At the edge

A lone voice drifts through the woods......drum beats in the dark skies...........a black stallion paces restively in the valley below......an old lady among the tribes continues her chants.....the gentle breeze brings with it the smell of the earth....a clutter of leaves dance in a circle.......the mountains paint a picture of stubborn resolve against the backdrop of the night sky......

Pursuit of happiness

I saw this video of Dan Gilbert, who's a "social psychologist" and holds a job at Harvard as a professor in psychology. It explores happiness, rather "synthetic happiness" as he calls it, an investigation into how human beings can convince themselves of happiness even in seemingly dire situations. Watch it here.

The great source of both misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Some of those situations may no doubt deserve to be prefered to others but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice, or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice - Adam Smith

Justice

Two separate events bring focus to our country,

• The appointment of KG Balakrishnan as the new Chief justice, the first ever lower caste individual to hold the prestigious post. (I hate the term "dalit" as espoused in the media and likewise, it only serves to further divide us by giving a group of individuals a distinct name). Many people tell me that the mere appointment of a few SC/ST individuals to high government posts takes attention away from the ground realities, that the lower sections of society still continue to be marginalized, and that only when we are able to make a difference to them can we be righteously joyful. While they definitely have a point, we still have a long distance to travel in terms of social equality, but an appointment like this(considering the media attention it grabs) sends out a message to the population. A message that has the power to change the mindsets of people.
  
• The Noida killings, a case that gets more gruesome as the days proceed and more details are unravelled. As per a NDTV report this morning, the count of the mass murdering of children lies at 70. With a population of 1.1 billion it is hard for many to fathom the proportions of these grisly killings. Picture a loved one among these 70 and it will become more clear. I can't help but imagine the bestiality of the murderer(s) who has/have committed these crimes. Why? Why were these innocent children killed? Is it part of a bigger plot such as a kidney racket? If so, are we to hear similar cases in different parts of the country(Bhopal has 400 children missing on record today)? Or are these the actuations of a socio-pathic mass-murderer? Whatever be the case, the initial verdict in this case is clear, the police have failed us. These crimes were committed across 2 years, couldn't the police have noticed something sinister as the number of missing children began increasing? Which brings us to the question, were FIRs registered for all these missing children? The CBI has taken over the case, and I will only be too pleased to see the police be held answerable for their lapses. To all the families that have lost their children, I understand your pain and my sympathies reach out to you.
  

Proteus Burns......

The planet Proteus had hurtled aimlessly through space for a long time, never following an orbit, never conforming to a trajectory. The characteristic darkness of infinite black emptiness resounded within him. In a different part of the galaxy, a star called Atalante grieved in her loneliness, at events that seemed to change the course of her peaceful gratified existence.
It would come to pass that their paths would collide.

By the time wanderlust Proteus realized that he had been restricting his journeys to a certain part of the galaxy, he had already begun to gravitate towards Atalante. The galaxy would be witness to the anchoring of Proteus, an orbit hitherto unknown to him now created itself around the nova. Meanwhile Atalante, oblivious to the radical change in Proteus, accepted him and thereby entered a new stage in her ontogeny.

As time passed Atalante began to shine more bright, more beautiful, as Proteus gave her reason for existence. The light that she shone reached out into his depths and soon Proteus came of age and life emerged on him, the drifting planet now felt alive. Even though Atalante secretly feared for their insecure future in a volatile galaxy, the bonds that tied them together grew stronger and thus began an age of peace, hitherto unknown to Proteus. But while Proteus and Atalante smiled, the overlooking cosmos wasn't. Little did Proteus know that one day elements within him would be held against.

One cosmic summer, echelons of dark clouds began sweeping across Proteus and soon Atalante was obscured from his vision. The time that Atalante feared had arrived upon them, the galaxy had conspired against Proteus. A set of events were placed in motion that would change their paths for life. Atalante was forced to succumb to the greater powers of the galaxy that began to chart out a separate course for her. A blinded and benighted Proteus was left disoriented as he slowly began to feel Atalante's drift. Proteus tugged as mightily as his planetary mass would permit, but Atalante's weakness crippled him. Afraid to resist the reverential powers, Atalante began the journey dictated to her, bereft with grief, thereby making the final move in an intergalactic alliance.

Proteus, continued to hover, unable to fathom the consequences. The galaxy had done him wrong, his guiding star had been whisked away and he no longer had a raison d'etre. Besieged with rage, his terrain began to split in fiery eruptions, volcanoes spewing fire and ash into his anguished atmosphere. Oceans raged, lightning razed, which soon saw the termination of life on his surface. He glowed with the fires that swept across his plains vanquishing all that came in its path.

The cosmos watches as severed of all his bonds, a burning Proteus plunges back into the depths of darkness............