Name: bullet 350
Family name: Royal Enfield
Last time seen on: 6th December 2009
Given to: Northern railways, Jaipur central station, Rajasthan, India
Full amount for the ticket: PAID (including the extra tip)
Gone forever: -
Hypothetically asking –
“How would you feel if you have done everything according to the law, if you have given your life only saving to a hand of rail officials in charge for parcel delivery, and still being cheated, lied into your face, and left without any word of explanation, apology, information…. Left without a bike that you have bought with your last money, the only representation of home in a foreign country… how would anyone feel being cheated by the government officials and not being able to do anything about it?
Long question, and mostly without an answer.
I came across an article a week ago in Chennai Today. I didn’t understand half of it. Partly because English is not my first language, but partly also because the article was being written without any sense, missing out the most important information.
It was about a 60 year old woman who had been raped while going back home from work some 36 years ago.
She was working as a nurse in one of Delhi hospitals and on her way back home, someone attacked her, and raped her. She was 25 years old. And apart from being raped, she was as well strangled by a metal chain, which made her lose her vision, ability to speak and made her paralysed completely for a life. This was the part I understood. Together with the fact that the police have found the perpetrator and he has been brought up in front of the authorities that have sent him to prison for 7 years (the maximum sentence someone can get in India). The part I did not understand is that the same lady, who is apparently laying in a coma for 36 years as a vegetable, has now filed a case at the high court, asking to be euthanized because there is no sense in keeping her alive attached to the machines. I didn’t understand how someone who is in the coma, without the ability to see, talk or even move, can express her wish through the voice of a woman laying on the bed next to her.
But all that aside…
The man, who was so evidently guilty of destroying one young human life, has done his 7 years in prison and is working today in the same hospital where his victim is laying attached to the wires without any hope for any kind of life.
High court has denied the wish of a 60 year old vegetable lady to finish her life with just a little bit of dignity… but has at the same time given another chance to a monster.
Let me tell you the story of Xerxes, the last king of Persia, before it fell under Greek hands…
I came across Herodotus and his Histories thanks to my best friend and her birthday present. I fell in love immediately in his writings… In his easiness of approaching the world and objectiveness in writing about it.
(…) Xerxes had fallen in love with [his brother] Masistes’ wife, who was also there [in Sardis]. She proved impervious to his message, however… Under these circumstances, with all other options closed off, Xerxes arranged for his son Darius to marry the daughter of this woman and Masistes, since he expected to have a better chance of seducing the woman in this situation.
However he changed his taste on the way…
(…) After he had arrived and had received Darius’ wife into his house, he dropped Masistes’ wife and began to desire Darius’ wife, Masistes’ daughter, instead. Her name was Artayne, and he was successful with her.
After a while, however, the secret got out. What happened was that Amestris, Xerxes’ wife, wove a wonderful shawl, long and colourful, as a present for Xerxes. He liked it a lot, and wore it when he went to visit Artayne. She gave him pleasure too – so much so that he told her he would give her anything she wanted in return for the favours she had granted him; whatever she asked for, he assured her, she would get.
You can imagine what was the only thing she wanted. Of course… the shawl… and no matter how Xerxes tried convincing her to take anything else… she only wanted the shawl… I believe there must be something in women, some desire to have all what they want, otherwise it is not worth it…
(…) Eventually, then, he gave her the shawl, which she liked so much that she used to wear it and show it off.
Amestris heard that Artaynte had the shawl, but this information did not make her angry with Artaynte. Instead she assumed that her mother was to blame and was responsible for the whole business, and so it was Masistes’ wife whose destruction she started to plot. She waited until her husband Xerxes was holding a royal banquet – that is, the banquet, which is prepared once a year on the king’s birthday… This is the only time of the year when the king anoints his head with oil, and he also distributes gifts among Persians. So when the day arrived, Amestris told Xerxes what she wanted her gift to be – Masistes’ wife. Xerxes understood the reason for her request, and was shocked and horrified, not only of the thought of handing over his brother’s wife, but also because she was innocent in this matter. His wife was implacable, however, and he was constrained by the tradition that on the day of the royal banquet no request could be refused, so he agreed, with extreme reluctance. He turned the woman over to his wife and told her to do with her what she liked, and also sent for his brother. When he arrived, he said, “Masistes,… you are a good man. I want you to divorce your present wife, and I’ll give you my daughter instead. You can have her as your wife. But get rid of the present one; the marriage displeases me.”
