The last week or so have been a weird blitzkrieg into the world of courtroom drama novels for me. I’ve been for once, not bothered with last minute mammoth projects courtesy of a Mass Media course in college, that in my opinion has run it’s course, and is on it’s last few legs. I’ve spent a lot of time at home since last Tuesday, making as much contact with my family as possible, rather uncharacteristically. It’s funny though, how everyone else stays home when I’m not around. So most of this week, I’ve had an empty house to myself, with two sessions of load shedding, Maggi noodle lunches and the odd handout perusing to keep me busy. Oh, with the occasional pleasures of Attack! (based on the board game Risk) online on Facebook, and 4 John Grisham novels as well.

 We’ve always had a fair collection Grisham novels lying around the house, and it’s safe to say that he’s one of my favourite writers. My brother recently brought home one of his more recent works, The Broker, which I got through in two days or so. It was a story unlike he had written before I thought. For the first time you could sense that he had stepped out of his comfort zone, away from the courts of mostly Mississippi counties like Clanton, Biloxi, Greenville etc, and had embroiled his character neck deep in Presidential conspiracies in the Oval Office, national security, back room politics and lobbying in Washington, and basically an attempt at espionage. The book was rough around the edges, and the technological advancements of surveillance that he claims in some chapters, seem like schoolboy material, worthy of a good laugh. It’s somewhat amusing that he bashfully accepts this in a little note at the end of a book, asserting that his area of expertise is law and not espionage. But I have utmost respect for a writer who after establishing himself in a niche that’s earned him both comfort and a lot of money, can deviate into a subject unknown to him. For the most part he almost pulled it off, if for the lackluster way in which he ended it. In fact, that mixed feeling at the end of The Broker made me want to go back to his earlier works once more, and actually see the kind of transition the guy probably made. I therefore read A Time to Kill, The Client, and The Chamber, in the last three days.

 All three of the above have been adapted into movies that have enjoyed a mixed success overall, with the first one really standing out impressive, head and shoulder above the other two, in terms of both cinematic quality and film making skill. But even if they hadn’t, I don’t think the world would have lost a great deal. Grisham has the talent to make you visually know each of his characters, their vices, their thought patterns and virtually everything about them.

  I just finished The Chamber an hour ago. When I had around 2 and a half chapters left to go, my lights went out, and I finished the rest in candle light. I think one of the first things that struck me outside of the regular admiration I had for the novel, was the somewhat optimism and dependence the American people must have in the judicial system. In Grisham’s world, in his stories, of the last 3 that I have read, he’s always placed some sort of moral revision to the status quo. Either his character gets back on the side of good, or the courts come back with a verdict that favours the good side. There’s a heavy faith that his characters have in the courts. Makes me wonder how much of that faith is true in the real world. I’m pretty inclined to believe that Grisham as a lawyer himself, puts a lot of himself into his characters, so inherently he probably share’s some of that faith in the judiciary.

 Makes me wonder, how much faith do we have in our own judiciary? A question that I’m sure has been asked countless times. I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of our judiciary right now, because this is neither the forum for it, nor am I inclined to discuss about a process of law that while I find fascinating, I truly know little about. I can’t be overly judgmental about the courts ironic as that may be.

 I would however draw your attention to this morning’s news in the Times of India. The Supreme court today early yesterday stayed the arrest warrant against Richard Gere issued by the Jaipur court, terming the whole case as frivolous, and have scrapped all restrictions barring his entry into the country. Verbatim to the statement by the reporter, the apex court came out all guns blazing, against the increasing tendency among litigants, to file frivolous complaints against celebrities to garner cheap publicity. Normally it would be ludicrous to suggest that a case like this would actually even reach the Supreme court, but you can tell that there are some pissed off Chief Justices up there. This is not the kind of work that they have slaved for decades to fight. And in true SC style, they decided on that same day to send notices to Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, for their anti North Indian stand.

“ India is not an association of confederation of states, it is a union of states and there is only one nationality that is Indian. Hence every Indian has a right to settle anywhere, to go anywhere in India, and work and do business of his choice in any part of Indian peacefully.”

One would hope that would keep those saffron anal retentive bastards at bay, for a little while. But I really admire the stand the SC took on this. I was definitely proud and a lot more optimistic about the power of the judiciary when I read that statement. For maybe five minutes, maybe because of the timing, I probably felt the same kind of faith that Grisham probably has for the American judiciary. The FBI and the Mississippi courts took around ten to fifteen years to reduce the Klansmen to the kind of Mickey mouse redneck assholes they are today. These white power pussies can hardly raise a pulse, let alone any kind of support, but it’s been a long struggle for the American system to do that. Racism is by no means completely extinguished anywhere, but they’re surviving. And I’d like to think that we’re surviving as well. Our courts aren’t perfect, but it’s critical not to lose faith in them. I’m encouraged by the fact that Mohammed Afzal  still lives today, albeit not very comfortably, despite the fact that the BJP want his hide. The fact that he was not directly involved in the Parliamentary bombings weighs heavily on the President’s decision to pardon him or not. We almost caught and executed the wrong guy! Syed Abdul Geelani had nothing to do with it, and it was a landmark judgment when he was acquitted.

