Sometimes, some people...

There have been many of so-called 'trial of media' of late. Somebody would commit a crime. He would be caught on tape doing it or after the fact. The widespread use of CCTV and dashboard cameras makes every action digitalised whether we like it or not. Then the uploading to social media and hence the floodgates would open. Every netizen who cannot even string a straight sentence would suddenly metamorphose into a law savvy opinionated caring human who cares for humanity and would go all out to ensure that justice is meted out.

If only the truth can be whipped out so easily!

MGR whipping the villain MN Nambiar into

submission as the missing twin emerges from

oblivion to reclaim his share of the estate from his 

conniving deceptive relatives in 1967 blockbuster

'Engal Veetu Pillai' (see pic below too).

The vilification and character assassination would ensue. Details of his employment, home address and even information deemed private, like vehicle ownership and type of business will be out in the open.

With the hype of the recent cases of road bullies and the brisk manner in which justice was seen to have been carried out, I started to wonder whether we are threading the dangerous path of accepting the loudest as the honest and endorsing lies which appear repeatedly as the truth.

In one case, the offender, after found guilty by was vouched by his friends to be a great human, a philanthropist and even an animal lover.

That is the trouble with the world is that on one hand we say there is goodness in everyone of us but on the other we are taught to believe in duality of things. Things are either good or bad; right or wrong; black or white; heaven or hell! Even our scriptures has defined to us of what is right and what is wrong. There is no two ways about it. There must, however, be a middle ground.

A saying in Tamil, or rather the title of a novel which was made into a movie later, goes.. சில நேரங்ககிளில் சில மனிதர்கள் (Sometimes some people). Sometimes some people do the darkest of things at their weakest moments in life. Generally they could be good people as good parents, good leaders and good citizens but with a little mood altering life situation or pharmacological influence, the devil inside may surface.

I am in no way condoning any of their actions but to remind ourselves that it could happen to you or me. We cannot wait for God's justice to prevail as it takes too long. Hence, mankind takes it upon itself to punish its kind and give a sense of satisfaction to its victim as well as send a clear message to possibly hinder future offenders. Really?

MN Nambiar, stereocast as a villain in umpteenth Tamil movies. He is portrayed as the epitome of evil out to ruin every of the hero's attempt to win the heroine's heart and as a cruel zemindar would oppress the peasants in every conceivable manner. In real life, however, he is a pious vegetarian and teetotaller. And a philanthropist, too.

We don't dress our women!

Just the other day, I was watching a Youtube clip by the world's most famous atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins called 'The God Delusion'.

I was particularly fascinated by one scene in this man's crusade to convince his audience that the institution of religious actually brings more disharmony to mankind. In that scene, Dawkins was interviewing an American secular Jewish man who got his divine calling and had embraced an ultra-conservative form of Islam. He was residing in Gaza. Upon being the state of affairs of world today, he went ballistic. He blamed the evil of the world on the Western civilization. 

"You dress your women like whores and send them to the streets, you expect the world to be a better place!" To which, Dawkins coolly told him, "We don't dress them, they dress themselves!"
I think that statement says a lot of things. You set a certain set of rules for people and say that some are more than equal than others and expect people to follow them forever and ever till the end of time. Unfortunately, suppression and repression has a threshold. After a certain point, it loses its elasticity and reaches a point of no-return!

Frustrations will be aplenty but can violence be justified
or can this primal reflex ever be leashed? (S'pore, 8/12/13)

Social experiments in animals have shown them reacting violently when one is given preferential feeding over the other. Recent outpour of emotions over the demise of a fellow worker in unrelated bus accident is also testimony of a group of unhappy workers who felt short changed in the flow of development and the sea of economic prosperity. It is not enough to tell them this is what you deserve as Man, being Man, will always strive to be at higher place and is forever searching for that freedom, happiness, liberty, truth, nirvana, moksha, whatever you call it....

Don't blame me, it is my brain!

Blame my Brain (the amazing teenage brain revealed)
Nicola Morgan 2005

Had the honour of meeting the author of this book in KL recently when this Scottish lady was conducting a workshop for writers of teenage stories. Her passion to write ignited at the age of 9 but had to wait for 27 years to publish her first book. She has written books in many genres, fiction and non -fiction, mainly for teenage readers.It is an amazement how those cuddly lovable cuties metamorphose into a volatile piercing thorns, something in the line of gremlins when exposed to water. In the case of tweens, it is adolescence! They may be the next most difficult thing to analyse after the female brain!
In this 200 odd page book, the author offers an reasonable explanation for this transformation. It can basically be blamed on nature, 3 main punching bags - genes, evolution, neuro-chemicals.
The author's target group seem to be teenagers and those in constant contact with teenagers with the hope of giving a reasonable explanation to their sometimes bizarre behaviour, probably to knock sense into the youngsters and to avoid adults from breathing down their necks.

Compared to other animals including primates, human spend a much more time in adolescence as they need to learn much more to seep into adulthood. Even though we tend to think that the brain stops growing quite early in life, it continue growing to much later and the dendrites and synapses undergo pruning and remodelling during this crucial age. The frontal cortex connexion to other areas of the brain is not fully developed explaining the sometimes rash decisions. The melatonin secretion which is related to sleep, is abundant at a time when a lot of work need to be done, hence the apparently sleepy-head teenagers. Dopamine which is sometimes associated with satiety sensation in certain part of the brain is increased with alcohol. When it consumed by the brain which is not fully developed, the chances of addiction and mishaps seem higher.

Risk taking brings up us in the evolution ladder and helps us improve our technology. The risk takers survives the cold winters!
Evolution is often called an easy animal which can explain many of our behaviors. A cat is a cat in spite of years of births and rebirths with limited skills of purring and scratching their fur. Man, on the other hand, have evolved from a wheel rolling population to one who sends nuclear powered vessels to other planets. A long adolescence is needed to prepare these children to adulthood to continue the good work done by their ancestors. Nature has shown that breeding with closely connected siblings or offspring is unhealthy, hence it tries to prevent breeding within families by creating intolerance between parents, children and amongst siblings for this very reason.
It goes on to educate on other teenage problems like eating disorders, self harm and depression.
What I find quite intriguing is that we blame our behaviours to everything but ourselves. Affluence, luxurious living, living in absence of poverty may pamper us till we all turn pompous, fat and spoilt to the core.
What we all, as mankind, need is an occasional calamity to shake us and put us all in other. We can all then see how fast we all mature, literally overnight! (this is not the author's recommendation,of course!)
Good advice from the author for the teenagers on the need to stay focused. As the brain connexions are being pruned and being complete, they need to constantly practice, prepare and stay out of trouble because their future starts here.