A Law Student's Contention

For Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) ‘superhero’ has a standard definition. They are intelligent, sedulous, good looking, sacrificing, male, white and the hope of humanity. The conception is so immutable that even though recently there have been number of female characters portraying such characters, we still don’t have a word for female super'hero'? Merriam Webster says it is ‘superheroine’, as it logically should be. But it hasn’t really caught up and also it does not have that ‘superhero waali feeling’ as is also the case with ‘superhuman’, which misses the concept of ‘protagonist’ altogether. Even the storyline of these superhero movies is quite standard. A city in the US is in danger. It falls in the hands of a superhero, as defined above, to save millions of lives because it is his destiny to do so. A fight ensues between the superhero and the villain amongst the high-rise buildings of a metropolitan American city. It is the fantasy story of an ordinary westerner which is

                                   Economics is not a science. Economists and textbooks of economics will die trying to convince you that it is indeed a science but let me tell you, it is not. Economics is more of an  ex post facto  kind of science, even if it is any. It is a rarity when it is able to predict correctly the outcome or repercussions of any measure, which is the touchstone of any scientific discipline, the capacity to foresee. It does explain, with great precision, the rationale behind the events that have already taken place. In those aspects, it does work on logic and has theories and principles of its own. But for ensuing events, it relies more on sentiments than on any logic or equation. Sentiments of the market I mean. With the world market nose-diving, courtesy trade war, rising oil prices, trade protectionism, geopolitical tensions, and numerous other reasons, the resilient Indian economy has also been gasping for breath. The GDP growth percentage has almost

‘ You've got a nerve, coming into this muhalla! I know you: my father knows you: everyone knows you're a Hindu!! ' screams the Midget Queen.  Boys in their school whites and snake buckle are joining in, 'Hindu! Hindu! Hindu! From his window Midget Queen’s father joins in, hurling abuses at the new target… ‘Mother rapers! Violator of our daughters…!’ and the schoolboys have begun to chant 'Ra-pist! Ra-pist! Ray-ray-ray-pist!' without really knowing what they're saying. Their victim, Lifafa Das is trying to get away but by now he is surrounded by voices filled with blood- This episode from Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children , placed in the turmoil and unrest of partition, portrays the complex magic of words. Words have strange power; they can stir emotions and cause commotions in turbulent times. And these are turbulent times. It seems as if speech has been given a free hand to prey on the life of heads that donned skullcaps, shoulders that were draped i

Most probably, the revelation of the full title of the book will be sufficient for some to grab a copy of it straightaway. Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy is a Norwegian classic published in 1991. For those who do not find the idea of narrating the ‘history of philosophy’ in a ‘fiction novel’ compelling in itself and are still reading this blog; the book has a lot more to offer. Sophie’s World , as the name suggests, revolves around the events that take place in the life of 14 years old Sophie Amundsen as her 15 th birthday approaches. The book opens with the perplexed thoughts of Sophie when her friend suggests that the human mind is like an advanced computer; she wonders ‘surely a person is more than a piece of hardware?’ And then Gaarder knits a whole new world around her; I mean, he literally weaves a ‘new world’. In Sophie’s World, two threads run simultaneously. First, there is the story of Sophie & the mysterious Alberto Knox, fr

The book Crime and Punishment,  written by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky is based on a random murder of an old moneylender by a former student of law. But the book is not a crime thriller, for the murder takes place in the first part in a seven-part long storyline. Regarded as Dostoevsky’s magnum opus and one of the best literary works of Russian literature, Crime and Punishment  offers a view into Raskolnikov’s mind (the murderer and the protagonist). The novel can be best characterized as a psychological thriller. In his book, Dostoevsky grapples with questions like- what pushes a man into committing a hideous crime as murder in cold blood?   Unlike the ideal state of the human mind and soul, as is often depicted, Crime and Punishment shows the turbulent state of the mind of Raskolnikov and the contradictions within his soul- completely naked. In the plot, Raskolnikov, a bright young student, has to drop out of university because of the lack of money to support his studie

[Demagogue: a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument (Oxford Dictionary) ] It is a popular cer titude that the ancient Greek city of Athens is the cradle of democracy. What is lesser known is the fact that Athens is also the birthplace of its first cousin,  demagoguery.  Albeit, democracy has run the show for the most part since their inception, the wave seems to be turning now. Democracy is failing. Fault lines have started to appear in most of the safe heavens of democracy like the United States, Brazil, India, Italy, Britain, and Germany. More and more people have started to despise the inefficient and unproductive process that democracy is and have started turning to tricksters as their last expedient. There is an exponential rise in the number of the extreme right or left-wing populist governments all over Europe, Asia, and South America. These governments under demagogue lea

Living life under the clouds of hopelessness and anxiety, I have successfully wasted four and half years of my allotted time in the college. I am a student of 5 th  year B.A.LL.B. Disappointing my professors, batch-mates, seniors, and juniors in this journey, now all that I crave for is an end to this misery. Right now, the popular narrative is that I was always doomed to be a failure. A blot on the face of one of the finest institutions of the country. The narrative seems nothing but just and true. I still remember the day of my orientation when a fellow admission seeker had brought a cut out of a newspaper cutting. It announced ‘ Kashi Hindu Vishwa Vidyalaya ke 150 chhatro ka Bihar PCSJ m selection’ . “ What a mighty institution! Indeed a factory of judges,"  I thought. I, an  eighteen-year-old  kid then, was immediately filled with zeal and fervor seeing the possibilities, a feeling in stark contrast to the state of mind that I now possess. The question is, how did I en