My Experiment With Lies

It was one hell of a field day for the butterflies as they were flying around merrily without any care in the world about the nausea they were causing me. They were bringing me down to my knees, making me hold back tears and making me tighten every muscle in the body for I was trying to put up a poker face. It was finally my turn and the professor was contemplating what experiment she had to give me for the final lab/practical exam of the semester.

She was taking her time as she seemed to be having fun looking at my frozen and yet sweaty face. Those stupid butterflies in my stomach compelled me to talk to myself, have all the fun you want now madam, for I am going to throw up all over, thanks to this nausea! Probably she heard what I was thinking because she immediately gave me my paper with the name of the experiment I was expected to do. I tried hard to read what was on the paper but she perhaps punched me on the face while giving me the paper for all I could see were stars and spots.

I sat down at the assigned spot and realized what experiment I would be doing. Got it! It was my lucky day again. I had no clue as to how to do that experiment, but I had the theory, graphs, equations, and the final result of the experiment memorized like always. I glanced at my friends - Hilarious how you guys suddenly put up the human version of ratatouille by running around, fighting against time, finding this and that to do whatever the hell that is!

I was sitting there looking at the antenna for which I had to find the radiation pattern. I switched the power on and the stupid antenna kept beeping intermittently and I pretended to be taking down the readings in sync. with the beeps. Those beeps marked a subtle change in angle for which you had to record the radiation and that way you could, blah, blah, blah. I had already written the damn result down to the third decimal and plotted the whole radiation graph from memory. Talk about accuracy, huh? Because I got it all figured it was time to relax and I started playing with my pen. For those of you sad people who do not know the bliss of being a James Bond with the pen instead of a gun, it is the art of rotating the pen between your fingers in a mind boggling way that gives you a high, higher than anything in the world with every rotation the pen makes.

The high was suddenly interrupted as I had to stoop low to find the pen. Once in a while it slips through, once in thousand times that is, just to keep the record straight. So I found it after about 2 minutes of navigating in the snake park (those stupid power cords under the table) and when I was up the whole room was along with the professor was looking at me. And I realized I missed the act I was doing for about 10 to 15 of those beeps. But I did not care. Stare at me all you want, but I am not going to start this thing all over because I missed the beeps. I got it anyway. Muhuahahahhaha! Finally it was time to give the paper to the professor.

She: “So how did you get the radiation pattern of a dipole antenna when you were sitting with the yagi-uda antenna?”

Me: “No Ma’am, the name of the experiment I got is dipole.”

She: “I know that. But the name of the apparatus you worked on is Yagi-Uda. So how the hell did you manage to observer the radiation pattern of the dipole or is this the radiation pattern of your rotating pen and not the antenna?”

Me: butterflies, stars, spots and bliss – darkness!

The Logic and Politics of Capital Punishment

The Logic

As we have now come to the final chapter in the execution of a convict, it inexorably follows that at least some of us will engage in heated debates which are more often than not more emotional than logical. This article is therefore a sincere attempt to suggest an objective analysis.

The purpose of any punishment is to act as a deterrent and it is from this simple logic that the strongest argument in favor of capital punishment that has been put forward stemmed. The logic is that capital punishment serves as a deterrent. Scientific studies were conducted which proved that was indeed the case. These studies, it has to be noted, were not without any criticism and it can arguably be said that these studies were not conclusive enough.

It logically follows that the strongest argument against death penalty would be simply to say that the reason for death penalty is not convincing enough and therefore we must do away with it.

And the glaring problem with the argument in favor of death penalty, assuming the conclusions drawn from the studies are indeed valid, is that capital punishment may act as a deterrent only when it is done more often. Hanging one person every five years or so and amid so much debate, would not really impact a potential murderer as he would know his chances of getting the death penalty are at best, minimal. This means that if we really hope to seek the benefits of death penalty maintaining the status quo will not help and we need to send more and more people to the gallows.

I for one am sure that we will never to see that day as it would be insane to go to that extreme from the commendable 1983 supreme court ruling of imposing death penalty only in the “rarest of rare cases”. So it is logically compelling that we do away with this kind of punishment as has been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, in 2007 and 2008.

The politics

The issue of death penalty is an extremely sensitive one. Be that as it may, it still cannot escape the tentacles of politics and ulterior motives.

The reason Mr. Karunanidhi gave as to why the death sentence should be commuted (that it would make Tamils all over the world happy) is one that is bound to provoke communal tensions, deeply flawed and connivingly political.

Mr. Karunanidhi may have done the right thing by calling for the reconsideration of the mercy plea but he has done it for the wrong reasons. He has shown all his experience in getting what he wanted with that remark as the current AIADMK had to support and pass a resolution in the state assembly. If the Jayalalitha government would have done anything different, it would have been branded by the DMK as Anti-Tamil.

His remark has now inevitably evoked Mr. Omar Abdullah to tweet, "If J&K assembly had passed a resolution similar to the Tamil Nadu one for Afzal Guru would the reaction have been as muted? I think not”. Although this is being looked at with contempt by the right wing BJP, it is perfectly logical.

Everybody has an identity and belongs to an ethnic group. What if every time a convict is about to be executed the people belonging to his state/religion claim it would make them happy if he/she is let go?

PS: Other arguments:-

1. The costs involved in mercy petitions and successive appeals to appellate courts would offset the cost effectiveness of the execution, if any.

2. Killing a convict, because he has killed others, is the only equal punishment. This is more emotional than logical and there cannot be a counter argument to emotion.