Some more poetry.

I recently found this wonderful site full of poetry called "The Wondering Minstrels". For those interested, I have added this site to my list of "I also Visit" sites. It was while I was trawling through their site, that I came across this excellent poem by W.H. Auden about the partition of India and the nature of the 'task' that radcliffe was assigned. The poem is a wonderful description of the situation then and the role that, I believe this poem proves, the British played in the whole saga, either by omission or commission. The Poem is called 'Partition' and I have reproduced it here: -

"Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission,
Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition
Between two peoples fanatically at odds,
With their different diets and incompatible gods.
"Time," they had briefed him in London, "is short. It's too late
For mutual reconciliation or rational debate:
The only solution now lies in separation.The Viceroy thinks, as you will see from his letter,
That the less you are seen in his company the better,
So we've arranged to provide you with other accommodation.
We can give you four judges, two Moslem and two Hindu,
To consult with, but the final decision must rest with you.
"Shut up in a lonely mansion, with police night and day
Patrolling the gardens to keep the assassins away,
He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect
Contested areas. The weather was frightfully hot,
And a bout of dysentery kept him constantly on the trot,
But in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
A continent for better or worse divided.

The next day he sailed for England, where he could quickly forget
The case, as a good lawyer must. Return he would not,
Afraid, as he told his Club, that he might get shot."

- W.H. Auden.

Law in Poetry - I

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

- Portia's 'Mercy Speech' in "Merchant of Venice" - Act IV, Scene I.

The Law That Lawyers Know About!!!
(copied from http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1392.html)

The law the lawyers know about
Is property and land;
But why the leaves are on the trees,
And why the wind disturbs the seas,
Why honey is the food of bees,
Why horses have such tender knees,
Why winters come and rivers freeze,
Why Faith is more than what one sees,
And Hope survives the worst disease,
And Charity is more than these,
They do not understand.

- H.D.C. Pepler.

Both these poems reflect two different views about the law and the lawyers. While the first portrays a lawyer who understands the 'soft law' as it were and feels free to use concepts other than strictly legal ones such as religion and morality to try and achieve the ultimate aim of justice, the other one condemns the law and lawyers as being mainly positivistic in their approach and being insensitive to ethics, morality and the natural laws.

It is for each to decide which version to accept. All that I say is, lawyers do what they can to achieve the best for their clients. Just as members of any other profession do.

A 'Bookie's' Dilemna.....

A strange problem seems to have assailed me these days. Though my hunger to read more and more books has not diminished, my reading speed seems to have come down considerably. This has meant that along with the other things that I have to fit into the mandatorily allotted 24 hours, (most notably eating, sleeping and pursuing legal studies), I barely get anytime at all to devote to reading. I am also afraid that the laziness which has been creeping up stealthily on me for the past 3 1/2 years has finally caught up even with my book-reading habit. I had a good mind to blame the complex legal language that we are forced to 'interpret' and 'reinterpret', as the reason for all these ills. The only thing that deterred me from doing so was the 'sudden' realisation that this peculiar illness does not seem to have striken my fellow law school-ites at all. They are still busy devouring all the books that they can get their hands on. To top it all off, a subsidiary illness that has befallen me is the leave-books-half-read illness. This illness, let me warn you it is an extremely irritating, guilt inducing and depressing sort of illness with no known cure except a cast iron willpower.

Therefore, I have decided on a new-and-early new year's resolution:
1. Read all the books you want to,
2. Finish them all,
3. Do not let the ignominy of having to return books to the library - unread after having gotten it re-issued fall on you,
4. Also if possible, avoid having to reissue books from the library. Finish it within the original three days.

These resolutions, if at all I keep them, (i'll write a post on the fate of most of my new year resolutions another day) ought to bring me slowly back to my old self. So... wish me luck!!!

Blogging......

