvi, Jaitley etc, then God help you! Like  ·  Comment  ·  Share

Intro: There's plenty of subjectivity and male chauvinism here, and more than just a whiff of self-justificatory rationalizing. Make allowances for all that, blogger-buddies, because I'm only human. What's more, I'm only a poor male dick-head. A Tirade Against Feminism I'm anti-ism. Isms are forms of evil, no two ways about it. Whether it is capitalism, communism, Islamism, Hinduism, Gandhi-ism or feminism. I've had particular exposure to the last two isms. But I've been burned and scarred by the acid of feminism. That's my excuse for this rant. Everybody has issues of injustice -- men, women, children, senior citizens, dogs, chickens, trees... everybody. But the issues relating to women are clubbed together as "Women's Issues", and used to batter our collective conscious into a state of chronic guilt. Among these feminist issues are gender inequality in society, rape, domestic violence ie. wife-beating, female infanticide, foetici...

Not all dogmas originate in religious mumbo-jumbo, old customs and beliefs. Some of the most injurious dogmas are invisible to us because they are woven into our social millieu -- the secular-global-careerist-consumerist culture that prevails. Let me pinpoint one such dogma IDGiSA-IDTaSA (pronounced as 'Idgeesa-Idtaasa). The full form is: "I don't give shit to anyone, I don't take shit from anyone." We have a minds-eye picture of a model citizen who lives and lets live -- a pleasant, helpful, no-nonsense person. And we each believe that we are this model citizen. And therefore, when we percieve someone as interfering in our lives, we turn indignant and say, "IDGiSA-IDTaSA!!!" It's a dogma. It is thoroughly untrue. Living is a process of giving shit and taking shit as well as gold. You exhale what I inhale, you fart what I inhale... and unless I learn to hold my breath for a verry long time, I doubt I can escape a whiff of what's in your re...

1.15 PM. February 8, 1965. A boy and a girl, unmindful of the sun, Sought some private moments on A lonely pier stretching into the Arabian Sea. An entwining of limbs, heavy breathing, a cry And millions of enterprising sperms were swimming Upstream in a mixture of viscous fluids. Some minutes or hours later, A hard-working little fellow Impregnated a singularly fortunate egg And I came into existence. From being a nothing, a nobody, I became a somebody. The rest of those millions of sperms… Each of whom could equally have become A little boy or a girl Were doomed at this exalted moment To be flushed down the drains With so much urine. So were these sacred moments or profane ones? Moments of creation or destruction? Were they beautiful or ugly? Were they sublime or smelly? Did my dad talk dirty? Did mom's cries of pleasure Disturb the sea...

[Friendship, love and trust have many meanings. This story is about one of these meanings.] He lay awake in bed, waiting for her to finish her kitchen winding-up chores and join him. By the time she came in and began undressing for bed, he was very nearly asleep. With drowsy eyes, he gazed at her taking off her saree. She had grown a bit plump of late, but it only made him love her more. "There is more of you to hug now than when I married you," he sighed, wrapping his arms and legs around her in the dim light of the bedlamp. "This is sheer luxury!" She reciprocated by kissing him, and then turned around, determined to fall asleep quickly. Tomorrow was another tough day ahead, and she would have to cook a full formal lunch, keeping in mind his guest. Not just the daal-chaval that she made on days when she was feeling tired. "Turn off the lights, please," she said sleepily. "Not yet," he breathed in her ear. "Let me enjoy looking at...