On Psychopaths and Teen Killers

Much has been said about psychopaths and teen killers in history, but the case that has held my undivided attention in recent times is that of the Dutch teenager Joran van der Sloot who was just 17 when he caused the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba five years ago. Natalee's body was never found, and exactly five years to the day of her disappearance, as bizarre and eerie as that sounds, on May 30, 2010, Van der Sloot brutally murdered Peruvian poker player and daughter of a politically-connected former race car driver, Stefany Flores Ramirez, in a hotel room in Peru registered under his name.Talk about bad karma returning to bite one's butt, Van der Sloot was nabbed by the Chilean police while on the run from Peru, and promptly handed over to the Peruvian authorities. Since then, he has confessed to the murder and sits in jail awaiting his trial.

I remember following the case avidly on Nancy Grace and was deeply rocked by empathy for Natalee's mother, Beth Holloway, a frantic mother desperately trying to find any information about the whereabouts of her daughter who had gone to the paradise island on spring break, only never to appear again. Joran van der Sloot was the last person Natalee was seen alive with, and though he was arrested twice in her disappearance, he was let go due to lack of evidence and because there was no substantial case of any sort without the body. The fact that his father was an influential judge in Aruba helped in keeping Joran from being locked up and convicted. Well, "murder will out one day," as the Revenge Tragedies put it, and now it's vindication time in Peru for Van der Sloot, finally. His father now dead, and the heinous murder having taken place far from Aruba, in a foreign land, there's no escape for the cold, psychopathic killer this time round.

I also recall Van der Sloot's mother proclaiming the inncocence of her 6' 3" 17 year-old, but what struck me the most was the absolute lack of remorse or empathy in the young man. Completely bereft of emotions, and devoid of guilt, as all psychopaths are, he was free to wander the streets for five years, till he struck again and preyed on another young woman he had met in a poker tournament in Peru. The reason he had so brutally murdered Stefany was that she had read an email on his laptop linking him to Natalee's disappearance, while he was out of the hotel buying bread and coffee. When she confronted him on his return, he had simply used his brute strength to break her neck and beat her to a pulp, after which he coolly sat back and sipped his coffee while she lay dead on the floor. The sub-plot to this psychopathic tragedy is that he had tried to extort $ 250,000 from Natalee's mother for information about her missing daughter, and the FBI had set up a sting to implicate him in this nefarious deal. He had been given $ 25,000 dollars as an advance, and alas, it was this money that had funded his trip to Peru, resulting in the savage killing of Stefany Flores Ramirez, before the FBI could arrest him for extortion and wire fraud.

There is no doubt in my mind that this baby-faced killer will be convicted soon, but it is very unfortunate that this young psychopath is not going to get the death penalty, as there is none in Peru, something which Joran van der Sloot so richly and rightly deserves! With all the evidence categorically mounting against him, I wonder if his mother will still be able to proclaim her child's innocence this time!

The Downside To Living Abroad

While most of us choose to immigrate to foreign lands for a life of better prospects and opportunities, the definite downside to it is being too far away from one's homecountry and being unable to travel on whim, thus missing out on births, deaths, weddings, funerals, festivals, sundry celebrations, you name it! Of course, there are other negatives like missing one's friends, families, local ethnic food, previous work, familiar hometown neighbourhoods, etc., but in my opinion, the one that sucks the most is not being there for family events like births, weddings, and funerals. A very steep price to pay when you make the move to foreign lands and then unwittingly become a victim of circumstances that decidedly prevents you from visiting home when need be!

The reason that has prompted this blog post was that my beloved niece (the first grand daughter in our family) Sasha (Chinky to us) got married yesterday to Jeevan in Bangalore, India, and I was unable to be there for the joyous occasion. The best I could manage was talk to her over the phone and then keep thinking, "Oh, by now they must all be at St. Mark's Cathedral ... now my brother must be walking his little girl down the aisle ... now he must be giving her away ... now the Bishop must be solemnizing the wedding ... now all the guests must be proceeding to The Capitol near Vidhan Soudha for the reception" ... and so on. Not adequate enough to compensate for my actually being there! Anyways, for very many reasons that can't go on a blog, I was unable to make it and that's that! But here I am, wishing our "Angel Baby" (that's what I used to call her when she was a roly-poly infant!) and her new husband all the happiness that life can bring and many, many years of togetherness and companionship!!!

