The Dilemma Behind Rightness

For Potterheads: Do you think that providing wands to children of eleven is a good idea? Wands can do Avada Kedavra, Crucio, Sectumsempra and some pretty nasty stuff.

For Mistborn readers: Do you think that a group of Mistborns can take over the world? Don't forget that they can control kandra, the flesh-changers and the hemalurgical beasts, koloss.

For A Song of Ice and Fire readers: Do you think the Faceless Men of Braavos can do whatever nasty things they could and get away with it? They are already world-class assassins and let's assume that they can change their finger-prints and DNA too.

Let's come to real world. There are restrictions on weapons, laws specifying age limits and rules on nearly everything you can think of. But, still nasty things do happen everyday.

Why then the laws exist? Do the existence of laws contain a hidden assumption that humans are inherently bad and need to be carefully controlled?

What makes a person become a jerk? Why some people do wrong? Do the wrongdoers really know that what they are doing is wrong? Is punishment the right way to 'solve' the problem of crimes, whichever they may be?

Who is actually responsible for a wrongdoing - the person or the circumstances he grew up/found himself in ?

What would happen in a lawless world? Will people crumble or they will rise from the ashes?

What will it need to make a world where no laws are required?

Thanks for reading. If you have something to say, then please comment. If you have some books to recommend on this topic, then please do. You can bring anything from neuroscience to western philosophy.

The Flame Still Burns Bright

Today is the birthdate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Though, India doesn't hold him as important as to grant a national holiday, he still burns like a fire in many hearts.

I first came to know about Netaji when I was a small child. My father has a portrait of him alongside Rabindranath Thakur at our home. My father - then 17 years old - bought the portrait from a road-side vendor. He never abandoned it though many things changed with time.

I still remember how I came to know about him. One day, I was quite bored while playing with a set of model airplanes. My father was reading his copy of Anandabazar Patrika at a chair nearby. My mind wandered off and I asked my father who the 'military man' is (Rabindranath Thakur as an old man with a long beard didn't interest me then...I was a child!). He kept his paper aside for a while and began explaining things I didn't know about. I came to know about how Britishers enslaved our country for a brutal 200 years. I was told about men and women who worked relentlessly against the oppression of the Imperialists. And, finally came the name of Subhas Chandra Bose.

I will not add endless details about Netaji here. I am no scholar in his life nor great enough to comment on his feats.

But, I am interested in other things - how could a man become such a figure? How men like him can do things other people can't? How could a boy interested in philosophy rose to such prominence against a colonialist superpower?

I guess we can't say for sure. But what we can learn from his story is that endless perseverance and a steadfast unwillingness to accept what is wrong, can move mountains.

118 years later, a person is writing about a child born on this day. The man knows in his heart that the flame still burns bright.....