We’re already seeing some positive growth in the mindset of individuals today as well, regular citizens like you and me. And with faith and support, I’m sure we’ll see the backs of these puritanical bloodthirsty bastards in a few years time. It won’t be easy, but it’s surely possible.

Let’s say you get up this morning and someone gives you irrefutable facts that you are not real. What would your response be? Would you punch them and give them irrefutable ‘real’ pain for the next twenty minutes? Or would you laugh off the possibility that you were not standing there listening to a complete pile of hogwash. Would you gaze down at your feet and slowly trace your eyes upwards, trusting your sense of sight and the age old human ‘belief’ that seeing is believing? Whatever your response, chances are you won’t forget that conversation for a while and ultimately question the characteristics of reality in general.

Walter Lippmann believed that all news we gather from sources that are removed from our own physical existences, are formed from pictures in our heads, mental images conjured by our collective sub conscious to give us the next best thing to reality, whatever that is. It’s the inability of man to avoid fiction that drives his brain to send him electrical signals to make him think in a particular way. Although Lippmann might have focused on the spread of messages in the media for his Public Opinion theories, one can actually apply them to all manner of communication as well.

There’s enough evidence to support and to contradict this thought but I wouldn’t want to get into that. I however would say that if mental images are strong enough to contain one human’s purpose and belief system,  it’s quite possible that you, me, maybe even human existence could well be one large mental image, an alternate electrical signal sent out from some sort of super brain. We could all be temporary constructs, mirror images of an actual reality in some part of time and space. Which would bring you back to what reality ‘really’ is.

Maybe religion works on these fundamental principles. If we were all part of one super brain’s mental images, it seems awfully familiar to Christianity’s belief system that God made man in his own image. Let’s for the sake of interest and fun cross both of these theories. My own theory, (if I could lay claims to it, which I seriously doubt) as aforementioned, that all human existence is one large mental picture, of an intellectually superior being. And Christianity’s belief that God made man in his own image, according to Genesis 1:27, I think. I’ve never really delved deeper into the significance of this line in the Bible, but my first assumption as a kid and as an adult remains that this refers to the thought word and deed of man and God. Man is given instinct to perform rational thoughts, words and deeds for a peaceful existence, in order to get closer to God. Let us assume for the sake of the next point I have, that that was the rough meaning of those words.

If you were to believe that all human existence is one large mental picture of a super brain, the next logical assumption, might well be that there is a clearer picture of all of us, all of humankind, with all it’s emotional ups and downs, in existence in another time and space. This version of all of us are more accurate than our present selves here. If we are just mirror images, then we can only get as close to reality as possible without actually calling ourselves real. So then, there’s a better you, and better me, somewhere in time and space.

If God were the super brain having all of us in our thoughts, as mental images, and the above statements are true, does that mean that human existence, however magical and incomprehensible, is actually flawed? That there are better images of all of us, that will continue to exist, regardless of our actions in this time and space? If we are mere mental images in some super brain, we can be switched off like a light bulb at any given second, or die, if you were to take the assumption further. Our reactions could range from anywhere between nonchalance to fear, depending on whether we knew our inadequacies as mental images. All control, it would appear is in the hands of the super brain, or God.

But if you were to believe organized religion (and I’m not saying you don’t, whatever you’re comfortable with) then that means that God intentionally made flawed mental images, because he had something else in his mind? Of course, he might not have intended to at all. He could have just had what he thought was a very ‘real’ image of what human beings should look, talk, and behave like. If that’s true, where did he get that image from? Another super brain that beat him to it first? Or perhaps a more powerful creator, one that probably knew exactly, what to do when creating existence? The possibilities are endless. How significant do you feel though, right now, knowing that perhaps you are the mental image of a truer You, created flawed, to live a long life with flaws, to be switched off like a light bulb when suddenly an electrical signal sent to you recognizes your flaws and decides that your existence, however long and short is inaccurate and unnecessary.

Or of course, I could be wrong and damned for all eternity, for my words here. I don’t know what’s behind Door number 2. But you know, there might not be anything to fear at all. They say that human beings go through life blind to their own capabilities, and oblivious to the true power of their brains. We use a low percentage of it. Well, if we’re not so fucking perfect, what makes God so perfect either? For all we know, he could be just like us, trying to figure things out, righting the wrongs as and when he realizes them. Last I checked, human beings were not too great at that either. If you believe he exists, give the guy a break. Don’t badger him about world peace, and global warming and the environment or anything, all man made problems, might I add. Huh…maybe this was a long winded way of saying that faith, for whatever esoteric part of your brain it holds significance to, is critical. It’s up to you and only you to decide about the amount of faith you have in religion and thought. Think about that the next time someone tells you that you don’t exist. And you might find the answer.