The curious Verdict!

09 MAY, 2015
by Bikash Mohanty

Today I was listening to Christano Ronaldo, remember the "Ballon D'ore" . Nice hunk hey, girls? The best football player in the world today!!! Was do we think of him? Brat, Grumpy, full of ego, full of attitude - right? No exception, I included until today, when I saw him answering questions with a tearful eyes. Apparently he has donated £5m fund to Nepal earthquake relief activities. How unlikely!!! Going by his personality we'd imagine he'll be least bothered with what happens in Nepal, right? The guy also said it is unfair for people to judge him by his facial expression on the pitch. He said he knows he looks serious all the time but without it, he would not be able to stay focussed and score 60+ goals in each season, every season and win major trophies for his club every year. Does he sound convincing? What do you think guys? Na....right ?

Every year thousands of people die near the border line of Indian-Pakistan or India-China. Do we have any Chinese or Pakistani friends? I do. In my professional circle. Many. Some are extremely good friends. They say exactly same thing as we say at our end. Indian or Indian soldiers intruded into our territory and we just were cleaning them out. What do you do when a thief gets into your house, they ask, just like us? So guys who do we believe ? Their story or our story. Any guess? Simple enough. We believe our side of the story and they believe their side of the story. We do not believe each other's story. My Chinese friends claim, Chinese can never do anything wrong. For them everything belonged once to Chinese empire. They even claim Japan belongs to them!!! How on earth, only they know! Apparently the Japanese king once send the best Chinese intellectual people from his kingdom to go find Amrit in the ocean, so that he can drink it and become immortal. These best intellectual Chinese, who went in search of Amrit, didn't come back. Now it seems they stayed back in the middle of the ocean and formed Japan there. That was Chinese part of the story. My other Pakistani friend said this to me when I passed my chartered accounting paper. Listen carefully now. It’s of no use for me to pass chartered accounting papers. He said you stand in Pakistan Street and throw a stone; the person it will hit on head, is a chartered account. Ab bolo?!!! Chartered accountants are selling at the price of potato and tomato it seems in Pakistan. Listen further. This guy also said; he was about to study chartered accounting but stopped it for SOME reason. His brother did, friend did, this did, that did …but it's just that he could not do it for that silly SOME reason, which he can’t remember. Now; tell us. What the price of these stories? Same as potato or tomato or even that of Salt and Sugar?

Few little examples I have given above. And that tells me something, whether we agree or not . First; it’s not good to be judgemental. And second is to believe these stories with a pinch of salt. No? Agree or still disagree?

Now compare these back to the heavily trending Salman Khan Story. It is very very very SAD what happened. A vehicle ran over poor people sleeping on the street. Loss is immense. These people come from very very poor villages from Rural India to earn little money, so that they can look after their big families back in their villages. Their loss is immense and irreparable.

Now what about Salman Khan!!!??? So many things we say about the man. Miserably drunk, woman beating, animal hunting, drugged out, law-abusing son of a rich dad...what not! So? Who is saying all these? Those who are blaming Salman Khan for all these; are they clean themselves from all these disgraceful habits? Batao. Batao?

An accident took place at wee hours of the night. People were sleeping at the accident spot i.e. on the road, because it was perhaps sleepable...I mean quite, dark, soon-Shan etc etc. it was quite, dark and sleepable place and people were sleeping in their deep sleep. Right? Accident took place and the accident making vehicle of Salman had three people in it, perhaps four. Driver, Body Guard, Kamaal Khan & Salman Khan. So these four people came out of the car after the accident, either through the right door, if the car was steady or through a wrong door if the car was unsteady or tilted. I am assuming pretty quickly they must have come out. Right ? So were there people (claiming themselves to be eyewitnesses) up so late in the night, in the middle of the road with torch and candle in their hand waiting for the accident to happen and them to recognise Salman Khan? Please explain to me. I have a basic question. Why Kamaal Khan has not been interviewed during the entire course of this judgement? He was inside the car; he had more chance to know the actual story than any made up story. He definitely knows who was driving the car, in contrast to people who were eye-witnesses of the accident! How can a judgement be complete without listening to Kamaal khan? By God’s grace he is alive today and capable of attending the court. That tells me something - the judgement was not based on complete information at the first place. Yes, Salman Khan should be convicted, punished if he is found guilty based on complete information.

At times; I think Salman Khan is victim of his own celebrity status. May be what he is saying is correct. Mind you; I am saying MAY BE! We don't have CCTV footage here to prove it otherwise. Why can't he have his democratic rights to prove his innocence? Why should we jump the gun all the time and act like we are the judges ourselves? What we know about this accident or the matter or even about Salman Khan? Nothing or very little ? Salman Khan knows what  he is doing. I do not know whether he was driving or it was his driver or even Kamaal Khan was driving.

If we bring up that LOC story I mentioned above about India-Pakistan-China; we only choose to believe stories based on who we like, what we see in our own pair of eyes or is based on who is more close to our heart or based on the distance of our relation with the person, community, country or whatever it may be we are comparing. It is apparent that some people believe today Salman Khan is innocent and some believe the opposite. Fair enough. A ll I am saying is; we must allow Salman Khan to fight is battle. That is his basic democratic right. We are not going to support Salman Khan knowingly if he is guilty. Never. We should encourage Salman Khan; only if he knows he is innocent and that he is trying to prove here. Let's accept for a moment; Salman knows he is guilty and he is STILL spending big money to hide the fact; I am rest assured, there is a BIGGER COURT up there, which he can not escape, he will fall apart, if he is truly guilty. Let the justice take its own course. 

Now; shall we give him a chance to prove his innocence or be more judgemental everyday, every hour, every minute, every second of his life miserable from now until next judgement? Let's imagine what must be going to his mind, if he really innocent and he had to go through all these for 13 years without a choice. Salman Khan is a lucky guy, not because high court has dismissed the punishment order of the lower court; but because he has money today to fight his battle, if he is really innocent. Imagine there are so many innocent people out there, who can’t fight their legal battle due to lack of money and accept the judgement any how, without a choice. Let's not be judgmental, all I am saying. Justice must take its own course, but it better be right at the end. That’s all we want.

At the same time, let’s pray for the people who lost their life in that accident and hope their family members get justice for their loss. Guess what, I am pretty sure they will.

Sleep very tight tonight. Tomorrow is another day, perhaps only day between the end of the weekend and start of the griping Monday. Before you go to bed tonight, let me make you listen to one my favourite songs from recent time…will make you fall back into deep sleep surely… Good night friends. Subhratri :)