Masistes was astonished at the king’s words. “Master”, he said, “what a cruel thing to say! Can you really be telling me to get rid of my wife and marry your daughter? I have grown-up sons and daughters by my wife… Besides, she suits me perfectly well… Please let me stay married to my wife. “
This reply of his made Xerxes angry, and he said, “Do you want to know what you’ve done, Masistes? I’ll tell you. I withdraw the offer of marriage to my daughter, and you’re not going to live with your wife a moment longer either. That will teach you to accept what you’re offered.”
At these words all Masistes said was: “You haven’t yet killed me, master.” Then he walked out of the room.
In the mean time, during this conversation between Xerxes and his brother, Amestris had sent for Xerxes’s personal guards and with their help had mutilated Masistes’ wife.
It is rather disgusting how Heraclites describes what all the jealous woman had done to another, innocent one, but the point was that after all was done … She sent her back home, totally disfigured.
Masistes was still completely unaware of all this, but he was expecting something terrible to happen to him, so he ran back to his house. As soon as he saw how his wife had been maimed, he first sought the advice of his sons and then made his way to Bactria along with his sons and, of course, others as well, with the intention of stirring up revolt in the province of Bactria and doing the king as much harm as he could. And he would have succeeded in this, in my opinion, if he had managed to reach the Bactrians and the Sacae in time, because they were attached to him, and he was the governor of Bactria. But Xerxes found out what he was up to; he dispatched an army to intercept him while he was on his way, and killed him, his sons, and all his troops. And that is the end of the story of Xerxes’ desire and Masistes’ death.
I still remember Goran Sergej Pristas’ performance, the part when there is a very short dialogue in between a judge and a priest…
Judge: God! I committed a sin.
Priest: Do you regret?
Judge: I mustn’t!
There is a family in Kashmir, only one among them hundreds. It is a family of husband and wife and their 5 daughters. The husband was a carpet seller in Delhi, and one fine day in June 2005, he was arrested by the Indian police and put up in
Tihar jail in Delhi. One of the worse jails in India where he was taken under the charge of being a militant, Muslim terrorist engaged by the Pakistani terrorists to fight against India. The family never went to visit him, since there is no man in the family to accompany them, and they got to know about his arrest only through the media.
Now… if a cold blooded rapist and potential murdered can get an immediate trial, and be set free after seven years, how come an innocent man can’t even get to have his trial after more than 4 years?
Today I have received a letter from a friend saying: “I don’t want to preach you, but… you woke up this morning and opened your eyes, which is good… you eat your breakfast, which is good… you went out and met some people, to some of them you have smiled and said ‘Good Day’, which is good as well… you did your practice, which is good… you eat your dinner, which is good… and you will lay down and sleep comfortably, which is good…
It is enough Maja.
I agree…
But it made me angry that the official person in charge for the only valuable thing I posses in life loses it, and there is nothing I can do about it. I filed a complaint, I spoke to everyone… I even had a wish to go back to Jaipur and break some legs… but what made me angry the most was the fact that if I would manage to find or get my bike back in this country… it would make all the other stories meaningful. It would prove that the law belongs only to the ones who have money and are loud enough to demand. Yet, if they don’t find my bike… that would be a proof that there is something terribly lacking in this whole system, and that history is nothing but a good alter ego laughing at us while softly whispering: “Didn’t you learn anything? You can’t posses anything… You are nobody… Nobody is perfection… Just let it be… Walk… Be… Just let it be…”
Name (how I liked to call her): bullet 350
Family name: Royal Enfield
Last time seen on (with my eyes): 6th December 2009
Given to: Northern railways, Jaipur central station, Rajasthan, India
Full amount for the ticket: PAID (including the extra tip)
Gone forever: – (definitely maybe before my eyes)
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