Time to stand up for the dues....

Every time a bomb blast rips through the country, we have the usual sound bytes and live feeds. The politicians who are in power blame it on the terrorists operating out of foreign soil, those sitting in the opposition blames the inaction of the government, both together shed their crocodile tears, the bureaucracy tries to take care of the political bosses so that they are not transferred to oblivion, the media tries to pan their cameras on every square inch of the site, tries to create breaking news every moment, the victims’ families rue their own fate and stare into space. The common man on the street stands stunned, shakes his head and is compelled to move on to earn his daily bread to keep the kitchen fire running. This happens with such repetitiveness that a SOP manual can be made out of this nightmare.

But does this happen only in India and is it that the developed nations get to their act better? Obviously so, as all of us know that after the horrendous 9/11, US has got its act so good that try as they may, the terrorists have never been able to penetrate the cordon even once.

We have had our citizens attacked with surprising regularity. Every time assurances from the government have been galore. Perhaps some of the actions have been initiated only to gather dust in the horrendous red tape of our system. The files must be gathering dust somewhere as some politician has realized that he is short-changed so it is better to dump the whole thing or some bureaucrat must be looking up for orders. In this country the political bosses get to the arena after locking their shame and conscience in some safety vault somewhere and the bureaucrats after getting into their jobs know that the key to a long safe career is to be sub-servient to their bosses. 

Time the citizens (the civil society as per the political bosses) sat up and asked some questions. Before I go into that I must admit the way our politicians mouth this word “civil society” gets me to laugh. We all know what they do in the parliaments and assemblies and the broken furniture is proof to that, but is there a more direct way of calling themselves uncivilized?

How does this meek civil society ask the questions due to them? Well RTI has been there, judiciary is also there but given our system both of these procedures are so time consuming we cannot expect to get any speedy redressal.

What then can give the scorpion sting to our politicos to get them out of their cocoons and make them sit up to realize that at the end every job has an accountability ? Simple : a small button on the EVM stating “None of the above”. There have been arguments about how much money will be wasted in having a re-election if this button manages to catch the fancy of the majority, but as a nation are we not wasting enough money anyway on these incompetent representatives of the people, their entourage, kith and kin ? The only difference is perhaps we are spending this money slowly over the years whereas this crazy button will make us bleed at one shot.

What difference does it make ? Are we not bleeding anyway ?

Name Game

What’s in a name ? We have heard this so often ever since Shakespeare made this statement immortal. However when we look around us in this country , we see that there is so much in a name !

Our politicians seem to think that all is in a name. So there is our great name game which goes on. As soon as a party comes to power and soon after they stop ranting about the great democracy that has propelled them to power, starts their first job. Which all names that can be changed and should be immediately changed becomes the priority number one.

Be it roads, be it airports, railway stations , street corners, townships, towns , cities, nothing escapes their attention. Hours are spent debating on assemblies and houses of parliaments as to what should be the apt name. Some of the debates border on fist fights to get the names of their heroes immortalized.

When I come to think of it, I find that not only is the name changed, it is also another agenda to make the name as long as possible. So apart from the small name that was given by the great soul’s parents , we have additions at the end and salutations at the start. So the name of a road which is around one and half kilometers long can start with salutations which are around three hundred metres long.The longer the name, the more number of alphabets that have to be inscribed on the plank the bigger is the achievements of our great politicians, the bigger is the pat on the back from the party high command.

The name changes with grand fanfare, one morning is devoted to a function at the appropriate place and our press laps up all the bytes. Then what happens ? The road, street , rail station or airport whatever it is remains in the same mess that it originally was. If that is so then the great soul on whose name the change happened is lucky. And so are we. What actually happens is that the situation worsens, the place is messier and is on the same downward spiral that it was without a name or the name of some British which we wanted to throw away as vestiges of the past.

Sometimes I have wondered, why do these politicians bicker about their favourite heroes not being covered in this name game and fight for hours in parliament or assembly. Why don’t they start naming the potholes on the roads of Mumbai to start with ? Then they can go to the next four cities and so on and on. It can create huge employment that will put all the earlier Rojgari Yoganas to shame. Imagine, every pothole named after a blessed soul. The politicians can have potholes named after their kith and kin who have long since left this world of potholes. Anyway the potholes are there perennially so they can actually have a small barricade around each and put a name plank.

