After Cadbury's - Havells follows suit?

Some days ago, I wrote about Cadbury's TV ads going from bad to worse. over the years. Now another company which had caught people's attention with their catchy ads seems to be going the same way. I am referring to Havells of course.

The ad I am talking about is doing its rounds on TV currently. I am sure you have all seen it, but just in case, here's the summary.

A hangman 'delivers' the criminal to the noose and walks back distraught to his home. As he enters his dark home, he switches on the light and the voice over says "जिंदगी में हम सबको पाप करना पड़ता है, तो क्योँ ना पुण्य कमा ले ... बिजली बचा के. Havells CFL ज्यादा बिजली बचाए." We all have to commit sins in our lives. So why not also do a good deed. By saving electricity. Havells saves power etc etc etc.

I am quite stumped by this ad. I do understand the need to save power and am all for it. Really. ALL the lamps in my home are CFL. Its another matter that they are not Havells! 

Is it really necessary to twist this issue to such extent to make people understand it only in the light of (sorry, pun not intended) sin and virtue and morality and all that? The chasm between sin and virtue in the ad is far too stretched, I think. On a silly note, are they saying that the hangman won't feel guilty pulling the lever once he has fitted  his home with CFL lamps? It's somewhat like bathing in the Ganga once a year. Commit all the sins that you want to for 364 days, then visit Hardwar once.

On a parallel note, there is a strange link between this issue and my earlier posts about punishment. Particularly death sentence. Does the hangman really commit a sin, or is he doing his duty? I can understand what a hangman must feel like. No matter how duty-bound one is, it surely must not be easy to pull the plug on someone else's life.

Be that as it may, please convert from using conventional bulbs to CFL if you haven't already done so. It makes sense. Sins or no sins.

For the inquisitive ones, the ad has been made by Lowe Lintas.

The punishment of living.

The comments on my earlier post have led me to think more on this line and am presenting a rather queer thought. I am probably contradicting myself as compared to the earlier post. (Which is OK. I often contradict myself!) Further, I might be raising a storm with this thought.
The issue is about what is the purpose of law, justice and punishment. And specifically with reference to a terrorist, whether ANY punishment really achieves a purpose at all.
Just last night, our usual gang (which means Swati, Vallarie, Prasad and Mamata) met up at my place and late in the night the discussion veered towards Ashvatthama. The curious character from Mahabharat. Krishna 'cursed' him with immortality for his evil deeds (which were too many to recount here. Suffice to say that he committed heinous crimes, equivalent to a terror attack in today's times.) In Hindu mythology, there are eight characters who are considered to be 'chiranjeev', that is immortal. These include Parshuram, Vibheeshan, Hanuman and others. Out of these eight, seven were granted the boon of immortality owing to their good deeds. Only one, Ashvatthama, was CURSED with immortality. How does one explain this seeming contradiction?

Nobody wants to die. I am assuming of course, but I think its a safe assumption. Scores of people have spent their lifetimes trying to find the way to avoid, feign or hoodwink death. And an equal number of people have considered the search to be futile. As Albus Dumbledore tells Harry Potter a truth of life - "After all, to a well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." I am no expert on world's religions, but I know enough Hinduism to know that it teaches us to consider death as a comma and not a fullstop. And in being a comma, it releases one from the trials and tribulation of life and living. Suffering, I mean.
So back to Mahabharat. Even Bhishma the great warrior was granted a boon that he could choose the time of his death. So hypothetically, he could have lived forever if he wanted to. He didn't. He chose the time when he was ready for the 'next great adventure', so to say. But Ashvatthama was cursed by Krishna - he was told that he won't die and thus be able to face the judgement for his sins. He would continue to live and roam the earth forever, burning in the shame and guilt of his deeds. The most horrible curse if you see it from the Hindu point of view. Imagine being told that you will never ever get a release.
What am I saying, then? Is keeping a terrorist alive a worse punishment than hanging? The Islamic fundamentalist view also compels a terrorist to seek heaven through death, so he/she is not afraid of going and committing the act of terror. On the contrary, he is quite sure of what he is doing, to reserve a berth in heaven. So is it a better idea to deny him that berth?
I have no answers, just presenting my confusion in its most raw form.
On a tangential note, this is my 100th blog post!!! I am glad that it is a thoughtful topic. The other topic I had in mind was Mayawati's garland. Ugh. She can wait for some time.

David Headley - Justice denied, mocked at, or negotiated?