Just like this wedding that I missed, I also missed my nephew Julian's wedding. Now he's the proud father of two beautiful girls, both of whom (and his wife as well) I have seen only in pictures. He is now in Australia, and I'm not sure when our whole family will be able to get together, with my sister in California, one brother in Oman, the other in England, and myself in Vancouver! I was unable to attend my mother's funeral because I had just visited her in hospital a couple of months before her death, and it was impossible for me work-wise to return once again to bid farewell to her. The same was the case when my dearest father-in-law passed away. These are times I wish I simply hadn't left home. The distance is too great, the circumstances too difficult, the practicalities too hard, and the heartache too intense! I am not even going to go into the other factors that I mentioned earlier; perhaps in yet another blogpost than this one, because there are just too many of them that I can think of. The list is too big, as I grapple with life in my new country, continents away from my homeland and loved ones!

Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has reached epic proportions, now that BP's TOP KILL procedure has been declared a failure. BP's oversight and negligence in preventing this kind of a fallout has resulted in an ecological catastrophe of gargantuan dimensions, exposing the precious wetlands, coastal areas and all its inhabitants to untold dangers. Fishermen are contemplating suicide because their entire livelihood has been wiped out for God knows how long. Marine life and birds are dying in huge numbers with a million gallons of oil spilling into the ocean each day, a disaster unprecedented in human history, even bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, experts say.

The Obama administration is facing a severe backlash for not having done enough so far, with political pundits aiming their barbs at the White House. All this political wrangling and mudslinging is not going to help. Instead of commisserating with the vain hand wringing and cries of despair from the people, BP must realize it is solely responsible for this fiasco and take further action to plug the leak right away and do whatever it takes to clean up the spill. The magnitude of this environmental disaster is so huge that it's going to take decades to recover from, a daunting prospect that sends shivers up the spine.

Yet life goes on in other parts of America and the rest of the world, as it always does. Several twitter feeds were oohing and aahing about Michelle Obama donning dots, which prompted me to post the following tweet: "Shallowness in society has reached an all-time high. People, focus on the Gulf oil spill now, not on Michelle Obama's dotted summer dress!" My heart goes out to all those affected by this catastrophe, not just humans, but all creatures of the marine and avian kind, and the vegetation of these coastal areas. Man, in his greed and stupidity, has time and again wrecked the fragile ecosystems of the world. It's high time we focused on alternate sources of energy to make this planet safer and viable to live in, for our children and the generations to come!

"Carpe Diem" - Seize The Day!

Today being the Victoria Day holiday, just finished watching the Peter Weir film, "Dead Poets Society" with my son. What a compelling movie about an iconoclastic English professor John Keating, played by Academy Award winner Robin Williams! Thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly the way in which Keating so passionately goes about changing his students' lives forever, inspiring them and making their lives so exciting and extraordinary. He encourages them to break the mold and pursue their dreams, much to the chagrin of the staid school management and the enraged parents.

A teacher has the power of inspiring and challenging the students to greater heights, but when one uses unconventional methods to do so, it is not very amusing to the administration, resulting in the teacher getting fired, as in this case. The students, on the other hand, as impressionable as they are, embrace the teacher and his ideology with unmistakable, irrepressible enthusiasm. "Carpe Diem" (Seize the Day) says the teacher, as he challenges his wards to live life to the fullest, resulting in the students sneaking out of their boarding school at night to convene the Dead Poets Society meetings. Each student seizes the day in his own way, with one going on to tragically take his own life in defiance of his father who forbids him to take up acting and wants him to go to medical school instead.

I came away with the feeling of how powerful a teacher's role can be in an impressionable youngster's life. I see my own kid idolizing his teacher in a similar fashion ( he got this movie as a gift a long time ago, but chose to watch it now only because Mr. Wingerak told him in class what a great movie it was!), which only reiterates the fact of what a great responsibility the teacher has in shaping his students and guiding them in the right path. Idealistic and unconventional though a teacher might be, it is imperative that he/she also be a realist and have his/her feet firmly planted on the ground, and not just merely advise the students to wander with their heads in the clouds. Parents want their children to succeed and when they get the right kind of support from the teachers, the children are sure to make a mark in their lives.

Acrimony And Bitterness In A Marriage

I have seen first hand several supposedly strong marriages bite the dust. The rancor, acrimony, bitterness, resentment, and sheer hostility the spouses have for each other as the marriage crumbles is unbelievable. Whatever brought this on, I wonder! These seemingly loving couples who had hitherto been all over each other get to a stage where they simply can't stand the sight of each other, let alone be in the same room. If children are involved in the equation, then the wrangling and custody disputes reach unparalleled heights of nastiness. And if there's plenty of money thrown in the mix, then the fight escalates to an almost unthinkably barbaric level.

