When we were young, frequently we could hear parents admonishing children for kiddish indiscretions - like killing a few ants crawling on the floor thoughtlessly or kicking an elder playfully or wasting food already served. The kids were told `Don't do that, God will hurt you just as you are hurting the ants'; or, when the next time the kid complains of some pain in the leg, `see, that is what happens when you kick elders; God is punishing you with that pain'; or `Don't throw away food; wasted food will complain to God and He will make sure some day you do not get enough to eat' and so on. Even if the innocence of those years prevented us from either comprehending or believing all these fully, we were indeed forced to think of God's retribution for every `bad' action of ours. We were made painfully aware of the Omniscient one watching over our routine activities and jotting down in his ledger against our names what punishment should be doled out on some future date for deviant behaviour. Did that deter us from bad deeds and serious crimes when we grew up?? That is a moot point. But, this correlation between our `bad' acts and God's fist descending on us some day for those was deeply etched in our consciousness and conditioned to some degree the way we grew up.
As we left our childhood behind and became adolescents and adults, there was no repreive from the above process. In the context of every wrong committed by someone, one generally heard mutterings under the breath about how justice will be meted out by God eventually. Helpless and affected bystanders cursed the offenders with God's wrath. And the slightest sign of something negative happening to an individual, people promptly ascribed that to a punitive burst from God. As a Thamizh saying goes, `King kills (punishes) immediately; God waits and kills (punishes)' and the faithful were pretty clear that even if the guilty escaped the clutches of justice momentarily, God will land the knock-out punch in time.
May be today's parents continue to put that same fear of god in their children with similar dire warnings, but generally the theory of crime and punishment seems to be more diffused, if not very diluted now, especially in the minds of grownups. If a five-year-old falls and hurts himself while chasing an insect with the intent to hurt, a parent is more likely to encourage the kid to pick himself up and continue the chase. That is the parent's way of ensuring that the kid does not lose his confidence or get put off by failure in life. Likewise, a lot of things that were taboo earlier are no longer seen as acts `punishable' by God. Have you ever wondered why that is? I have and have concluded that people have lost that fear of God's retribution because (a) He is taking far too long to mete out that punishment, given the humongous population explosion that has come about and also due to the enormous spike in all kinds of petty and serious crimes (b) He is waiting for our tortoise-like judicial system to punish the offenders and spring into action after that, if further intervention is required (c) He is taking the Thamizh proverb too seriously and is waiting endlessly to strike with punitive action, even as it has been proven that our government and courts are just not capable of meting out justice. Whatever the reason, it is clear that most people have gradually lost their faith in the correlation between misdeeds and retribution and this is manifested in the ways they go about their lives.
If you stand at a street-corner and hurl a brick blindly, you will probably hit eight people who should have earned the wrath of the God earlier, but are flourishing in life, despite all their crookedness and guilt. The son of a minister grows up watching his father conniving and thieving away to glory, completely aligning himself to the `fact' that wrong actions pay and do not hurt. So, when he is barely twenty, the son also jumps into the fray to improve upon his father's criminal record through innovative and well-crafted shenanigans, so that he could carry the flaming torch of success and family pride into the future. And the minister, the father, focuses on training the son not to get caught while plundering everyone around. The same thing happens with a contractor's son or a policeman's son (I am sure the daughters are also going that way - going by some recent examples - but let us, for this exercise keep it to the sons!). They see that their fathers have been highly successful in plying their dishonest trade in blatantly criminal ways and have not been taken to task by God during their lifetimes. They decide that they are not accountable to anyone since God has also seemingly diluted his standards to suit the times and is willing to give a lot of leeway to His subjects; so why should I, the son or daughter, not take advantage of an easy system already perfected by my father and ensure further growth?? Actually, with the home-advantage such people have, if they throw it all and walk away because they believe what their fathers are doing is `wrong', this society will brand them `failures' and `losers' instead of praising them for their ability to distinguish between good and bad.
Who is to blame for this mess? Elders in the family invariably fault Kaliyug, in which they have seen travesties of justice in all matters being commonplace. Yes, the first stop should be the government and systems of justice in place now, but then they are being run by the same bunch which is trying to perpetuate their ugly and criminal hold on everything through muscle and money; what else can we expect?? Next in line is God, who was seen to be more prompt and proficient with punishment earlier. He seems to have lost his touch and also the desire to dole out penalties in order to keep his flock in good shape. He has to sharpen up and get better technology and systems (one of the supercomputers?) in place to promptly identify offenders, give them a chance to turn and punish if they fail to. He cannot work his current load with the ancient system of a ledger and cannot afford to wait and kill `eventually'!! By the time He comes around looking for someone, that guy is probably gone without having suffered the slightest indignity or pain in life, leaving the bad legacy to his descendants. The only way to rein in the people is for God to demonstrate His ability to punish when someone is alive and is into bad acts. People today do not bother about after-life, simply because they are busy getting more skewed in their thinking, without fear of any accountability for their actions. They have to see pain and suffering in this life; the sequence of crime and punishment has to be played out by God in all its severity, for those who cause pain to others so that there is a compelling deterrent.
