Mashed Musings

Have you ever come across a situation when you want to laugh out loud but somehow have to hold yourself back because you know that if you start laughing

• You will fall off the chair.
• Collect the whole staff in the office.
• Your cachinnation might crack the glass door.
• You might choke yourself while tears run down your eyes.

So, you sit there like a lost pup trying to make sense of the rapid sentences falling on your ears. You try to arrange the words to understand the hidden meaning but by the time you grasp it, another convulsive sentence hit your eardrums. Something of this nature happened with yours truly and two of my friends when we decided to meet an agent to buy some Mutual Funds. We hopped into his office at around 7 pm and as soon as he opened his mouth, another of his colleague entered the discussion room and thus ensured the roller coaster ride. No malicious intentions, but you have to read some of his Quotable Quotes. He was fun to be with and was quite intelligent which stems from the fact that he started his introduction by saying the following line - “My colleague here is very intelligent, but, actually what I want to say is….” Throughout the next 2.5 hours, I wished for a Taser to materialize from somewhere, so that I could stun him every time he went off-topic.

So, here are some of the Quotes which describe the exact reason to buy Mutual Funds. There are no intentional mistakes. The lines are straight from the horse’s mouth :

• “You will die in five years. You will rash driving, drink and driving. You will die. Mutual Funds is not only ok. Your family need insurance too.” [We gave a collective gasp at the first sentence.]
• “I did research. You know how much a Tea stall wala earns? 5-15 lakh earning. He is wearing dirty clothes and pee-pull[people] with suits come to him and think that he is poor.” [Tea stall wala and Mutual Funds? The purpose of the quote was completely lost, but we still smiled and nodded our heads.]
• “Boys come to me for discussions but then they go and spend 20,000 on 4 girls. Girls are always selling boys. But girls are Pakka. They save money.” [girls selling boys???]
• “I don’t deal with girls. Girls always asking fathers. Fathers sitting in remote villages. They tell girls - take LIC, why do spend in Funds. Fathers don’t know anything but girls always believe them.” [ I just wanted to shake him and scream - CAN WE GET TO THE POINT???]
• Pee-pull[people] spend so much money. Globes[Globus], Lui Philip[Louis Phillip], MutthuBishi Lancer[Mitsubishi lancer], big house. They want everything. I buy refrigerator last month. I did one swoosh[he meant that he swiped his credit card] and there was fridge. [By now I was biting my tongue so that I don't laugh the next time he says pee-pull]
• Marriage very expensive. My one friend wanted to go to KuluManli for Honeymoon. His wife said we go to Mauritius. He said I have no money. His wife said, You beggar, I will give money. We go to Mauritius. [This one completely got me. I gave him such a shocked expression that he took it to be a genuine concern for his friend.]
• After marrige, your haircut cost 25 Rs, your wife haircut cost 500 Rs, your child playschool cost 50,000 Rs. You have no money. You ask fathers. He give money to grandchildren. Why will he give money to you? [ I was holding an imaginary knife and stabbing myself ]
• Life expectancy very less. I worked in Java, I got everything on table. Food on table, water on table. I was very handsome. Not handsome, but smart. But now look at me. I am having this belly with a child in it. [Thankfully my phone rang and I ran out of the room. I just couldn't hold it any longer.]
• A few days ago one of my friend go to Pondicherry to see movie. We don’t have halls in Chennai? He went for 2 days and spent 7000 Rs for the entertainment of the purpose(!!!!). Pee-pull[people] don’t save but they only do “swoosh”. [Now after discussing his personal life, he was pounding on his friend's]
• Unprofessional I dont work. The three of you can get me murdered. You pee-pull have already wasted 21 years in education. It is your money. [ ]

We waited with bated breath for another pearl of wisdom to drop out of his mouth. But he thankfully stopped. It was 9.30 pm now and we were damn hungry. We quickly signed all the necessary papers and burst out of the building taking deep breaths. As soon as we landed into the autorikshaw, we guffawed our hearts out, stunning the driver in the process. He must have thought that we were drunk. He turned once to check if everything was all right.

The Idiosyncracies of pee-pull. Huh!!!

