The Story

I don't know how to begin

'Cause the story has been told before

I will sing along i suppose

I guess it's just how it goes

I am nostalgic this morning. I don't know how to put it. JUDE classes are ending for many. And I am feeling the pangs of leaving college. I did not go for my college farewell. I felt nothing about my college ending. Nothing. Yes, slightly out of place, in all the nostalgia I did not relate to.

I have been looking at all the Facebook/Orkut albums over since last night. None of my friends are from college. I had always grown up hearing how college will never have the simplicity, bonding that school had. But looking back, all my closest friends are ones I met after school. In the last 4 years I have known the most amazing people and I know, this is it. This is the bond that will last a lifetime. This is what I will always miss. Crave for.

And if there is one college I will fondly remember, it is JU. The engineering canteen, the Union room, the monstrous rabbit bins, the trees, the jheel-paar. JUDE. All this comes with a strange awkwardness. I don't know what exactly it is, but I guess it is the question at the back of my head, am I allowed to miss something I never belonged to?

The evenings me and Dhruva would walk in through the 4 No. Gate to find Kaichu after the Edit-Pub course(?). The lebu cha boy. I miss Kaichu. A lot. Then the fests. The band competitions at OAT. The freshers. Once I remember being so high a after playing on stage, I left my keyboard back by mistake. I had to come back to get it at 10.30 in the night when i finally remembered.

Then bugging Doyeeta, Suchismita, Bimbabati to come to Moni da's when Subhayu and me would leave college disgusted in the middle of a hot summer afternoon. All the jokes about the disappearing crows at Moni Da. And how people jacked off in the ketchup-pots. Then going to Champadir chayer dokan.

It used to be such a nice place back then. The place started being frequented by strange/weird people gradually and we moved to the morer chayer dokan. Not more than a year and a half back.

There is this small dent in the footpath in front of the tea-stall. Our favourite past time is to watch people trip and fall. That is, when we are not swearing and screaming and scandalizing mothers of school kids. I cannot think how I will ever get used to any other kind of life. But I hope and pray, that i'd always miss these days. Love these days as the best in my life. That's how I'd like it.

But i don't know how it will end

With all those records playin'

I guess it's just how it goes

The stories have all been told before

I guess it's just how it goes

Norah Jones :)

Security

Source:

11th Floor

Today was a crucial day in my life. It is the beginning of The New Life.

Let them suffer

Don't I, as an individual, have the right to suffer? Struggle? Can anyone, say a being that cares for me, loves me, have the right to prevent me from struggling in life by taking decisions for me?

Situation 1

The year 2100 AD. A country 'X' is suffering from under-development. The common people do not have access to the basic necessities in life. A life that is more a struggle for existence than anything else. Enter Country 'Y'. A nation much evolved, with people way better off. A nation that has truly ensured great quality of life for all its people. The plight and horror of the people of 'X' is too much to bear for the sensitive and evolved people of country 'Y'. They put money and brains together to launch a campaign to stop all or a certain percentage of people in country 'X' from reproducing any more. The action springs from genuine love and empathy. It is imposed on the people of 'X' forcefully. The long term result is better quality life for the rest of the people of 'X'.

Situation 2

A welfare state decides, that since the quality of life of people below a certain income level, is quite not a life worth living, they will slowly phase this population out by making it illegal for them to reproduce. This will not only make life better for the poor who survive, but also for the rich, who were quite disturbed by the growing level of nuisance created by the increasing number of jobless poor. The state executes this decision out of genuine concern for its people.

Question 1

Does another individual/body have the right to decide for you if your life is worth living? Will you let someone come and sterilize you because you are in terrible living conditions? Because they cannot bear your sufferings?

Question 2

Do you think you would let a person do anything to you because they feel responsible for you? Does your opinion count?

Finally, are we in a position to sterilize dogs because it is too much of a pain for them to live in the terrible conditions they live in? Are we greater beings? In what right can we do something like this? Because we feel responsible for it? Because we feel bad to see them suffer? Who entrusted us with so much responsibility over them?

Every individual has the right to suffer. And live the life, however it is.

Opinion

It is a gross mistake to treat living beings as a propulation/species. It is important to look at them as individuals.

When you think in term of numbers it is similar to the way our government justifies crimes on a smaller group of people for the good of a greater number of people. The number does not matter.

Think of yourself. Someone comes to you and says you have too many problems in life. Think how wronged you will feel if something as crucial as reproduction is not left to you. Because the person/being feels responsible for you.

What would you do?

How does it matter if this treatment is meted out to all members of a species or to a percentage. Violation of rights of a being is not measured in the number of individuals that are violated.

Forget reproduction. Would you let other people decide what you wear? Say a state decides that with the growing number of eveteasing cases, they want women to dress a certain way. The state thinks it's its responsibility to save you from the harassment.

Will you comply?

Don't answer. It wouldn't matter.

1/2

Touch Wood.

Will

We shall overcome. We will. Because we will.

Stay

Ex Nihilo

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