And the ultimate test of our car drivers is to go round each and every one of them to reach their destination. It will be really the The Long and

Winding Road

!

Old Junk

She was past her prime. In more ways than one. Nobody cared for her much but were not blunt enough to say it openly. Gone were those days when everyone gloated on her, took every care to keep her in shape.

Her sharp mind also was slowing down these days. She wanted to keep herself fit but it was perhaps not possible anymore at this age. The joints were jarred , creaky and needed much attention as she moved around. She caught attention of passers by now too but for all the wrong reasons. How she envied the young generation as they moved in perfect rhythm and barely made a wrong move. Her curves are all in the wrong places and are not the talk of the town anymore.

Will they age too one day, she wondered ? Age catches up with everyone, just you wait till it comes to you too pal- she thought with a glint in her eye.

She was definitely not the most cared for at home too. She had her own corner to herself, mostly in a slumber all through the day, only her mind gloating over the memories when she was the undisputed queen.

She hated the new generation. Hated is a small word actually to express the feeling she possessed of these upwardly mobiles and nubile folks. What do they think of themselves she wondered ? Just because they are attractive and in their prime , huh ? But one thing she was sure of : these newbies maybe slim but are mean. Will they ever be as accommodative as me, she would ask ? Large people have a large heart, she would say. Will they ever care for all in the family, always eager and able to accommodate to the last square inch in her ample heart ? But what could she , poor helpless soul that she was ? But she still had faith that her long time friend would still value her.

Then one day she heard it. They were talking in hush tones but she is not so deaf yet ! They were talking of abandoning her as she was too old and ugly. She could not believe her ears.

As it was a regular ritual , he came to meet her at her corner. He wanted to talk to her and take her out for some fresh air. But the conversation she overheard had been so depressing that she did not feel like it anymore. She wanted to tell him to go take a walk. She wanted to tell him on his face that he better talk to those young ones that he likes so much these days. 

Her heart had gone out for good. She just did not feel like it anymore. Where had she heard that if the heart is not happy the body follows. It is so true. Try as much as he did, he could not coax her out of the slumber today.

She was gone for good.

Try as he did , he could not crank this rickety engine up and finally gave up. Its time finally to hang up his boots on this old Ambassador. He took out his cell phone and called the junk dealer again.

How about a deal for some junk, my friend ?

Chaos- we love it !

We Indians love chaos. The more the chaos the more we seem to love it , imbibe it and cherish it. We are an ocean of a billion people , so chaos does not need to be created. Like millions of microbes under the microscope, we fight for our rights, fight to be heard and fight for survival.

Of course it is not new. We have been living this almost mutinous chaotic existence for the last so many decades, only there have been additons. However the best part which is most intriguing is that we love that chaos. If there is not chaos, if there is a serene calm or a military orderliness then we feel alienated in our own space, threatened that we are going to become zombies and get packed into some faraway land. We may suddenly become peace loving. Peace loving, huh ? What was that ? Oh yes, peace loving we are: did you not listen to the last address of our President about how a peace loving nation we are and we intend to foster peace in the region. Presidents and prime ministers come and go , but that part of the speech remains...

But that is for the speech is it not ? How about some real piece of action on the street as they say ? A sneek peek at a Mumbai suburban rail station in the morning rush hour, or at the toll gates of Gurgaon in the evening or at a Kolkata minibus will tell you how we are. But that is competitive spirit: if this spirit is not in us, how can we live as Indians? Thats the working week...

So the weekend is for some nice little siesta in front of the idiot box , you may ask. Looks like you are the idiot here.

Of course not ! We must show our competitve spirit at all times. So we have Big Bazaar and the likes. If we are not fighting enough we cannot make enough of the bargain and we must do it before the other can ! So it is action time !

I wanted to get away from it all so one weekend went for a long drive on the outskirts of the city. Almost the countryside you may say with only the car stereo giving some serene company. It was really refreshing till I was almost knocked off the road by a auto whose driver had just met Schumacher in his dreams and had decided that the lanes need to be reversed in India as well - otherwise how can he drive with his pal Schumacher in the highways abroad ?

I think the oft repeated phrase needs to be rephrased for us: From chaos you have come and to chaos will you return.