Forced Incest

While jumping through news sites, one of my friend pointed out the Josef Fritzl’s case. The story made me gasp in horror. Fritzl has been repeatedly raping his daughter from the past twenty years and has fathered seven children with her, out of which six are surviving. Fritzl has been keeping his daughter a prisoner in the basement of his house while his son and wife were unaware of his deed. You can read the complete story here. One of the six children named Kerstin Fritzl has been suffering from epilepsy and has been put into a clinically induced coma. Two other boys named Stefan and Felix are coping up with sunlight and open spaces after been confined to a dark closed space for such a long time.

What shocked me was the ruthless way in which all of this was carried out. Josef Fritzl has been depicted as the most inhuman monster mankind has ever known. While rummaging through Internet to gain insight into this horrendous crime, I came across another aspect of the story where the monster was the victim. According to this report, Fritzl himself was brought up by a very temperamental mother and was subjected to brutal abuses. This somehow explains the mental imbalance and the psychological effect of his growing up years which would have lead him to commit this crime. Somehow he lost the power to feel sympathy towards anyone and even abused his own wife after their marriage. Time would tell the fate of Fritlz but its hard to imagine the trauma of his daughter and the children. Most of the psychiatrists are quite doubtful about the future of the children as it might take at least four to eight years of intensive therapy for them to return back to a normal life. Incest victims generally suffer from low self esteem, depression, anxiety, difficulty in relationships, sexual malfunction and personality disorders to name a few.

What Fritzl did is something unpardonable as it was forced and ruthless. While reading Archana’s post, I realised that such incidences are not something uncommon, although not so extreme in nature but equally disturbing. While googling, I came across another aspect of Incest which will be equally shocking for most of us.

Consensual Incest

Consider the following stories :

• A German couple Patrick Stuebing and Susan Karolewski are fighting the law. Patrick is Susan’s brother and they have four children. Patrick has already served a jail sentence of two years as Adult Incest is against the law in Germany. Their first three kids have been taken away from them are are living with their foster parents. You can read the full story here.
• Woody Allen married his former lover, Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn who is 35 years younger to him. Farrow and Allen were dating for almost a decade when she found out of his relationship with her adopted daughter. You can read the story here. Although this is not a pure case of Incest per se, but Allen was a father figure to the Farrow kids ever since Previn was in her pre-teens.
• John Deaves and his daughter Jenny admitted to having incestuous relationship and the couple have a nine month old daughter. They are permitted to see each other but can’t have sexual relationship. You can read the story here.
• Ancient civilizations like Egyptian, Roman and Greek allowed incestuous links, specially in the royal families. It is said that Cleopatra herself married many of her brothers.
• There are tribes in Africa which practice “Internal Reproduction” which ensures that the tribe survives. They don’t look at it as Incest but as a survival technique.

All these stories and facts underline the role which culture and Jurisdiction play to make Consensual Incest punishable. There are some religions which allow marriage with cousins and distant relatives while some allows marriage in the same cast but not in the same family tree.

The issue of legalizing incest is being raised again and again against the age old taboo. The question being asked is that if same sex marriages and Prostitution can be legalized in some countries, then why not Consensual Incest? How can a consensual activity between two adults be criminal?

Scientifically, it was argued that members of a family belong to the same gene pool, so the probability of defects and diseases increase. This can become more severe if the inbreeding is allowed for several generations. But a recent study reveals that children of unrelated parents have a 3% to 4% risk of having serious birth defects, while the offspring of first cousins have only a slightly higher risk of about 4% to 7%. This has again turned the tide against the present laws in many countries.

Conclusion

Surely, what Fritzl did is a punishable offence but there is a debate over how the prevailing laws need to be modified to put Forced and Consensual Incest in two separate boxes. The quintessential questions(in case of Consensual Incest) still remains - Is the modern society of any country ready for such a relationship between two consenting adults or will they still be treated as outcasts? Is it just a matter of how we choose to live or how we choose to live in a society? Different people will look at the issue with different angles. Some might find it completely wrong morally and ethically while some might have an I-don’t-care attitude towards it.

What do you think?

p.s. For the latest developments on the Fritzl case, you can read this.

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