I hear on the news that David Headley has pleaded guilty on all the 12 charges against him. He did so after being assured that he would not be given the death penalty, nor would he be extradited to India. So what happens next? I suppose he will get a sentence for 186 years or some such thing. The US attorney general has said - "not only has the criminal justice system achieved a guilty plea in this case, but David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities. As this case demonstrates, we must continue to use every tool available to defeat terrorism both at home and abroad."

OK, I see the point. But I cant ignore the irony that such confessions have to be bargained and negotiated for, against a promise of deferring the death sentence. I am not debating on whether death penalty should exist or not. That's a separate debate altogether. I am distressed by the thought - doesn't this give the convict an escape route?

It is yet another debatable issue that if Headley had actually been extradited to India, would he have been convicted (and convicted quickly enough) to be punished. Going by the way Kasab's trial is progressing, Headley would have probably spent several years shuttling between court and custody. So - does this trial solve anything? As far as healing the wounds of 26/11 victims, no punishment to either Kasab or Headley will ever be enough. The scars are permanent. Which brings me to a question that has bothered me for years.

What is the purpose of a punishment? I am thinking of different options and just checking if the Headley case has achieved any.

To undo the wrongdoing that the convict had done upon the victim? - No. I doubt if that can be achieved in this case, going by the enormity of his crimes.

To reform a criminal and get him back to become a good citizen? VERY unlikely in this case. Don't forget that Headley has already spent two years in US prison in 1998 when he was arrested for drug-trafficking. So the punishment appears to have done nothing to reform him. If at all, it just made him an even more dangerous person.

To serve as a warning for others who might be plotting a similar heinous act? I would hardly imagine that to happen. If potential assasins were going to worry about being hanged, no assasination would have taken place in India after Nathuram Godse was hanged.

I am still searching for the answer. what is the purpose of a punishment?

Justice is blind. What does that mean, then?

The character of Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist says "The law is an ass." I don't know what prompted Dickens to write this strong-worded denouncement of what is considered to be higher than everything else, but the recent happening seem to prove him right.
Just a few days ago, I was chatting with my friend Prem Ayyathurai. He has just got into the Law School in Bangalore. (In case you think I have gone into a time warp, I have not. Prem is my daughter's classmate. But that does not stop him from being friend)
I was asking him how he is finding the subject, how are the classes etc. My curiosity stemmed more from my ever-present wonderment about this whole business called LAW. I mean, how does one 'learn' law? Thankfully, Prem assured me that they are not required to mug up the whole IPC.
Prem went on to tell me that the one thing he was beginning to come to terms with was - it is not so much about what the law says, but it is more about how the judge interprets it.
Which makes it really dangerous. I mean, in that case, it all depends on what the judge had for breakfast, whether s/he had a fight with his spouse in the morning, whether s/he encountered a traffic jam on way to the court, and whether his/her daughter has threatened to elope with the driver's son. If it is finally about how the judge interprets the law, then does that not make the whole thing rather subjective. And dangerously subjective, actually.
Ironically enough, in the past 24 hours, there are three court cases where strange events have unfolded, the kind which will make Mr. Dickens smile from ear to ear (I told you so! he will say)

1. Shiny Ahuja has been granted bail.
2. A maniac father who kept his two daughters chained in inhuman condition inside the house for years has been granted a bail for a paltry Rs.15000.

OK, both these cases are of bail and the final verdict is still weeks, months or more likely years away. But the third case is different.

3. A mother-daughter pair who were charged with kidnap and murder of a doctor in Pune and were sentenced to death by the lower court have been let off by the High Court. The HC has changed their death sentence of life imprisonment. Further, the HC did penalize them for kidnap and fined them Rs.50000.

The background is like this - The two women (allegedly) kidnapped Dr. Deepak Mahajan and demanded 25 lakhs as ransom from his family. When that didn't work, the two (allegedly) killed him by injecting him with a sedative. Further, they are (alleged) to have cut up his body into pieces and thrown them over a long distance on the highway.

Now, the sessions court had sentenced them both to death. Obviously, they appealed in High Court. Amazingly, the HC upheld the charges of kidnap, but not of murder. So what did the HC want to suggest? That Dr. Mahajan cut himself into small pieces? Or that Dr. Mahajan was simply lying down on the footpath of the highway and some butcher who was walking past simply wanted to test his chopper on him?

I am sure that the family of the deceased will appeal in Supreme Court and the case there will drag on for many more years. But - what if the SC decides to hang them? Will that put egg on the face of the HC judges? Or - will it simply prove what Mr. Dickens said - THE LAW IS SURELY AN ASS.