Well..... I just realised that this blog has already deviated from its stated objective. This was intended to be mostly a Book review blog.. though 'other things too could find their way here from time to time'. Well........ if the pattern of my posting-so-far continues.... the blog will become an 'other-things' blog and BOOKS will then have to try and find their way here from time to time.... :-)

But with this realisation has come another one, namely, that it is not easy to write. I fully intended (and still do) to try and keep this blog as updated as possible. But that [to my shock and disbelief :-)] meant that I had to keep posting. Now THAT was a bit of a problem. Though I am not a complete novice at the art of putting pen to paper but I have never written on a public forum before and I find that it is a completely different ball game altogether. It comes with its own set of problems. The most notable being:

1. A blog, especially an unadvertised one, (even among the writer's friends circle) which hopes to attract readers solely by the merit of the writing, needs to be interesting. However, even though my vain self might find my own writing interesting, it need not always pass the test with the myriad readers. Therefore.......

2. A blogger needs to be honest, to himself and to his readers. Now, that again, I have a problem with. Not that I am a cheat or a liar!!!!!! Just that I find it impossible to lay down my private thoughts on a public forum. I had thought that those 'thoughts' would be limited to my thoughts and experiences in my 'life' alone. Therefore, since I wanted to experiment with blogging and still protect my privacy, I chose the one thing I truly love - reading books - and decided to blog on that. Now I find, that to lay down my thoughts and opinions on the various books that I read, and especially the ones I really like, is just as difficult. I realised that I regard my opinions on books and the reasons why I like some and dislike others, as private too. A lot of people may not agree with this assessment but I believe that the same book may connect with different people in different ways and it is not always easy to express this connection.

3. Also, another reason why I have told almost nobody about this blog is because I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether the writing is good enough. I don't care what the wider world thinks about me. I don't care... at least not too much.... about what other anonymous bloggers will think about my blog and the writing in it. It too matters, but only to serve as an impersonal feedback, which may be used to improve the blog. However, I do care, deeply, what people I care about, think of this blog. I care for their opinion. It would therefore not be nice, for this blog to be dismissed (however kindly or subtly) by them as being a not-nice blog.

Call it what you want - inferiority complex (?), inability to rise above the trap of other people's conceptions, insecurity, immaturity, not having confidence in oneself, fear, cowardice, humility (?), false modesty............... the list can go on. But this is true of me.. whether I like it or not. I am also reasonably certain that these issues cannot be peculiar to me alone. I, therefore, have a new-found respect for the blog space and for those bloggers who are able, easily, succinctly and interestingly, to put their point across.

I have been more honest in this post (on a public forum!!!!!) than I probably intended to be when I started writing this post. The confidence must be from knowing the fact that not many know about this blog (3 on last count. 2 - only guess and 1 - knows) and the one who knows has most probably forgotten or at the very least will be too busy to come read it. :-)

Mills and Boon

All girls have read it at some point of time ot the other... and yet very few come out of the 'closet' as it were and admit to have read it and to some extent enjoyed it. Well I decided to join the ranks of the few(may our tribe increase) and admit to liking certain kinds of MBs (as we 'addicts' like to call them). For the uninitiated, MB's (so called because their publisher is Mills and Boon - though others have come into the market too.. e.g Harlequin etc) are short Romantic novels which invariably have a happy ending. They are the genre that first gave rise to the cliche of "tall, dark and handsome" :-) Invariably, in every book, a rich or at the very least a drop dead gorgeous guy, who has usually given up all thoughts of settlng down, meets (in varying circumstances) a good looking every-day-sort-of-girl and falls hard for her. The girls are not always gorgeous but in many instances are very like the average girl. They are aimed only at a female audience and aim at inducing a kind of a sense of well-being and happiness - a kind of a 'feel-good-factor' among the readers. :-)

This is precisely what has me going back time and again to MBs whenever I wish to read something, but have very little time to devote to it. Typically an MB takes about an hour to get through. MBs are thus meant for the 'tired girl who wants a book to read but is not recommended for the eager girl who wants to read a book.'

I suggest that everybody should try reading this genre once. This genre... with all its cliches and predictability... actually makes for some amusing reading.