People Kafka Screwed Up

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Of course, read The Castle and you know that you are in a similar place, much like Joseph K; wherever your geographical location is. And you face a similar fate or feeling of such a fate approaching, the moment you enter in a law enforcement office. This is not just true about Kerala or India, or about Texas or the US. Power, with its octopus hands is squeezing individuals out of their shits everywhere. Look at my language, people; got a bit street-type. I blame the System that leaves no options for people like us, poor, ordinary fellas whose medical bills exceed ten times their earnings, but to express our discontentment and frustration in the basest of languages. One thing is true; with this article we are not trying to bring in balance to what is already a mess of injustice, murder, treachery and treason. We are just mourning or so to speak, humouring ourselves.

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John Grisham’s latest bestselling novel The Racketeer, reminded me of The Castle written by the Deutsche writer Franz Kafka, where an innocent man was one day faced by the agents of the government. In The Racketeer, Malcolm Bannister was arrested for money laundering and sent away for ten years. He gives his bank account number to one of his clients and the client uses this account as a safe place for the sacks of money made from real estate business and illegal mining.

Think about this situation for a moment. If you work online, for example, of you were a writer working online, it would surely be a worrying idea to imagine yourself in Malcolm Bannister’s place. Imagine, you were supposed to be paid by your client INR 1000 or USD 1000, but the amount you received was four more zeroes extra with the amount you asked for. What would you do with the excess money dumped into your bank account? What if some agent from the government knocked on your door, the next morning?

The thought that somewhere there might be such a fate waiting, is surely unsettling. But the tension about such an event is mostly due to this reckless system of justice we lamely cater as our sign of civilization. The word justice itself has been deeply corrupted and means only a court’s jurisdiction based on a set of defined parameters, and defined indeed, by some self-proclaimed ‘law expert’, and nothing else.

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What if the court’s jurisdiction goes wrong? Isn’t that funny; you stand in front of the judge, asking for mercy and nothing, absolutely nothing else, to substantiate your innocence in order to get you out of there? But why wouldn’t you argue in the court, disproving the allegations and all? Because the pressure of being looked up at as the culprit or the label criminal is very heavy. You are flown away by your own emotions, fears, and concerns over loved ones.  

Isn’t that funny?

No.

Funny is not the word. It is surely a matter of grave concern. But as a matter of fact, let John Grisham write about it and the Americans fret over it. As a person living in India, I have my limitations. One of my friends asks; “Why are there no legal thrillers written in India?”

I say; “Because we are a bit ‘uneasy’ about the right to freedom of speech.”

If you feel insecure, confused or afraid, about this—about all this; the games of the hunter and the hunted—instead blaspheming against the System, try to say out loud; Kafka screwed us up.