In my opinion, most marriages these days fail because of very many reasons, a few of which I think it's important to mention here. One of them is the tendency to focus on all the negative points of the partner, magnifying them and exaggerating them out of proportion, until life with the man or woman becomes next to impossible. There is also the overwhelming urge to control the spouse, which could be emotional as well as financial, and in some cases escalate to physical domination, such as hitting and throwing things at the spouse to intimidate them and make them cower in fear. Emotional control can be very damaging because one wants the other to change according to his/her wish, not realizing that the person is an individual in his/her own right. And financial control can go to a ridiculous extent as well. I personally know a case where the wife controls the bank accounts and gives the husband just two dollars a day for coffee and nothing more... something quite pathetic, considering the high station of the husband.

The foremost of reasons that leads to the breakup of a marriage is trash-talking the spouse to family and friends, and constantly berating the spouse's parents and siblings on a daily basis, but speaking very highly of his or her own , something that noone can tolerate. When there is no love or respect in the marriage, but there is only contempt for the spouse and his or her family, then the marriage is doomed to fail and is beyond salvaging of any kind. Trust plays a very important role in keeping a marriage together, and once suspicion rears its ugly head, then paranoia sets in - not a very good thing for a marriage to succeed. This only leads to emotional withdrawal in the marriage, slowly paving the way for an acrimonious tussle between the spouses.

I remember someone saying that marriage should never be considered a noun, but looked at as a verb ... what a profound truth! When one takes the vow of "I do," one has to take it seriously and work actively at it to make it succeed. The husband and I have been doing just that, and the week after next will be celebrating 23 years of togetherness. Here's to us, let me say!!!

Poem For Recitation - I

Thought I should share some poems that I memorized and recited as a child. It's a surprise that I still remember them after sooo many years and can recite them flawlessly. Recitation is becoming a forgotten art these days and I only wish the kid at home would realize the value of learning poems by heart and reciting them. I believe it aids and improves memory and that there is something definitely uplifting and exhilarating about the whole experience. Here is one that I learned in Grade 4:

THE DAFFODILS

by William Wordsworth

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way

They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of the bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;

A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company:

I gazed - and gazed - but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure sings,

And dances with the daffodils.

What a visual treat this poem offers, and what a spectacular way of describing a scene from one of the poet's frequent walks! I absolutely love it to this day, Wordsworth being one of my all-time favorites!!!

Mother's Day 2010

Mother's Day this year was both a pleasure and a pain for me - a pleasure because both my men did their best to keep me happy, and a pain because I missed my own mother who passed away last year. My mother's death has taught me what a great role a mother plays in the lives of her children, the untold sacrifices she makes her entire life for her family, and the unconditional love she extends towards them. Strange that her death should bring home this truth to me, not that I didn't know, but only that I hadn't realized it until now! I love and miss my Mom and I hope somewhere from the netherworld, my Mom is aware of how I feel. Rest in Peace, Mummy!

Mother's Day never comes and goes without its incumbent benefits - breakfast in bed, gifts galore, brunch/lunch/dinner at a fancy restaurant, not to mention the cabernet sauvignon, the pinot grigio or the yellow tail. Mothers usually milk it for all its worth on this day, and only wish every single day were Mother's Day in their lives. The best part I loved this year was that the husband had made reservations at the Kirin Seafood Restaurant at the Starlight Casino in New Westminster, knowing very well my partiality to seafood. The multi-course meal was fantastic, a plethora of seafood before me - fish, shrimp, crab, you name it - and the requisite meat dishes of course, without which the kid would've pulled a long face. I have to make a special mention of the spicy crab dish here, something that was divine and made me think I had died and gone to heaven!

An added bonus was not the clothes shopping at Calvin Klein, but my visit to the Renaissance Bookstore in New West. Since we had an hour before our lunch reservation, that was my special time to browse and take in the heady smell of the books in print. E-books be damned, the printed version is an aphrodisiac to me! I simply love the smell and touch and colours and feel of the books arranged in all their glory! I vowed to myself that this was a place I'd return to, again and very soon at that. I couldn't have enough of the Spirituality, Theology, History, and Occult sections in the bookstore. My hunt for a translation of the Upanishads was in vain, but I still managed to buy a book on the Bible Code and a few more on Buddhist mysticism. So that's some delightful reading for me in the days to come!

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable Mother's Day 2010, need I say?!!?