I cannot but recall the way movies made during those times ended. Invariably, the bad guys lost and got punished or they confessed to their crime and vowed to change. The word `Subham' appeared on the screen and the audience walked away, savouring the fact that justice had been done and all was well. Consider, in contrast, as to what happens today - The Don cocks a snook at everything in sight and jauntily declares that `Don ko pakhadna mushkil nahin, namumkin hai' (Catching the Don is not just difficult, but it is impossible)'. Sign of the times?? That, in essence, is the prevailing scenario. That will not improve unless God changes his ways and upgrades His punishment methods to align with the times. He will have to carry the AK-47, even if his targets are cockroaches. That is the only way He will regain the respect of the people!
God, please mend your ways!! Don't be a wimp and wait for too long to punish!! We have empirical evidence that it does not work!!
As we left our childhood behind and became adolescents and adults, there was no repreive from the above process. In the context of every wrong committed by someone, one generally heard mutterings under the breath about how justice will be meted out by God eventually. Helpless and affected bystanders cursed the offenders with God's wrath. And the slightest sign of something negative happening to an individual, people promptly ascribed that to a punitive burst from God. As a Thamizh saying goes, `King kills (punishes) immediately; God waits and kills (punishes)' and the faithful were pretty clear that even if the guilty escaped the clutches of justice momentarily, God will land the knock-out punch in time.
May be today's parents continue to put that same fear of god in their children with similar dire warnings, but generally the theory of crime and punishment seems to be more diffused, if not very diluted now, especially in the minds of grownups. If a five-year-old falls and hurts himself while chasing an insect with the intent to hurt, a parent is more likely to encourage the kid to pick himself up and continue the chase. That is the parent's way of ensuring that the kid does not lose his confidence or get put off by failure in life. Likewise, a lot of things that were taboo earlier are no longer seen as acts `punishable' by God. Have you ever wondered why that is? I have and have concluded that people have lost that fear of God's retribution because (a) He is taking far too long to mete out that punishment, given the humongous population explosion that has come about and also due to the enormous spike in all kinds of petty and serious crimes (b) He is waiting for our tortoise-like judicial system to punish the offenders and spring into action after that, if further intervention is required (c) He is taking the Thamizh proverb too seriously and is waiting endlessly to strike with punitive action, even as it has been proven that our government and courts are just not capable of meting out justice. Whatever the reason, it is clear that most people have gradually lost their faith in the correlation between misdeeds and retribution and this is manifested in the ways they go about their lives.
If you stand at a street-corner and hurl a brick blindly, you will probably hit eight people who should have earned the wrath of the God earlier, but are flourishing in life, despite all their crookedness and guilt. The son of a minister grows up watching his father conniving and thieving away to glory, completely aligning himself to the `fact' that wrong actions pay and do not hurt. So, when he is barely twenty, the son also jumps into the fray to improve upon his father's criminal record through innovative and well-crafted shenanigans, so that he could carry the flaming torch of success and family pride into the future. And the minister, the father, focuses on training the son not to get caught while plundering everyone around. The same thing happens with a contractor's son or a policeman's son (I am sure the daughters are also going that way - going by some recent examples - but let us, for this exercise keep it to the sons!). They see that their fathers have been highly successful in plying their dishonest trade in blatantly criminal ways and have not been taken to task by God during their lifetimes. They decide that they are not accountable to anyone since God has also seemingly diluted his standards to suit the times and is willing to give a lot of leeway to His subjects; so why should I, the son or daughter, not take advantage of an easy system already perfected by my father and ensure further growth?? Actually, with the home-advantage such people have, if they throw it all and walk away because they believe what their fathers are doing is `wrong', this society will brand them `failures' and `losers' instead of praising them for their ability to distinguish between good and bad.
Who is to blame for this mess? Elders in the family invariably fault Kaliyug, in which they have seen travesties of justice in all matters being commonplace. Yes, the first stop should be the government and systems of justice in place now, but then they are being run by the same bunch which is trying to perpetuate their ugly and criminal hold on everything through muscle and money; what else can we expect?? Next in line is God, who was seen to be more prompt and proficient with punishment earlier. He seems to have lost his touch and also the desire to dole out penalties in order to keep his flock in good shape. He has to sharpen up and get better technology and systems (one of the supercomputers?) in place to promptly identify offenders, give them a chance to turn and punish if they fail to. He cannot work his current load with the ancient system of a ledger and cannot afford to wait and kill `eventually'!! By the time He comes around looking for someone, that guy is probably gone without having suffered the slightest indignity or pain in life, leaving the bad legacy to his descendants. The only way to rein in the people is for God to demonstrate His ability to punish when someone is alive and is into bad acts. People today do not bother about after-life, simply because they are busy getting more skewed in their thinking, without fear of any accountability for their actions. They have to see pain and suffering in this life; the sequence of crime and punishment has to be played out by God in all its severity, for those who cause pain to others so that there is a compelling deterrent.
I cannot but recall the way movies made during those times ended. Invariably, the bad guys lost and got punished or they confessed to their crime and vowed to change. The word `Subham' appeared on the screen and the audience walked away, savouring the fact that justice had been done and all was well. Consider, in contrast, as to what happens today - The Don cocks a snook at everything in sight and jauntily declares that `Don ko pakhadna mushkil nahin, namumkin hai' (Catching the Don is not just difficult, but it is impossible)'. Sign of the times?? That, in essence, is the prevailing scenario. That will not improve unless God changes his ways and upgrades His punishment methods to align with the times. He will have to carry the AK-47, even if his targets are cockroaches. That is the only way He will regain the respect of the people!
God, please mend your ways!! Don't be a wimp and wait for too long to punish!! We have empirical evidence that it does not work!!
