The Shortest Distance
G.
S. Rastogi
Poor man! Always pondering over his origin
And ultimate journey’s end upon this earth.
All other species are content to live and breed
Never bothering about the puzzle of existence.
All life moves over a mysterious bridge
Whose either end is in perpetual darkness.
It has been the endeavor of all thinkers, mystics
And religious leaders of all hues to answer
This baffling phenomenon of life and death.
Finding no concrete answer to the question
They have created God as the supreme power
(Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent)
Behind all that happens in the universe.
This speculation seems an escape.
The ultimate is beyond the ken of human reach.
The scientist today might have succeeded
In measuring the ever expanding frontiers
Of the universe, some fourteen billion years.
But the shortest distance between life and death
Is immeasurable and defies the ingenuity of man.
Death, so often, overtakes us without a warning.
*
Chinese Pair Fined $ 94,250 for
one-child rule lapse
A Court in China’s southern boomtown
of Shenzhen has fined couple 780,000 Yuan
($ 94,250) and sealed off their house for having more than one child,
the Beijng Morning Post said on Monday.
The pair were among nine couples who
were fined “social fostering fees” for their extra children, the newspaper
said.
With approximately 1.3 billion
people, China is the world’s most populous nation. It has stringent rules on
family planning that allow couples usually to have just one child.
The couple’s house had been sealed up
“according to the law”, the paper said, or until they pay the fine which was
unusually large. A house is sealed with a white paper bearing the stamp of a
local court pasted across the front door.
Punishment for having more than one child can include having the power to the offending couple’s house or to the houses of relatives being cut off. Source - Reuters.