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Merchants of venom

Sir, — Shakespeare gave the world many a diabolic villain. We will never know who his role models were. Had he lived in this century he could have taken his pick from the many `merchants of venom' who spread hate and violence around the world.

From brutal African warlords to religious bigots, from suave mafia killers to drug cartel bosses and from gun-toting Texans to `trishul' waving zealots, he would have had a bewildering range to choose from. Centuries ago when he gave us Shylock he also introduced Portia to balance good and evil, right and wrong. But what do we have today? Hundreds of voices raised in hate and anger, religious and political leaders of narrow vision and self-appointed world leaders who cannot look beyond their egos.

We have nobody to balance this `axis of evil' and in the midst of this cacophony the few voices of sanity from visionaries and intellectuals, as also the strangled scream of victims, are drowned. One can only wonder what the Bard would have made of this `world's stage' had he been plying his trade today.

M. Vania,
Coimbatore, T.N.

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